instance, you will find a quaint little alley of tiny houses scooped out
of the stout north wall of the castle to eastward of St. George's
Church.

Rudolph was unmarried; perhaps it was this fact that enabled him to
waste money on all sorts of hobbies instead of going to his office with
his little black bag and behaving generally as a "weel tappit" husband
and king would do. Rudolph's hobbies were alchemy and astronomy. The
chief object of the former extremely inexact science seems to have been
to make gold by the synthetic process. Any charlatan who came along with
a declared conviction that he could produce gold was welcomed by the
King. It was for these his guests that Rudolph prepared those tiny
dwellings in the narrow alley called "The Alchemists" or the "Gold
Makers." They are snug, those tiny dwellings, so small that you should
be able to open your front door without getting out of bed; you look
down out of the deep embrasure of your window on to the tree-tops in the
"Stag's Moat." The height of the wall from your window to the ditch does
not invite you to try a leap by way of escape, so Rudolph's alchemist
guests had to produce something or suffer from the King's displeasure.
This, for instance, happened to two gentlemen from the British Isles,
Dr. John Dee and Mr. Kelly. Both these visitors were going to supply
Rudolph with wonders of alchemy, gold in profusion. They failed to give
satisfaction, and were imprisoned--another injustice to Ireland! Did the
fairy chorus that thrilled the listeners at the foot of Dalibor's strong
dungeon chant that plaintive cry, "Has anyone here seen Kelly"?

Another of Rudolph's hobbies was astronomy, and he certainly assembled
some eminent scientists in that line about him. Prominent among these
lights of learning was one whom I have already mentioned, Tycho de
Brahe. It appears that this turbulent scientist had made his own
country, Denmark, too hot to hold him; he and his family were
practically exiled from home, and in his wanderings Tycho turned to the
Court of Prague, was kindly, generously entreated by King Rudolph, and
no doubt did good work in return. You may see Tycho's effigy over his
tomb in the Tyn Church; you may remark that his effigy shows little
trace of a nose to his face. Tycho went without one for many years, as
he lost his when young, in a duel. Keppler was also one of Rudolph's
guests, a man of very different calibre, and certainly one of the most
eminent