ermitted Kepler to attach himself to the
great Wallenstein, now Duke of Friedland, and a firm believer in
Astrology. The Duke was a better paymaster than either of the three
successive Emperors. He furnished Kepler with an assistant and a
printing press; and obtained for him the Professorship of Astronomy at
the University of Rostock in Mecklenburg. Apparently, however, the
Emperor could not induce Wallenstein to take over the responsibility of
the 8000 crowns, still owing from the Imperial treasury on account of
the Rudolphine Tables. Kepler made a last attempt to secure payment at
Ratisbon, but his journey thither brought disappointment and fatigue and
left him in such a condition that he rapidly succumbed to an attack of
fever, dying in November, 1630, in his fifty-ninth year. His body was
buried at Ratisbon, but the tombstone was destroyed during the war then
raging. His daughter, Susanna, the wife of Jacob Bartsch, a physician
who had helped Kepler with his Ephemeris, lost her husband soon after
her father's death, and succeeded in obtaining part of Kepler's arrears
of salary by threatening to keep Tycho's manuscripts, but her
stepmother was left almost penniless with five young children. For their
benefit Louis Kepler printed a "Dream of Lunar Astronomy," which first
his father and then his brother-in-law had been preparing for
publication at the time of their respective deaths. It is a curious
mixture of saga and fairy tale with a little science in the way of
astronomy studied from the moon, and cast in the form of a dream to
overcome the practical difficulties of the hypothesis of visiting the
moon. Other writings in large numbers were left unpublished. No attempt
at a complete edition of Kepler's works was made for a long time. One
was projected in 1714 by his biographer, Hantsch, but all that appeared
was one volume of letters. After various learned bodies had declined to
move in the matter the manuscripts were purchased for the Imperial
Russian library. An edition was at length brought out at Frankfort by C.
Frisch, in eight volumes, appearing at intervals from 1858-1870.

Kepler's fame does not rest upon his voluminous works. With his peculiar
method of approaching problems there was bound to be an inordinate
amount of chaff mixed with the grain, and he used no winnowing machine.
His simplicity and transparent honesty induced him to include
everything, in fact he seemed to glory in the number of false trails