. The seven odes are united by a certain
community of interest or succession of subjects. All of them refer to
the history of the Redeemer either in types or in reality. In the
first one the prophets prefigure the appearance of the Saviour; in the
second the patriarchs sigh for His coming; the {26} third depicts the
scene of the Nativity in the Cave of Bethlehem; the fourth is
concerned with the Circumcision and the imposition of the Name chosen
by the Holy Ghost; the fifth treats of the Star and the Magi and their
guidance to the Manger; the sixth concerns the presentation in the
Temple; and the seventh, the scene in which Jesus at the age of twelve
disputes with the doctors in the Temple at Jerusalem.

Copernicus's recent biographers have called attention particularly to
the poetical beauties with which he surrounds every mention of the
Blessed Virgin and her qualities. As is evident even from our brief
resume of the subjects of the odes, the themes selected are just those
in which the special devotion of the writer to the Mother of the
Saviour could be very well brought out. There are, besides, a number
of astronomical allusions which stamp the poems as the work of
Copernicus, and which have been sufficient to defend their
authenticity against the attacks made by certain critics, who tried to
point out how different was the style from that of Copernicus's later
years in his scientific writings. The tradition of authorship is,
however, too well established on other grounds to be disturbed by
criticism of this sort. The poems were dedicated to the Pope. In
writing poetry Copernicus was only doing what Tycho Brahe and Kepler,
his great successors in astronomy, did after him; and the argument
with regard to the difference of style in the two kinds of writings
would hold also as regards these authors.

{27}

Copernicus's years as a boy and man--that is, up to the age of
thirty-five--corresponded with a time of great intellectual activity
in Europe. This fact is not as generally recognized as it should be,
for intellectual activity is supposed to have awakened after the
so-called Reformation. During the years from 1472 to 1506, however,
there were founded in Germany alone no less than six universities:
those of Ingolstadt, Treves, Tubingen, Mentz, Wittenberg, and
Frankfort-on-the-Oder. These were not by any means the first great
institutions of learning that arose in Germany. The universities of
Prague and Vienna were