CHAPTER II.

_Frederick II. patronises Tycho--And resolves to establish him in Denmark--Grants him the Island of Huen for Life--And Builds the splendid Observatory of Uraniburg--Description of the Island, and of the Observatory--Account of its Astronomical Instruments--Tycho begins his Observations--His Pupils--Tycho is made Canon of Rothschild, and receives a large Pension--His Hospitality to his Visitors--Ingratitude of Witichius--Tycho sends an Assistant to take the Latitude of Frauenburg and Konigsberg--Is visited by Ulric, Duke of Mecklenburg--Change in Tycho's fortunes._

The patronage which had been extended to astronomers by several of the reigning princes of Germany, especially by the Landgrave of Hesse, and Augustus, Elector of Saxony, had begun to excite a love of science in the minds of other sovereigns. The King of Denmark seems to have felt it as a stain upon his character, that the only astronomer in his dominions should carry on his observations in distant kingdoms and adorn by his discoveries other courts than his own. With this feeling he sent ambassadors to Hesse-Cassel to inquire after Tycho, and to intimate to him his wish that he should return to Denmark, and his anxiety to promote the advancement of astronomy in his own dominions. Tycho had left Cassel when these messengers arrived, and had heard nothing of the King's intentions till he was about to quit Knudstorp with his family for Basle. At this time he was surprised at the arrival of a noble messenger, who brought a letter requesting him to meet the King as soon as possible at Copenhagen. Tycho lost no time in obeying the royal summons. The King received him with the most flattering kindness. He offered to give him a grant for life of the island of Huen, between Denmark and Sweden, and to construct and furnish with instruments, at his own expense, an observatory, as well as a house for the accommodation of his family, together with a laboratory for carrying on his chemical inquiries. Tycho, who truly loved his country, was deeply affected with the munificence of the royal offer. He accepted of it with that warmth of gratitude which it was calculated to inspire; and he particularly rejoiced in the thought that if any success should attend his future labours, the glory of it would belong to his native land.

The island of Huen is about sxix miles from the coast of Zealand, three from that of Sweden, and fourteen from Copenhagen. It is six miles in circumference, and rises into the form of a mountain, which, though very high, terminates in a plain. It is nowhere rocky, and even in the time of Tycho it produced the best kinds of grain, afforded excellent pasturage for horses, cattle, and sheep, and possessed deer, hares, rabbits, and partridges in abundance. It contained at that time only one village, with about forty inhabitants.

Having surveyed his new territory, Tycho resolved to build a magnificent tower in the centre of the elevated plain, which he resolved to call Uraniburg, or _The City of the Heavens_. Having made the necessary arrangements, he repaired to the island on the 8th of August, and his friend Charles Danzeus laid the foundation stone of the new observatory, which consisted of a slab of porphyry, with the following inscription:--

REGNANTE IN DANIA FREDERICO II., CAROLUS DANZAEUS AQUITANUS R. G. I. D. L.,[37] DOMUI HUIC PHILOSOPHIAE, IMPRIMISQUE ASTRORUM CONTEMPLATIONI, REGIS DECRETO A NOBILI VIRO TYCHONE BRAHE DE KNUDSTRUP EXTRUCTAE VOTIVUM HUNC LAPIDEM MEMORIAE ET FELICIS AUSPICII ERGO P. ANNO CIC.IC.LXXVI.[38] VI ID. AUGUSTI.

[37] Regis Gallorum in Dania Legatus.

[38] Transcriber's footnote: The second Cs in CIC and IC are printed reversed in the original.

This ceremony was performed early in the morning of a splendid day, in which the rising sun threw its blessing upon Frederick, and upon the party of noblemen and philosophers who had assembled to testify their love of science. An entertainment was provided for the occasion, and copious libations of a variety of wines were offered for the success of the undertaking.

The observatory was surrounded by a rampart, each face of which was three hundred feet long. About the middle of each face the rampart became a semicircle, the inner diameter of which was ninety feet. The height of the rampart was twenty-two feet, and its thickness at the base twenty. Its four angles corresponded exactly with the four cardinal points, and at the north and south angles were erected turrets, of which one was a printing-house, and the other the residence of the servants. Gates were erected at the east and west angles, and above them were apartments for the reception of strangers. Within the rampart was a shrubbery with about three hundred varieties of trees; and at the centre of each semicircular part of the rampart was a bower or summer-house. This shrubbery surrounded the flower-garden, which was terminated within by a circular wall about forty-five feet high, which enclosed a more elevated area, in the centre of which stood the principal building in the observatory, and from which four paths led to the above-mentioned angles, with as many doors for entering the garden.

The principal building was about sixty feet square. The doors were placed on the east and west sides; and to the north and south fronts were attached two round towers, whose inner diameter was about thirty-two feet, and which formed the observatories which had windows in their roof, that could be opened towards any part of the heavens. The accommodations for the family were numerous and splendid. Under the observatory, in the south tower, was the museum and library, and below this again was the laboratory in a subterraneous crypt, containing sixteen furnaces of various kinds. Beneath this was a well forty feet deep, from which water was distributed by syphons to every part of the building.

Besides the principal building there were other two situated without the rampart, one to the north, containing a workshop for the construction of astronomical and other instruments, and the other to the south, which was occupied as a sort of farm-house. These buildings cost the King of Denmark 100,000 rix-dollars (L20,000), and Tycho is said to have expended upon them a similar sum.

As the two towers could not accommodate the instruments which Tycho required for his observations, he found it necessary to erect, on the hill about sixty paces to the south of Uraniburg, a subterranean observatory, in which he might place his larger instruments, which required to be firmly fixed, and to be protected from the wind and the weather. This observatory, which he called Stiern-berg, or the mountain, of the stars, consisted of several crypts, separated by solid walls, and to these there was a subterranean passage from the laboratory in Uraniburg. The various buildings which Tycho erected were built in a regular style of architecture, and were highly ornamented, not only with external decorations, but with the statues and pictures of the most distinguished astronomers, from Hipparchus and Ptolemy down to Copernicus, and with inscriptions and poems in honour of astronomers.

While these buildings were erecting, and after their completion, Tycho was busily occupied in preparing instruments for observation. These were of the most splendid description, and the reader will form some notion of their grandeur and their expense from the following list:--

_In the south and greater Observatory._

1. A semicircle of solid iron, covered with brass, four cubits radius.

2. A sextant of the same materials and size.

3. A quadrant of one and a half cubits radius, and an azimuth circle of three cubits.

4. Ptolemy's parallactic rules, covered with brass, four cubits in the side.

5. The sextant already described in page 134.

6. Another quadrant, like No. 3.

7. Zodiacal armillaries of melted brass, and turned out of the solid, of three cubits in diameter.

Near this observatory was a large clock, with one wheel two cubits in diameter, and two smaller ones, which, like it, indicated hours, minutes, and seconds.

_In the south and lesser Observatory._

8. An armillary sphere of brass, with a steel meridian, whose diameter was about 4 cubits.

_In the north Observatory._

9. Brass parallactic rules, which revolved in azimuth above a brass horizon, twelve feet in diameter.

10. A half sextant, of four cubits radius.

11. A steel sextant.

12. Another half sextant, with steel limb, four cubits radius.

13. The parallactic rules of Copernicus.

14. Equatorial armillaries.

15. A quadrant of a solid plate of brass, five cubits in radius, shewing every ten seconds.

16. In the museum was the large globe made at Augsburg, see p. 134.

_In the Stiern-berg Observatory._

17. In the central part, a large semicircle, with a brass limb, and three clocks, shewing hours, minutes, and seconds.

18. Equatorial armillaries of seven cubits, with semi-armillaries of nine cubits.

19. A sextant of four cubits radius.

20. A geometrical square of iron, with an intercepted quadrant of five cubits, and divided into fifteen seconds.

21. A quadrant of four cubits radius, shewing ten seconds, with an azimuth circle.

22. Zodiacal armillaries of brass, with steel meridians, three cubits in diameter.

23. A sextant of brass, kept together by screws, and capable of being taken to pieces for travelling with. Its radius was four cubits.

24. A moveable armillary sphere, three cubits in diameter.

25. A quadrant of solid brass, one cubit radius, and divided into minutes by Nonian circles.

26. An astronomical radius of solid brass, three cubits long.

27. An astronomical ring of brass, a cubit in diameter.

28. A small brass astrolabe.

In almost all the instruments now enumerated, the limb was subdivided by diagonal lines, a method which Tycho first brought into use, but which, in modern times, has been superseded by the inventions of Nonius and Vernier.

When Tycho had thus furnished his observatory, he devoted himself to the examination of the stars; and during the twenty-one years which he spent in this delightful occupation, he made vast additions to astronomical science. In order to instruct the young in the art of observation, and educate assistants for his observatory, he had sometimes under his roof from six to twelve pupils, whom he boarded and educated. Some of these were named by the King, and educated at his expense. Others were sent by different academies and cities; and several, who had presented themselves of their own accord, were liberally admitted by the generous astronomer.

As Tycho had spent nearly a ton of gold (about 100,000 dollars) in his outlay at Uraniburg, his own income was reduced to very narrow limits. To supply this defect, Frederick gave him an annual pension of 2000 dollars, beside an estate in Norway, and made him Canon of the Episcopal Church of Rothschild, or Prebend of St Laurence,[39] which had an annual income of 1000 dollars, and which was burdened only with the expense of keeping up the chapel containing the Mausolea of the Kings of the family of Oldenburg.

[39] This office had been usually conferred on the King's Chancellor.

It would be an unprofitable task, and one by no means interesting to the general reader, to give a detailed history of the various astronomical observations and discoveries which were made by Tycho during the twenty years that he spent at Uraniburg. Every phenomenon that appeared in the heavens, he observed with the greatest care; while he at the same time carried on regular series of observations for determining the places of the fixed stars, and for improving the tables of the sun, moon, and planets. Though almost wholly devoted to these noble pursuits, yet he kept an open house, and received, with unbounded hospitality, the crowds of philosophers, nobles, and princes who came to be introduced to the first astronomer of the age, and to admire the splendid temple which the Danish Sovereign had consecrated to science.

Among the strangers whom he received under his roof, there were some who returned his kindness with ingratitude. Among these was Paul Witichius, a mathematician; who, under the pretence of devoting his whole life to astronomy, insinuated himself into the utmost familiarity with Tycho. The unsuspecting astronomer explained to his guest all his inventions, described all his methods, and even made him acquainted with those views which he had not realised, and with instruments which he had not yet executed. When Witichius had thus obtained possession of the methods, and inventions, and views of Tycho, and had enjoyed his hospitality for three months, he pretended that he was obliged to return to Germany to receive an inheritance to which he had succeeded. After quitting Uraniburg, this ungrateful mathematician neither returned to see Tycho, nor kept up any correspondence with him; and it was not till five years after his departure that Tycho learned, from the letters of the Prince of Hesse to Ranzau, that Witichius had passed through Hesse, and had described, as his own, the various inventions and methods which had been shewn to him in Huen.

Being unable to reconcile his own observations with those of Copernicus, and with the Prutenic Tables, Tycho resolved to obtain new determinations of the latitude of Frauenburg, in Prussia, where Copernicus made his observations, and of Konigsberg, to the meridian of which Rheinhold had adapted his Prutenic Tables. For these purposes he sent one of his assistants, Elias Morsianus, with a proper instrument, under the protection of Bylovius, Ambassador of the Margrave of Anspach, to the King of Denmark, who was returning by sea to Germany; and after receiving the greatest attention and assistance from the noble Canons of Ermeland, he determined, from nearly a month's observations on the sun and stars, that the latitude of Frauenburg was 54 deg. 22-1/2', in place of 54 deg. 19-1/2', as given by Copernicus. In like manner he determined that the latitude of Konigsberg was 54 deg. 43', in place of 54 deg. 17', as adopted by Rheinhold. When Morsianus returned to Huen in July, he brought with him, as a present to Tycho, from John Hannovius, one of the Canons of Ermeland, the Ptolemaic Rules, or the Parallactic Instrument which Copernicus had used and made with his own hands. It consisted of two equal wooden rules, five cubits long, and divided into 1414 parts. Tycho preserved this gift as one peculiarly dear to him, and, on the day of his receiving it, he composed a set of verses in honour of the great astronomer to whom it belonged.

Among the distinguished visits which were paid to Tycho, we must enumerate that of Ulric, Duke of Mecklenburg, in 1586. Although his daughter, Sophia, Queen of Denmark, had already paid two visits to Uraniburg in the same year, yet such was her love of astronomy, that she accompanied her father and his wife Elizabeth on this occasion. Ulric was not only fond of science in general, but had for many years devoted himself to chemical pursuits, and he was therefore peculiarly gratified in examining the splendid laboratory and extensive apparatus which Tycho possessed. It has been said by some of the biographers of Tycho, that the Landgrave of Hesse visited Uraniburg about this period; but this opinion is not correct, as it was only his astronomer and optician, Rothman, who made a journey to Huen in 1591 for the recovery of his health. Tycho had long carried on a correspondence with this able astronomer respecting the observations made at the observatory of Hesse-Cassel, and, during the few months which they now spent together, they discussed in the amplest manner all the questions which had previously been agitated. Rothman was astonished at the wonderful apparatus which he saw at Uraniburg, and returned to his native country charmed with the hospitality of the Danish astronomer.

Hitherto we have followed Tycho through a career of almost unexampled prosperity. When he had scarcely reached his thirtieth year he was established, by the kindness and liberality of his sovereign, in the most splendid observatory that had ever been erected in Europe; and a thriving family, an ample income, and a widely extended reputation were added to his blessings. Of the value of these gifts he was deeply sensible, and he enjoyed them the more that he received them with a grateful heart. Tycho was a christian as well as a philosopher. The powers of his gifted mind have been amply displayed in his astronomical labours; but we shall now have occasion to witness his piety and resignation in submitting to an unexpected and an adverse destiny.