Brahe's tranquillity, however, in this happy situation, was at length fatally in terrupted. Soon after the death of King Frederick, by the aspersions of envious and malevolent ministers, he was depriv ed of his pension, fee, and canonry, in 1596. Being thus rendered incapable of supporting the expenses of his esta blishment, he quitted his favourite Urani bourg, and withdrew to Copenhagen, with some of his instruments, and conti nued his astronomical observations and chemical experiments in that city, till the same malevolence procured from the new King, Charles the Fourth, an order from him to discontinue them. This in duced him to fall upon means of being introduced to the Emperor Rodolphus, who was fond of mechanism and chemi cal experiments : and to smooth the way to an interview, Tycho now published his book, "Astronomic instaurata Mechani Ca," adorned with figures, and dedicated it to the Emperor. That prince recei ved him at Prague with great civility and re spect ; gave him a magnificent house, till he could procure one for him more fit for astronomical observations ; he also assigned him a pension of 3000 crowns ; and promised him a fee for himself and his descendants. Here then he settled in the latter part of 1598, with his sons and scholars, and among them the celebrated Kepler, who had joined him. But he did not long enjoy this happy situation, for about three years after he died on the 24th of October, 1601, of a retention of urine, in the 55th year of his age, and was inter red in a very magnificent manner in the principal church at Prague, where a no ble monument was erected to him, leav ing, besides his wife, two sons and four daughters. On the approach of death he enjoined his sons to to take care that none of his works should be lost ; ex horted the students to attend closely to theirs exercises ; and recommended to Kepler the finishing of the Rudolphine Tables, which he had constructed for re gulating the motion of the planets.
Brahe's skill in astronomy is universal ly known ; and he is famed for being the inventor of a new system of the planets, which he endeavoured, though without success, to establish on the ruins of that of Copernicus. He was very credulous with regard to judicial astrology and pre sages : if he met an old woman when he went out of doors, or a hare upon the road on a journey, he would turn back immediately, being persuaded that is was a bad omen :, also, when he lived at Uranibourg, he kept at his house a mad man, whom he placed at his feet at table, and fed himself; for as he imagined that every thing spoken by mad persons pre saged something, he carefully observed all that this man said ; and because it some times proved true, he fancied it might al ways be depended upon. He was of a very
irritable disposition : a mere trifle put him in a passion : and against persons of the first rank, whom he thought his enemies, he openly discovered his resentment. He was very apt to rally others, but highly provoked when the same liberty was ta ken with himself. The principal part of his writings are : 1. An account of the New Star which appeared Nov. 11th, 1572, in Cassiopeia; Copenh. 1573, in 4to. 2. Another treat tise on the New Phenomena of the Hea vens. In the first part of which he treats of the restitution, as he calls it, of the sun and of the fixed stars. And in the second part, of a new star which had then made its appearance. 3. A collection of Astronomical Epistles ; printed in 4to. at Uranibourg, in 1596 ; Nuremberg in 1602 ; and at Frankfort in 1610. It was dedicated to Maurice Landgrave of Hes se ; because there are in it a considera ble number of letters of the Landgrave William, his father, and of Christopher Rothmann, the mathematician of that prince, to Tycho, and of Tycho to them. 4. The Rudolphine Tables; which he had not finished when he died ; but were revised and published by Kepler, as Ty cho had desired. 5. An accurate Enu meration of the Fixed stars ; addressed to the Emperor Rodolphus. 6. A complete Catalogue of 1000 of the Fixed Stars ; which Kepler has inserted in the Rudol phine Tables. 7. " Historia Ceelestis," or a History of the Heavens, in two parts : the first contains the observations he had made at Uranibourg, in sixteen books ; the latter contains the observations made at Wandesburg, Wittenburg, Prague, &c. in four books.
The apparatus of Tycho was purchased by the Emperor Rodolphus for 22,000 crowns. It remained, however, useless and concealed till the troubles of Bohe mia, when the army of the Elector Pala tine plundered them, and in the true spirit of barbarism breaking some of them, and,applying others to purposes for which they were never designed. The great celestial globe of brass was preserv ed, carried from Prague, and deposited with the Jesuits of Naysia in Silesia, whence it was afterwards taken, in the year 1633, and placed in the Hall of the Royal Academy at Copenhagen.