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now in the library at Königsberg; and though it is now seldom, perhaps never, read, yet a tradition has come down to us from the editors who incorporated it in the Works of the great astronomer, whereby we learn that it gave a lucid history of money; exhibited profound political, and wonderful general, knowledge; was argumentative and philosophical, and was marked by a strongly suggested (rather than pronounced) feeling in favour of the people, who suffered not only from the baseness of the coin, but also from the arbitrary value affixed to it by the powerful coiners.

It is impossible to say, whether it was because of this especial service rendered in the matter of a monetary question, or because of the merit of Copernicus generally; but the Polish King Sigismund was so ready to reward such service and merit, that, although he could not make of this priestly astronomer a Bishop, he ordered him to be placed in the list of four candidates, from which the highest ecclesiastical authority was to select a Prelate.

He had greater honour conferred on him by the learned. These, among whom his opinions were widely circulating, with conviction of their truth, spoke of him as the "New Ptolemy." Had the Pope thought of him as an improved Ptolemy, the astronomer would, probably, not have been invited by Rome to take part in the reformation of the Calendar. But who was more suited to such a task than he who had demonstrated the increase and decrease of the solar year; and had proved that the length of the year was greater than it had been declared to be by Ptolemy, and less than it had been pronounced by Albategnius? He accordingly sent his Tables to Rome, and the astronomers there liberally profited by these imparted results of his investigations.

Meanwhile, his "Revolutions" were still silent and motionless. Something like fear must have rested upon the author's mind. But the new prophet was encouraged by the accession of many a follower. Professors descended from their chairs to study in rapt humility at his feet; and soon a whisper went from them and spread abroad over the world, implying that Copernicus was the divinely inspired interpreter of a new and glorious truth.

But he was modest withal; and, in praise showered down upon him, he would allow no mixture of censure upon the great Ptolemy. The latter, he said, was the first of mathematicians; and that in the age of Ptolemy it was impossible that the world should produce a greater. All that had since been effected, argued the liberal Nicholas, was but a step made upward by means of that already planted by Ptolemy; an effect of the natural progress of human thought and knowledge, pursuing its way in spite of censure and obstacle. He himself was still aiding that

His

progress in one of its paths, while his manuscript, proving how miraculously he had illustrated it in another, was sleeping in his desk, or was timidly exhibited only to the initiated. volume "De Lateribus et Angulis Triangulorum," published in 1552, is described as proving that spherical trigonometry owes to him its greatest and most valuable development.

Of the learned disciples of Copernicus, none was more celebrated, none acquired greater honour for himself, none was of more assistance to the renowned Pole, than George Joachim Rhaeticus, the young Professor of Mathematics at Wirtemberg. He was among the first to be convinced that Copernicus had discovered a great truth; and, in doing the discoverer justice, he did not fail to render the same meed to similar searchers into the astronomical system of the Creator. Rhaeticus, in comparing his master with Regiomontanus, accounted the latter as the less lucky of the two, simply, as he remarked, because he had not lived long enough to rear the lofty columns he had constructed. But it was God's good will, he said, to intrust the sceptre of Astronomy to Copernicus, deeming him alone worthy to restore, explain, and develope what Divinity had established.

"All things are artificial," says Sir Thomas Browne; "for nature is the art of God." The unveiling of the mysteries of any portion of this so-called art has never been the result of one man's labour. There are many workmen; and when one, after successful application, rests from his toil, it is given to another to achieve further triumphs in the already opened path. Nay, these triumphs have been built, some upon the errors, others upon the mere conjectures, of great minds. This result has been noticed by the elder Disraeli; and it has been rich in good fruits. The holes, or indents, on the face of ancient temples were long mistaken for hieroglyphics; but Peiresc, by drawing lines from one hole to another, really wrote the name of the god to whom the fane was dedicated. Arthur Browne, in Dublin, first discovered the real situation of Tempe; and a student in Glasgow first maintained, what travellers subsequently proved, that the Niger flowed into the Atlantic Ocean. Indian geographers have realized discoveries that were first conjectured by Gray, in his scholastic retirement. If Halley translated an Arabic manuscript, without knowing any thing of the language, it was simply because Dr. Bernard had commenced the work of translating, and upon that step Halley completed the task. So, Harvey would not, probably, have established the circulation of the blood, if he had not learned from Fabricius ab Aquapendente, that there were valves in the veins, which gave free passage towards the heart, "but opposed the passage of the venal blood the contrary way." Franklin, indeed, realized, as well as conjectured, the identity of electricity and lightning; but if Leibnitz, when preparing his "Law of Continuity," had not imagined the dis

His practical Ability.

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covery of the polypus, it probably might not even yet have been realized and, as Mr. Disraeli has pointed out, Hartley's "Physiological Theory of the Mind" was built upon a conjectural hint thrown out by Newton, at the close of his work on "Optics."

When Rhaeticus spread abroad the discovery asserted by Copernicus, the world did not, however, pay the latter the compliment of allowing that he had worked out to perfection the conjectures and essays of other men. The wise few, indeed, waited ere they pronounced; but, generally, the people, appealing to what cannot be trusted, the evidence of the senses, loudly ridiculed the idea that the earth which they beheld and felt, firm and fixedly set, immovable, and the centre of the system, was really careering, at a rate which made them breathless to think of, round a stationary sun, which they every minute saw in motion. As for the monks, especially those attached to the Teutonic Order, they hired strolling actors and buffoons to be merry themselves, and to make men merry, at the profane suggestion of this wretched dunce, Copernicus. Good-natured friends imparted to Nicholas the sounds of the popular criticism; but he only calmly answered, “ Nunquam volui populo placere; nam quæ ego scio, non probat populus; quæ probat populus, ego nescio." It was the reply of a philosopher, conscious of his strength, and caring less for the popular criticism than he really did for the people.

This affection and sympathy were ever in activity. Lady Bountiful was never more useful in her village than he in his locality. Human suffering could draw him away at once from the remotest recesses of the starry heavens, to relieve the anguish of a brother upon earth. In medical practice he was, indeed, so successful, that the most eminent physicians consulted him on questions of delicacy and difficulty connected with their vocation.

But his aim was not merely to relieve effects, but to remove causes. One of the causes of the ill health prevailing at Frauenburg was itself the effect of a scarcity of water. The town is situated on a hill, and the inhabitants were obliged to procure the water they needed from the river Bauda, a mile and a half distant. Copernicus, by a simple contrivance, the construction of sluices, turned the water to the very foot of the hill, and, there procuring sufficient power to turn a mill, he made it, as it were, raise itself to the height of the very steeple in the town above. The grateful people engraved his name upon the machine by which this result was effected. If they saw little greatness in a man who affected to place and displace the stars at his will, they recognised a practical greatness in the public benefactor who saved them trouble by filling their cisterns.

To this water-work may be owing the grand display which

enchants the visitors at Versailles; for the famous machine de Marly is said to have been constructed, by order of Louis XIV., from the hint conveyed by that built by Copernicus at Frauenburg. And thus-so strangely are men and things connected in this world—the innkeepers of Versailles are, at this day, indebted to Copernicus for half the guests who fill their gay saloons.

It was a wise counsel that suggested to the timid Copernicus the propriety of publishing his celebrated treatise. The author had been encouraged in his course of calculations by Gisius, Archbishop of Culm; and now the Archbishop and the Cardinal of Capua, jointly and severally, urged upon him to deliver his work to the world. Other friends and patrons similarly urged him; and they sought to move his reluctant spirit by intimating, that the more the idea of the motion of the earth now seemed absurd, the more the author of such an assertion would be admired, when he had proved the assertion to be unassailable, and had established the fact.

The philosopher was more encouraged by the remarks of men supposed to be skilled in holy writ, than by those of other admiring friends. He reverently placed his manuscript in the hands of the Archbishop, and therewith an introductory Epistle addressed to Pope Paul III., by way of apology, or authority, for having made such a work public. He could have been content, he says, to have gone on making only oral communications to the learned of what he had effected, after the manner of the Pythagoreans, who only imparted the mysteries of science to instructed adepts, and not to an unskilled multitude, unable to comprehend, and ever ready to misrepresent; but, he adds, holy churchmen had been his advisers in this matter, and, therefore, his work was published, with the submission of the author to the wisdom, and his hope of the approval, of the Church.

The Archbishop of Culm transmitted the manuscript to Rhaeticus, then in Saxony, with strict injunctions as to holding the deposit sacred, and looking to the correctness of the proofs. Rhaeticus hastened with the inestimable treasure to Nuremberg, where resided the scholars Schoner and Osiander, who shared with him the office of editor, and revised the proofs. To this task the author himself was now unequal; he lay, helpless, on a sick bed at Frauenburg, while his stronger friends watched the press in distant Nuremberg.

The spirit of timidity was not confined to Copernicus. Osiander was himself so alarmed at the conclusions in the volume, that he even apologized for them. His apology is too long for extract, but its purport was in this wise. He anticipated the astonishment of the wisest men, he said, at the results asserted by the author of the volume; men who very properly thought that the well recognised basis of established sciences ought not to be shaken. Nevertheless, he deprecated censure

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against Copernicus. The latter had only observed the stars, and noted down what he believed he had observed. He had seen circumstances there, for which he had sought the causes. He had imagined such hypothetical causes as had occurred to him. If he could not discover the true reasons, he might be permitted, perhaps, to suppose those which best fitted themselves to his calculations. There was so much the eye beheld, for which the mind could not account. Astronomical doctrine was itself, he insinuated, a mass of contradictory absurdities, and poor astronomers must do the best with them that they could.

Thus humbly, cap in hand as it were, was Copernicus made to stand, asking pardon, and apologizing for having first revealed to men the starry system as the Almighty had created it, and for having elicited unity and harmony, where before there were universal confusion and discord. When Phaëton strove to drive the horses of the sun, he miserably failed, as any charioteer might who should attempt to move what was divinely appointed to be stationary. But Copernicus drove through the same starry fields, yet in another chariot; and no confusion or disaster ensued, as in the previous case. His chariot, the earth, rolls on in its now well recognised path; and if the great artist appealed to the head of the Church to approve of what he had done, it was not because he himself harboured a doubt upon the matter, but that the world might take courage at the thought that Copernicus was not afraid to appeal to a judgment which he acknowledged to be infallible. The Church took half a century to weigh the matter, and then pronounced the work as being in direct antagonism against the word of God, and as wickedly misrepresenting the works of the Creator!

Copernicus was beyond the reach of such a sentence, when it was delivered; but its effect long continued injurious to his memory. A century later, Sir Thomas Browne, so credulous in many things unworthy to be believed, but doubtful on this, a truth which could not be controverted, politely remarked, that, "if any affirm the earth doth move, and will not believe with us it standeth still, because he hath seeming reason for it, and I no infallible sense nor reason against it, I will not quarrel with his assertion." But good Dean Wren went much further than this. His remarks on this passage are worth quoting. "In the book of God, from Moses unto Christ," says the Dean, "there are no less than eighty and odd express places, affirming, in plain and overt terms, the natural and perpetual motion of the sun and the moon; and that the stop or stay of that motion was one of the greatest miracles that ever the world beheld; others, the rising and setting of them; others, their diurnal course and vigorous activity upon this lowest world; others, their circulation on this world, or earth, not only daily, but annually, by a declination from the mid line on both sides, north and south;