the hostility of the court. They
drew the public attention to the exhausted state of the treasury. They
maintained that he had possessed too long the estate in Norway, which
might be given to men who laboured more usefully for the commonwealth;
and they accused him of allowing the chapel at Rothschild to fall into
decay. The President of the Council, Christopher Walchendorp, and the
King's Chancellor, were the most active of the enemies of Tycho; and,
having poisoned the mind of their sovereign against the most meritorious
of his subjects, Tycho was deprived of his canonry, his estate in
Norway, and his pension.

Being no longer able to bear the expenses of his establishment in Huen,
and dreading that the feelings which had been excited against him might
be still further roused, so as to deprive him of the Island of Huen
itself, he resolved to transfer his instruments to some other
situation. Notwithstanding this resolution, he remained with his family
in the island, and continued his observations till the spring of 1597,
when he took a house in Copenhagen, and removed to it all his smaller
and more portable instruments, leaving those which were large or fixed
in the crypts of Stiern-berg. His first plan was to remove every thing
from Huen as a measure of security; but the public feeling began to turn
in his favour, and there were many good men in Copenhagen who did not
scruple to reprobate the conduct of the government. The President of the
Council, Walchendorp--a name which, while the heavens revolve, will be
pronounced with horror by astronomers--saw the change of sentiment which
his injustice had produced, and adopted an artful method of sheltering
himself from public odium. In consequence of a quarrel with Tycho, the
recollection of which had rankled in his breast, he dreaded to be the
prime mover in his persecution. He therefore appointed a committee of
two persons, one of whom was Thomas Feuchius, to report to the
government on the nature and utility of the studies of Tycho. These two
individuals were entirely ignorant of astronomy and the use of
instruments; and even if they had not, they would have been equally
subservient to the views of the minister. They reported that the studies
of Tycho were of no value, and that they were not only useless, but
noxious. Armed with this report, Walchendorp prohibited Tycho, in the
King's name, from continuing his chemical experiments; and instigated,
no doubt, by this wicke