Wisdom, as shewn in the Creation"--all of
which seem to have been lost. In 1599, Kepler was recalled to Gratz by
the States of Styria, and resumed his professorship; but the city was
still divided into two factions, and Kepler, who was a lover of peace,
found his situation very uncomfortable. Having learned from Tycho that
he had been able to determine more accurately than had been done the
eccentricities of the orbits of the planets, Kepler was anxious to avail
himself of these observations, and set out on a visit to Tycho at
Prague, where he arrived in January 1600. Tycho received him with great
kindness, notwithstanding the part which he had taken against him along
with Raimar, and he spent three or four months with him at Benach. It
was then arranged that Kepler should be appointed Tycho's assistant in
the observatory, with a salary of 100 florins, provided the States of
Styria should, on the Emperor's application, allow him to be absent for
two years and retain his salary. Kepler had returned to Gratz before
this arrangement was completed, and new troubles having broke out in
that city, he resigned his professorship. Dreading lest this step would
frustrate his scheme of joining Tycho, he resolved to ask the patronage
of the Duke of Wirtemberg for the professorship of medicine at Tubingen;
and with this view he corresponded with Moestlin and his other friends
in that University. When Tycho heard of this plan, he pressed him to
abandon it, and promised his best exertions to procure a permanent
situation for him from the Emperor.

Encouraged by these promises, Kepler and his wife set off for Prague,
but he was unfortunately attacked on the road with a quartan ague, which
lasted seven months; and having exhausted the little money which he had
along with him, he was obliged to apply to Tycho for a supply. After his
arrival at Prague he was supported entirely by the bounty of his friend,
and he endeavoured to make some return for this kindness by attacking in
a controversial pamphlet two of the scientific opponents of Tycho.
Kepler's total dependence on the generosity of his friend had made him
suspicious of his sincerity. He imagined that Tycho had not freely
communicated to him all his observations, and that he had not been
sufficiently liberal in supplying his wife with money in his absence.
While absent a second time from Prague, and influenced by these
feelings, he addressed a violent letter to Tycho, filled with
r