ernicus.

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Leonardo da Vinci.]

Nicolas Copernik was his proper name. Copernicus is merely the Latinized
form of it, according to the then prevailing fashion. He was born at
Thorn, in Polish Prussia, in 1473. His father is believed to have been a
German. He graduated at Cracow as doctor in arts and medicine, and was
destined for the ecclesiastical profession. The details of his life are
few; it seems to have been quiet and uneventful, and we know very little
about it. He was instructed in astronomy at Cracow, and learnt
mathematics at Bologna. Thence he went to Rome, where he was made
Professor of Mathematics; and soon afterwards he went into orders. On
his return home, he took charge of the principal church in his native
place, and became a canon. At Frauenburg, near the mouth of the Vistula,
he lived the remainder of his life. We find him reporting on coinage for
the Government, but otherwise he does not appear as having entered into
the life of the times.

He was a quiet, scholarly monk of studious habits, and with a reputation
which drew to him several earnest students, who received _viva voce_
instruction from him; so, in study and meditation, his life passed.

He compiled tables of the planetary motions which were far more correct
than any which had hitherto appeared, and which remained serviceable for
long afterwards. The Ptolemaic system of the heavens, which had been the
orthodox system all through the Christian era, he endeavoured to improve
and simplify by the hypothesis that the sun was the centre of the system
instead of the earth; and the first consequences of this change he
worked out for many years, producing in the end a great book: his one
life-work. This famous work, "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium,"
embodied all his painstaking calculations, applied his new system to
each of the bodies in the solar system in succession, and treated
besides of much other recondite matter. Towards the close of his life it
was put into type. He can scarcely be said to have lived to see it
appear, for he was stricken with paralysis before its completion; but a
printed copy was brought to his bedside and put into his hands, so that
he might just feel it before he died.

[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Copernicus.]

That Copernicus was a giant in intellect or power--such as had lived in
the past, and were destined to live in the near future--I see no reason
whatever to believe. He was just a quiet