ark time--some two years--are not quite clear;
but at last the enlightened Emperor of Bohemia, Rudolph II., invited him
to settle in Prague. Thither he repaired, a castle was given him as an
observatory, a house in the city, and 3000 crowns a year for life. So
his instruments were set up once more, students flocked to hear him and
to receive work at his hands--among them a poor youth, John Kepler, to
whom he was very kind, and who became, as you know, a still greater man
than his master.

But the spirit of Tycho was broken, and though some good work was done
at Prague--more observations made, and the Rudolphine tables begun--yet
the hand of death was upon him. A painful disease seized him, attended
with sleeplessness and temporary delirium, during the paroxysms of
which he frequently exclaimed, _Ne frustra vixisse videar_. ("Oh that it
may not appear that I have lived in vain!")

Quietly, however, at last, and surrounded by his friends and relatives,
this fierce, passionate soul passed away, on the 24th of October, 1601.

His beloved instruments, which were almost a part of himself, were
stored by Rudolph in a museum with scrupulous care, until the taking of
Prague by the Elector Palatine's troops. In this disturbed time they got
smashed, dispersed, and converted to other purposes. One thing only was
saved--the great brass globe, which some thirty years after was
recognized by a later king of Denmark as having belonged to Tycho, and
deposited in the Library of the Academy of Sciences at Copenhagen, where
I believe it is to this day.

The island of Huen was overrun by the Danish nobility, and nothing now
remains of Uraniburg but a mound of earth and two pits.

As to the real work of Tycho, that has become immortal enough,--chiefly
through the labours of his friend and scholar whose life we shall
consider in the next lecture.

SUMMARY OF FACTS FOR LECTURE III

_Life and work of Kepler._ Kepler was born in December, 1571, at Weil in
Wuertemberg. Father an officer in the duke's army, mother something of a
virago, both very poor. Kepler was utilized as a tavern pot-boy, but
ultimately sent to a charity school, and thence to the University of
Tuebingen. Health extremely delicate; he was liable to violent attacks
all his life. Studied mathematics, and accepted an astronomical
lectureship at Graz as the first post which offered. Endeavoured to
discover some connection between the number of the planets, their time