felt while conversing with his host. To show how gratified he was with his reception, he wrote at Uraniborg (whether it was in a "visitors' book" does not appear):
Est nobilis ira Leonis
Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.
Jacobus Rex.[1]
Why he wrote these particular lines is not easy to understand, but perhaps he considered them emblematic of "kingcraft."[2] Maitland also tried his hand at Latin verse-making, expressing his admiration of the house of the Muses. The king is said to have discussed the Copernican system and other matters with Tycho, and was doubtless equally proud of his own exhibition of learning and pleased with the hospitable reception he had met with. He readily promised Tycho copyright in Scotland for his writings for thirty years, and sent him this three years later, expressing in the document the pleasure it had given him to converse with Tycho and learn with his own eyes and ears things which still delighted his mind. Two Latin epigrams accompanied the document and are printed with it at the beginning of Tycho's Progymnasmata.[3] King James is also said to have presented Tycho with two fine English mastiffs before his departure. Various members of his suite paid visits to Hveen during the time between the king's visit and his final departure from Denmark, which took place on the 21st April.[4]
- ↑ Danske Magazin, ii. p. 266 (Weistritz, ii. p. 200).
- ↑ These lines seem to have been a standing dish with King James, for according to Horace Marryat (A Residence in Jutland, the Danish Isles and Copenhagen, London, 1860, vol. i. p. 306) he also wrote them in a hymn-book belonging to Ramel, tutor to the young King Christian IV.
- ↑ Also in Gassendi, p. 106.
- ↑ Epist. astron., p. 175: "Exinde quasi quotidianos hospites habuerim." Meteor. diary, April 21: "Rex Scotiæ circiter horam 7 p.m. Helsingora cum Regina sua et comitatu in regnum per mare discessit, Navali regis comitatu stipatus."
