that of a professor at Prague. It is easy to understand that his venomous attack must have been doubly annoying to Tycho at the particular moment when it was published and when he was anxiously seeking a new home. Tycho therefore began to collect evidence to show that his enemy had really behaved in a suspicious manner while at Hveen, and a document has been preserved, drawn up and signed before a notary at Cassel by Michael Walter, secretary to Reymers' former master, Lange. In this the writer states that Reymers, when Lange at his urgent request had consented to take him to Hveen, continued to poke and pry among Tycho's instruments and books whenever nobody was near, and to make drawings of everything; that one of Tycho's pupils warned his master about this, and mentioned it to a certain Andreas[1] who then went to sleep at night in the room with Reymers, and while the latter slept took a handful of papers out of one of his breeches-pockets, but was afraid to search the other for fear of waking him; that Reymers on discovering his loss behaved like a maniac, upon which he received back those of his papers which did not concern Tycho Brahe. The secretary also states that Reymers, after Lange's return to Bygholm Castle in Jutland continued to behave more and more like a madman, and told everybody that Lange was going to hang him, until his master got tired of all this and dismissed him.[2]
Though it could not possibly be proved that Reymers had copied the idea of his planetary system from Tycho Brahe, it must be conceded that the latter had good reasons for suspecting him, even before he published his system in 1588, and we must remember that the scientific men of the age were always afraid of being robbed of their discoveries, and often took great pains to secure priority by
