widow, walking between two aged gentlemen of high rank, followed by her three daughters similarly attended. A long funeral oration was delivered by Dr. Jessinsky of Wittenberg, with whom Tycho Brahe had lived for some months two years before. He praised him for having led a life befitting a Christian and a learned man, living happily with his wife and family, keeping his sons to their studies, and his daughters to spinning and sewing, for being civil to strangers, charitable to the poor. He was open and honest in his dealings, was never hypocritical, but always spoke his mind, by which he sometimes made enemies. The speaker also dwelt on his scientific merits, and the favour shown to him by many princes; and it is characteristic of the time that a reference to his deformed nose and the plagiarism and calumnies of Reymers, as well as a detailed account of his last illness, were included in the oration.[1] The tomb is at the first pillar on the left side in the nave, next the chancel, where Tycho's children some years later erected over it a handsome monument of red marble, which still marks the spot. It consists of a tablet standing upright against the pillar, with a full figure in relief of Tycho Brahe clad in armour, with the left hand on his sword-hilt and the right on a globe, underneath which is a shield with the arms of Brahe, Bille, and the families of his two grandmothers, Ulfstand and Bud. The helmet stands at his feet. Bound the tablet runs an inscription recording the
- ↑ "De vita et morte D. Tychonis Brahe Oratio Funebris D. Johannis Jessenii, Pragæ, 1601, 4to, Hamburgi, 1610, and reprinted by Gassendi, pp. 224–235. In May 1602 the King of Denmark wrote to the Elector of Saxony to complain of the unfair way in which Jessenius had alluded to the broken nose ("facies decora et aperta, quam ante annos triginta Rostochii quidam noctu ausu prorsus sicario læsit, vestigio ad mortem usque semper conspicuo"). The duel, he added, had been a fair fight, and the two adversaries had always afterwards been good friends, and though Parsbjerg's name had not been mentioned, the story was so well known, that the remarks of the orator were most insulting, and ought publicly to be retracted. Danske Magazin, 4th Series, ii. p. 325.
