usual, without money, and had in vain tried to get the Bohemian Estates to pay the sum, which they declined to do, on the plea that this was a private matter of the Emperor's; and he attempted to persuade the heirs to accept some more or less doubtful securities instead of ready money.[1] This, however, they would not do, and in September 1603 they got 4000 thaler paid from the royal revenues. Owing to the disturbed state of Bohemia and the subsequent great war, the family apparently never received any part of the remaining 15,000 thaler, though they persevered for many years in their applications to the Government. The last time anything bearing on this matter is mentioned is in 1652, when it is stated that a married daughter of the younger Tycho had been six years in Bohemia on a safeguard from the Elector of Saxony, endeavouring to get her share of the money due from the Treasury.[2]
The first piece of work which Kepler undertook after Tycho's death was to get the Progymnasmata published. The section about the lunar theory was not yet printed, but the woodcuts were ready and the text completed in manuscript. A postscript seemed desirable, explaining how the book had been written and printed by degrees, and Kepler at once wrote this appendix, which fills six pages.[3] He first explains how Tycho's anxiety that the book should contain the latest results of his investigations had made him push on with the printing before the whole manuscript was ready (it had been prepared in the years 1582–92). A few slight discrepancies are pointed out between these latest results and a few passages in the book, concerning the moon, but printed long before. It is also remarked that in the first chapter the planetary inequalities are referred to the sun's mean place, while it had recently been found in the case of the moon and Mars that it is the apparent
- ↑ Danske Magazin, ii. p. 361 et seq.; Weistritz, ii. p. 369 et seq. From this letter it appears that the family had previous to July 1602 left Curtius' house, and lived in the part of the city called Altstadt. They had commenced to remove the instruments to their new residence, as they had not yet received any payment; and even of Tycho's salary, which the Emperor had ordered to be paid up to the date of his death only, there were still a thousand florins owing to them. In April 1608 Magdalene wrote a letter to Longomontanus (ibid.) giving him information about the family.
- ↑ For full particulars about these transactions see the paper by Dvorsky, quoted above, p. 307.
- ↑ That Kepler is the author of this appendix is stated by himself in a letter to Magini (Opera, iii. p. 495; Carteggio, p. 331); it is reprinted in Opera, vi. p. 568.
