of La Hire at the Paris Observatory.[1] They were handed over to the Danish envoy in 1697, but were not sent back to Copenhagen till his return to Denmark in 1707. Being deposited in the Royal Library, they fortunately escaped the great fire of 1728, in which the University Library and the Observatory (with Römer's observations) were destroyed. In 1707 it was suggested by Dr. Arbuthnot, physician to Prince George of Denmark, that Tycho's observations ought to be printed in England, together with those of Flamsteed, and Newton drew up a letter to Römer on the subject, but nothing further came of it.[2] Bartholin's copy remained in Paris at the Académie des Sciences, and is now at the Paris Observatory.[3] La Hire had copied the observations of 1593 from the originals, and they were published in the Mémoires de l'Académie for 1757 and 1763. De l'Isle had made a copy of the whole series, translated into French, but with frequent omissions, which is now also deposited at the Paris Observatory. Pingré made extensive use of it for his Cométographie.[4]
While Tycho's observations were thus turned to lasting account, there is scarcely a trace left of the magnificent buildings he raised at Hveen.
"Est in conspectu Tenedos, notissima fama,
Insula dives opum, Priami dum regna manebant,
Nunc tautum sinus et statio male fida carinis."
It would almost seem that Tycho did not build in a very substantial manner, for already in 1599 Eske Bille wrote to him that the farm buildings would soon tumble down, and that the forge was also in a very bad state, for which reason the clergyman wanted to know whether he might use the materials to repair the rectory, which already some years before had fallen into disrepair. Tycho answered that the clergyman had no claims on him, and had behaved very badly, and the peasants had been stealing building materials from the rectory. "As to the farm and the castle itself being in bad repair, I can only say, as I have done
- ↑ Dänische Bibliotkek, viii. p. 684; Werlauff, l. c., p. 57; Observations septem Cometarum (1867), p. iii.
- ↑ Brewster's Memoirs of Sir I. Newton, ii. p. 168.
- ↑ M. Bossert of the Paris Observatory informs me that this copy is in six volumes (which agrees with Picard's receipt), in 4to, carefully written, the observations of comets being by themselves. The title is: Tychonis Brahe Thesaurus obscrvationum astronomicarum.
- ↑ Pingré, i. p. 517; Lalande, i. p. 199.
