matics at Cologne, author of a book in which there is nothing astronomical, but a great deal about old prophecies.[1] According to one of these, dating from 1488 and founded on the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 1484, a false prophet was soon to arise, who, of course, turned out to be Luther, and a picture is given of the prophet dressed like a monk, with a shrivelled little devil sitting astride on his neck, and followed by a small monk or choir-boy. Unluckily Luther was not born in 1484, but in 1483, and not on the 22nd October, as assumed by the mathematician Cardan, who worked out his horoscope (in what spirit may easily be conceived), but nineteen days later. The above-mentioned French pamphlet of 1590, printed at a time when Henry IV. had not yet come to the conclusion that "Paris vaut bien une messe," also declares that the star meant the victory of the Church and the King, but the latter must not be a heretic, but fide plenus. The author also states that the star disappeared the 18th February 1574, "qui fut le propre iour que le feu Roy Henry de Valois feist son entree en Cracouie."[2] Doubtless the star expired from grief at seeing this charming creature bury himself so far from his admiring country. Strange that it did not light up again with joy when he bolted from his Polish kingdom a few months later!
After this digression we shall now return to Tycho, deferring to a later chapter an account of the researches and speculations on the subject of the new star which he made in after-years, and which it would not be possible to describe in this place without a serious break in the continuity of our narrative.
- ↑ "Erklerung oder Auslegung eines Cometen. . . . Durch Theodorum Graminæum Ruremundanum. Cöllen am Rhein, 1573, 4to." Tycho mentions him as "Autor Stramineus, Graminæus volebam dicere" (Prog., p. 778).
- ↑ This beautiful remark is also made in Gosselin's Historia Imaginum Coelestium, Paris, 1577, 4to, p. 11.
