centre of the planetary system which revolved round the earth. Comparing these hypotheses with the celestial phenomena, and adopting the idea of Philolaus that the sun, and not the earth, was the centre of the system, he was led to adopt the true planetary or Copernican system, which all subsequent observations have combined to establish. Although the Church of Rome subsequently denounced this doctrine as a heresy when maintained by Galileo, yet the Cardinal Nicolas Schonberg, bishop of Capua, and Tydeman Gyse, bishop of Culm, urged Copernicus to publish an account of his system. The new opinions, however, had not commanded the assent of the public. Regarded as chimerical by some, and heretical by others, Copernicus deemed it prudent to withhold his opinions from public criticism. It certainly required either much knowledge or strong faith to believe that the earth, neither felt nor seen to move, had two motions—one round its axis, and the other round the sun—and that the sun, never at rest, was actually a fixture in space. Although his great work "De Orbium Celestium Revolutionibus" was finished in 1530 in the fifty-seventh year of his age, yet it was not till 1540 that he allowed his friends to bring his hypothesis gradually before the public. In 1539 G. J. Rheticus, professor of mathematics, of Wittenberg, resigned his chair in order to study the subject under Copernicus himself; and in the following year he published at Dantzic im account of the new system under the disguise of a young student of mathematics; and finding that the work was not unfavourably received, he published a second edition, with his own name, entitled "De Libris Revolutionum Nic. Copernici Narratio prima, per M. G. J. Rheticum," Basiliæ, 1541. In the same year the Copernican system was noticed in the most flattering manner by Erasmus Rheinhold, in an edition of Purbachius' work on the Planets, and Copernicus was alluded to as a second Ptolemy destined to restore the degenerate science of the age. Thus encouraged by the favourable reception of his opinions, he confided the manuscript of his work to his friend Rheticus, who published it in 1543 under the following remarkable title:—"Nicolai Copernici Torinensis de Revolutionibus Orbium Celestium lib. vi. Habes in hoc opere, studiose Lector, motus stellarum tum fixarum quam erraticarum, tum ex veteribus, tum etiam ex recentibus observationibus institutos, et novis insuper et admirabilibus hypothesibus ornatos. Habes etiam tabulas expeditissimas ex quibus eosdem, ad quodvis tempus, quam facillime calculari poteris. Igitur Eme, Lege, Fruere." Apud Jo. Reticum, Norimbergæ, in folio, 1543.
This great work was published at the expense of Cardinal Schonberg, and dedicated to Pope Paul III., a member of the Farnese family, who held the pontificate from 1534 to 1550. In an introductory address, ad Lectorem, "on the hypotheses of his work," Copernicus propitiates such of his readers as may be alarmed at their novelty, by assuring them "that it is not necessary that these hypotheses should be true, nor even probable, and that only one thing is necessary, that they show the calculus to be in accordance with observation." Under the same desire to satisfy the pope, he boldly alludes to the hostility to which his opinions will expose him. "I have preferred," says he, "dedicating my lucubrations to your Holiness rather than to any other person, because in the very remote corner of the world in which I live, you are so distinguished by your rank and your love of learning and mathematics, that you will easily repress the virulence of slander, notwithstanding the proverb that there is no remedy against the wound of the sycophant." And "should there be any babblers who, ignorant of all mathematics, presume to judge of those things, on account of some passages of scripture wrested to their own purpose, and dare to blame and cavil at my work, I will not scruple to hold their judgment in contempt. . . . . Mathematics are written for mathematicians; and I am much mistaken if such men will not regard my labours as conducive to the prosperity of the ecclesiastical republic over which your Holiness presides."
The first printed copy of the work was received by Rheticus, when its author was attacked with a severe illness, from which he never recovered. Though he had hitherto enjoyed the most perfect health, he was suddenly attacked with dysentery, followed by a paralysis of the right side, which caused a loss of memory and mental aberration. In this condition he continued for several days, and on the very day on which he died a copy of his work was sent to him by Rheticus. It was placed in his hands, but he knew not what it was. The great soul which had inspired it was making its escape from its tabernacle of clay, which it quitted on the 24th May, 1543, when Copernicus had overpassed by some months the seventieth year of his age.
It is a singular fact in the history of science, that while Copernicus was establishing a system of the world in direct opposition to the faith of the catholic church, he was an enemy of the great reformation which Luther was accomplishing in Germany. In 1526 he signed an edict issued by Maurice, bishop of Ermeland, against the great reformer; and, strange to say, the diocese of Ermeland, enlightened by the discoveries of Copernicus, was the last of the surrounding provinces to embrace the doctrines of the Reformation.
Besides his great work, "De Revolutionibus, &c., Copernici," published at Wittenberg in 1542, a treatise on trigonometry, under the title of "De Lateribus et Angulis Triangulorum," and another entitled "Theophylastici Scholastici Simocattæ Epistolæ morales, rurales, et amatoriæ, cum versione Latina." Professor Grant, in his History of Physical Astronomy, has stated that Copernicus seems to have had the earliest notion of the principle of gravitation. He remarked that the parts of matter had a natural tendency to congregate together and form themselves into spheres, and that the constant tendency of bodies towards the centre of the earth, was merely a sensible manifestation of this inherent quality of matter.
In 1526, after Copernicus had left Rome, he was consulted on the reformation of the calendar. Paul Middelburg, bishop of Fossombrona, who presided over the council appointed for that purpose, corresponded with Copernicus on the subject; but though he seems to have declined taking any part in the matter, he mentions in his dedication to Paul III., that after he received the application from the bishop, he set himself to determine the length of the year and of the months, and the other motions of the sun and moon that were necessary for that purpose.
Copernicus is said to have been buried without any mark of distinction above his grave; but in 1581 Bishop Cromer, the historian of Poland, erected a small monument over it, with a Latin epitaph.
Early in the present century the Society of Sciences at Warsaw sent a deputation to Frauenburg to search for memorials of their distinguished countryman. They found his house in the possession of a Lutheran pastor, and learned that about nineteen years ago some verses in Copernicus' own handwriting had been pasted on the chimney-piece, but were carried off by a pastor who had left the place. The name and arms of the astronomer, painted in colours on a pane of glass, had also been taken away about the same time. The neighbouring tower, in which Copernicus made his observations, was then used as a receptacle for prisoners. As he had been chancellor of the chapter, the deputation supposed that he must have been buried under the altar in the cathedral church attached to that office, and they accordingly found near this spot a gravestone partly covered by a marble balustrade which surrounded the altar. Spheres, carved in relief, and the word Nicol indicated the place of his remains; and the deputation having with the permission of the chapter removed the obstructions, found the following fragment of an inscription—
Nicol . . . Cop . . cus
An . . . M . . .
Beneath this stone were found a few mouldering bones in the middle of some black earth, surrounded by common yellow sand. A marble slab, containing a portrait and inscription, was subsequently placed by the chapter opposite the altar beneath which the bones were found. A facsimile of a letter by Copernicus, from the library of Prince Czartoryski, is published in the Edin. Phil. Journal, vol. v. pp. 63, 64, and plate ii.; and in the same journal—vol. vii. p. 144, plate ii. figs. 5 and 6—will be found a drawing of his house, and of the arm-chair in which he was accustomed to sit. Several of his manuscripts are still preserved in the library of the bishopric of Warmia, and a few of his signatures occur in the acts of the chapter.—D. B.
KOPPE, Johann Benjamin, was a German writer on theological subjects, principally exegetical. He was born at Dantzic in 1750, and studied philology and theology at Leipsic and Göttingen. In 1769 he published a work entitled "De critica Veteris Testamenti caute adhibenda" at Göttingen, and in 1774 "Vindiciæ oraculorum a dæmonum æque imperio ac sacerdotum fraudibus," which contain some curious and interesting matter. He published in 1780 an "Interpretatio Isaiæ viii. 23;" and in 1781 "A Dissertation on the Sin against the
