to the Crown Prince, who was then between eight and nine years of age.[1]
Of Tycho's other pupils, Longomontanus is the best known. Christen Sörensen Longberg was born on the 4th October 1562, at the village of Longberg or Lomborg, in the north-west of Jutland, where his father was a poor farmer.[2] When his father died in 1570, his uncle took charge of him for some time, but as the means of the family were too small to allow the boy to follow his inclinations and go to school, the uncle sent him home to his mother to help her on the farm. The boy persuaded the mother to allow him to get some lessons during the winter-time from the clergyman of the parish, but during the summer he had to lay aside his books and take to farming again. At last he got tired of this, and in the spring of 1577 he took his books, and, without telling any one, walked off to the town of Viborg, some fifty miles from his home. He attended the grammar-school of Viborg for eleven years, and in addition to the ordinary school course of those days he learned the rudiments of mathematics. At the age of twenty-six he left the school for the University of Copenhagen, and the following year (1589) he was, on the recommendation of some of the professors, received as an assistant at Uraniborg, where he remained till 1597, when he left it together with Tycho.[3]
Of most of the other young men who for a longer or
- ↑ "Diarium astrologicum et metheorologicum anni a nato Christo 1586. Et de Cometa qvodam rotundo omniqve cavda destituto qui anno proxime elapso, mensibus Octobri et Nouembri conspiciebatur, ex observationibus certis desumta consideratio Astrologica: Per Eliam Olai Cimbrum, Nobili viro Tychoni Brahe in Astronomicis exercitiis inservientem. Ad Loci Longitudinem 37 Gr. Latitudinem 56 Gr. Excusum in Officina Vranibvrgica." See Weidler, Hist. Astr., p. 623; Petersen, Danske Literaturs Historie, iii. p. 180.
- ↑ West of the town of Lemvig, about four miles from the west coast. In Latin, Longberg called himself Christianus Severini Longomontanus.
- ↑ Petersen, Danske Literaturs Historie, iii. p. 177.
