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the latter had arrived, that the comet was far beyond the moon. Tycho had in reply taken the trouble to prepare a detailed "apology" for his book, and had sent it to Craig in 1589, and three years later the latter published a refutation of Tycho's book, in which he ("nec tam scotice quam scoptice") made a violent attack on all who would not follow Aristotle's doctrine about comets.^[1] In this last letter to Rothmann, Tycho, in a needlessly prolix manner, defends his observations and results against this obscure writer, who, but for his attack on Tycho, would be quite unknown in the annals of science.^[2]

Rothmann never returned to Cassel, and nothing further is known of him. He was still alive in 1599, when Tycho heard from him through a mutual acquaintance, and he must have died before 1608, when a theological pamphlet by him was published, which is designated as posthumous.^[3] At Cassel, where the astronomical work was carried on by Bürgi, his continued absence created much surprise, and the Landgrave and Tycho, in the letters which they frequently exchanged in 1591, repeatedly expressed their wonder at his disappearance. These letters are not like the earlier ones, almost entirely devoted to astronomy, though Tycho did not omit to tell the Landgrave that the printing of the first volume of his work was approaching completion, and that he had shown Rothmann as much as was in type; it was partly want of paper which delayed the

1. "Capnuraniæ restinctio seu cometarum in aethera sublimationis refutatio." Kepler began a refutation of Craig's book (Opera, i. p. 279), and Longomontanus also (Gassendi, p. 206), but neither were printed.
2. Epist., pp. 284–304. Tycho's first Apologia of 1589 was never published, though Lalande in his Bibliographie (and following him Delambre) mentions it as printed at Uraniborg in 1591. Tycho might have treated Craig's attack with the same contempt with which he met Christmann's attack on his solar theory, which he only answered by putting up in one of his rooms a picture of a dog barking at the moon, with the inscription "Nil moror nugas." Gassendi, p. 119.
3. R. Wolf, Geschichte der Astronomie, p. 274.