economical disposition, and at once began to introduce reductions in various branches of the administration. Among others who were made to feel the change of government was Tycho Brahe, who lost the Norwegian fief "immediately after the coronation," as he tells us himself.[1] As this was a serious loss to Tycho, he made an effort to recover the fief, or at least to be allowed to keep it till the 1st May, the usual time for giving up possession of beneficiary grants. On the 31st December 1596 he therefore wrote a lengthy letter in Latin to the new Chancellor, Friis,[2] pointing out how deeply interested King Frederick had been in his work, and how death alone had prevented him from carrying out his intention of permanently endowing the observatory at Hveen; how much he had done for the advancement of astronomy, as might be seen from the correspondence just published, and of which he would have sent King Christian a copy if the king had not been absent in Jutland. For the present, he only asked to have the Norwegian estate restored, or at least to let him keep it till May, as his steward would then have paid him the rents. With this letter Tycho sent a copy of his Epistolæ and a copy of the declaration of the Privy Council of 1589, promising to advise the king to endow Tycho's observatory in a permanent manner. In reply, the Chancellor, who was with the king in Jutland, on the 20th January 1597 wrote in a short, business-like manner, that he had laid Tycho's petition before the king, but that his Majesty did not see his way to pay anything from the Treasury towards the maintenance of the instruments, and that it was impossible to postpone the surrender of the Norwegian fief, as the main fief of Bergen (to which that of Nordfjord belonged) could not spare the income from it. But if the
