made for the Emperor, who had reserved an adjoining house for his own use whenever he visited Benatky.[1] Whether Rudolph ever came to Benatky while Tycho was there is not known, but it is not likely, as he was again in the autumn of 1599 driven from Prague to Pilsen by the plague, and did not return till July 1600. Tycho also left home for the same reason towards the end of 1599, and lived for six or seven weeks at an Imperial residence at the village of Girsitz, a few miles south of Benatky, where some observations were made in December.[2] It was during this new visitation of the plague that the Emperor desired Tycho to give him the prescription for his "elixir" against epidemic diseases, as already mentioned.[3]
In the meantime the family had arrived from Dresden, and as everything now appeared to promise Tycho that he had found a haven for the remainder of his days, he sent about the end of September his eldest son, together with a certain Claus Mule, to Denmark, to remove the four large instruments which were still at Hveen, and took this opportunity of sending a number of letters to his family and friends. Among these letters was one to Valkendorf, asking him to facilitate the transport of the instruments,[4] one to his own brother, Axel, to the same purport, another to Longomontanus, and a very long one to his old friend Vedel. In this he gave a very full account of his doings since he left Hveen, which he asked Vedel to incorporate in his Danish history, so that it might be handed down to posterity, whether printed or not.[5] Tycho's daughter Magdalene
- ↑ Letter to Sophia Brahe in Breve og Aktstykker, pp. 85–86.
- ↑ Barrettus, pp. 850 and 856; Breve og Aktstykker, pp. 98 and 108.
- ↑ See above, p. 130.
- ↑ The letter is not extant, but Tycho alludes to it in the letter to Longomontanus (Gassendi, p. 167; Weistritz, i. p. 186). The Emperor had directed Barwitz to write to the Danish Privy Councillor, Henrik Ramel, on the same matter.
- ↑ This letter was published at Jena in 1730 (23 pp. 4to) by G. B. Casseburg,
