not read in the Senate till the 21st April following, when the agent at Lübeck had at last forwarded the instruments to Hamburg,[1] A similar delay occurred with the bulk of the instruments, books, &c., which Tycho had himself brought from Denmark as far as Magdeburg. About the transport of these to Prague by the Elbe the Emperor had also written in September 1599 to the civic authorities at Magdeburg, and he wrote a reminder to them some time after; but the Town Council coolly replied that they were unable to do anything, and, among other excuses, they mentioned the great damage done to the town when the celebrated Elector Maurice of Saxony, as commander of the Catholic forces, had besieged it some fifty years before. Having, to the disgust of his Austrian councillors, swallowed this affront, which showed how little the Imperial authority was respected in the North of Germany, Rudolph addressed himself to the Chapter of Magdeburg, and Tycho forwarding this letter by a servant of his in April 1600, also wrote to the Chapter begging them to help him in the matter.[2] It appears from a letter which Tycho wrote in September 1600 to Duke Otto of Brunswick (who wanted his horoscope prepared) that the instruments and books had then only got as far as Leitmerits, in Bohemia, and in November 1600 Tycho wrote to Landgrave Maurice that he had at last got all his twenty-eight instruments at Prague.[3] But he had then long ago left Benatky.
While the instruments were on their way to Bohemia, Tycho was endeavouring to push forward the alteration of
- ↑ The two letters (in the city archives of Hamburg), printed in Friis, Tyge Brahe, pp. 320 and 324. Letter from Tycho to Vincent Müller, Burgomaster of Hamburg, of April 24, 1600, in Breve og Aktstykker, p. 125.
- ↑ Tycho's letter to the Chapter, Aus Tycho Brahe's Briefwechsel, p. 21; compare Breve og Aktstykker, p. 114.
- ↑ Breve og Aktstykker, pp. 141 and 143. Tycho wrote to Eske Bille on November 16, that on looking over his things, he noticed that some articles were missing which might still be at Copenhagen or at Lübeck. Ibid., p. 149.
