Tycho's later writings, that he afterwards modified and extended it. When he wrote his preliminary treatise on the new star, he was evidently chiefly inclined to ascribe a direct physical and meteorological influence to the celestial bodies, though he was by no means blind to the difficulty of foretelling the results of this influence, but he became gradually more inclined to disregard the physical effect (dryness, pestilence, &c.), and solely to look to the effect of the stars on the human mind, and through that on the human actions. That an unusual celestial phenomenon occurring at that particular moment should have been considered as indicating troublous times, is extremely natural when we consider the state of Europe in 1573. The tremendous rebellion against the Papal supremacy, which for a long time had seemed destined to end in the complete overthrow of the latter, appeared now to have reached its limit, and many people thought that the tide had already commenced to turn. In the south of Germany and in Austria the altered tactics of the Church of Rome, due to the influence of the fast rising Society of Jesus, were stamping out the feeble attempts of Reformers; in France, the Huguenots were fighting their unequal battle with the fury of despair against an enemy who a year ago had attempted to end the strife by the infamous butchery of St. Bartholomew;[1] in the Netherlands, hundreds had suffered for their faith, while the country was being devastated with fire and sword in the vain efforts of the Spanish Government to make a free nation submit to their own sanguinary religion; in England, the hopes of Protestants might at any moment be seriously threatened if the dagger of an assassin should find way to the heart of their queen, or if her most formidable and venomous enemy should turn his dreaded power against her. Who could
- ↑ The year 1572 was, according to the custom of the age, remembered by the line "LVtetIa Mater sVos natos DeVoraVIt."
