truth is the multitude of believers in a crowd, where the number of fools so much exceed the wise-" As if anything were so common as ignorance." (III., 326.)

What I should not believe from one I should not believe from a hundred and one: and I do not judge of opinions by years. (III., 327.)

The particular error first makes the public error, and afterwards, in turn, the public error makes the particular one; and thus all the vast fabric goes forming and piling itself up from hand to hand, so that the remotest witness knows more about it than those who were nearest, and the last informed is better persuaded than the first. (III., 325.)

Friendship.-An ancient father says that "a dog we know, is better company than a man whose language we do not understand.” (I., 40.)

Architas pleases me when he says "that it would be unpleasant even in heaven itself to wander in those great and divine celestial bodies without a companion." But yet, 'tis much better to be alone than in foolish and troublesome company. (III., 271.)

In friendship 'tis a general and universal fire, but temperate and equal, a constant established heat, all gentle and smooth, without poignancy or roughness. (I., 226.)

If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed than by making answer because it was he, because it was I. There is beyond all that, I am able to say, I know not what inexplicable and fated power that brought on this union. We sought one another long before we met, and by the characters we heard of one another, which wrought upon our affections more than, in reason, mere reports should do; I think 'twas by some secret appointment of heaven. (I., 229.)

'Tis a rare fortune, but of inestimable solace, to have a worthy man, one of a sound judgment, and of manners conform

able to our own, who takes a delight to bear us company. (III., 270.)

Oh! what a thing is a true friend! How true is that old saying:-The use of a friend is more pleasing and necessary than the elements of water and fire! (III., 262.)

The men whose society and familiarity I covet are those they call sincere and able men; and the image of these makes me dis-relish the rest. (III., 48.)

The conversation also of beautiful and well-bred women is for me a sweet commerce. (III., 49.)

In those other ordinary friendships you are to walk with bridle in your hand, with prudence and circumspection, for in them the knot is not so sure that a man may not half suspect it will slip. (I., 232.)

I envy those who can render themselves familiar with the meanest of their followers, and talk with them in their own way; and dislike the advice of Plato, that men should always speak in a magisterial tone to their servants, whether men or women, without being sometimes facetious and familiar. (III., 44.)

But above all things, 'tis in my opinion egregiously to play the fool, to put on the grave airs of a man of lofty mind amongst those who are nothing of the sort: ever to speak in print, "favell'ar in punta di forchetta" (to talk with the point of the fork). (III., 45.)

Marriage.-Marriage is a solemn and religious tie, and therefore the pleasure we extract from it should be a sober and serious delight, and mixed with a certain kind of gravity; it should be a sort of discreet and conscientious pleasure. (I., 244.)

The true touch and test of a happy marriage have respect to the time of the companionship, if it has been constantly gentle, loyal, and agreeable. (II., 553.)

Such as have had to do with testy and obstinate women,

may have experimented into what a rage it puts them, to oppose silence and coldness to their fury, and that a man disdains to nourish their anger. (II., 517.)

Let men say what they will, according to their experience; I have learned I require in married women the economical virtue above all other virtues. (III., 253.)

The most useful and honourable knowledge and employment for the mother of a family is the science of good housewifery. (III., 253.)

'Tis ridiculous and unjust that the laziness of our wives should be maintained with our sweat and labour. (III., 253.)

Ugliness of a confessed antiquity is to me less old and less ugly than another that is polished and plastered up. Shall I speak it without the danger of having my throat cut?-Love, in my opinion, is not properly and naturally in its season but in the age next to childhood. (III., 146.)

It is not modesty so much as cunning and prudence that makes our ladies so circumspect in refusing us admittance to their closets before they are painted and tricked up for public view. (II., 201.)

Few men have made a wife of a mistress who have not repented it. (III., 89.)

If there be any honour in lamenting a husband, it only appertains to those who smiled upon them whilst they had them; let those who wept during their lives laugh at their deaths, as well outwardly as within. (II., 554.)

Lying. In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice. We are not men, nor have other tie upon one another, but by our word. If we did but discover the horror and gravity of it, we should pursue it with fire and sword, and more justly than other crimes. (I., 40.)

It is not without good reason said, that “He who has not a

good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying."

I know very well that the grammarians distinguish betwixt an

untruth and a lie, and say that to tell an untruth is to tell a thing that is false, but that we ourselves believe to be true; and that the definition of the expression to lie, in Latin, from which our French is taken, is to tell a thing which we know in our conscience to be untrue; and it is of this last sort of liars only that I now speak. (I., 38.)

Lying is a base vice; a vice that one of the ancients portrays in the most odious colours when he says, "It is too manifest a contempt of God, and withal a fear of men." (II., 454.)

I love stout expressions amongst gentlemen, and to have them speak as they think. (III., 185.)

When any one contradicts me, he raises my attention, not my anger: I advance towards him who controverts, who instructs me; the cause of truth ought to be common cause both of the one and the other. What will the angry man answer? Passion has already confounded his judgment; agitation has usurped the place of reason. (III., 185.)

134

BRAHE, TYCHO.-1546-1601.*

Tycho Brahe was born at Kundstrup, in Scania, on the 14th December, 1546, three years after the death of Copernicus. When a student at Copenhagen, the great solar eclipse of the 21st August, 1560, arrested his attention, and having found that all its phases had been accurately predicted, he resolved to acquire the knowledge of a science so infallible in its results. Though destined for the profession of the law, he refused to enter upon its study; and when urged to it by the entreaties and reproaches of his friends, he escaped from their importunities by travelling into Germany. During his visit to Augsburg he resided at the house of Peter Hainzell, the burgomaster, whom he inspired with such a love of astronomy, that he, Hainzell, erected an excellent observatory at his own expense, and there enabled his youthful instructor to commence that splendid career of observation which has placed him in the first rank of practical astronomers.

On his return to Copenhagen in 1570, he was welcomed by the king and the nobility as an honour to the nation, and his maternal uncle at Herritzvold, near his native place, offered him a retreat from the gaieties of the capital, and every accommodation for pursuing his astronomical studies. Love and alchemy, however, distracted his thoughts; but he found the peasant girl, whom he fancied, easier of attainment than the philosopher's stone. His noble relations were deeply offended with the marriage, and it required all the influence of the king to allay the quarrel which it occasioned. In 1572 and in 1573, he had observed the remarkable star in Cassiopeia which rivalled Venus in her greatest brightness, and which, after being the wonder of astronomers for sixteen months, disappeared in March, 1574; but he refused, for a long time, to publish his

* This sketch is taken, practically verbatim, from the "Memoirs of the life, writings, and discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton," by Sir David Brewster. K. H. Hamilton Adams & Co. Vol. I., page 258.