The substance of Kepler’s astrological opinions is contained in this work. It is remarkable that one whose candour and good faith are so conspicuous, one so intent on correcting his various theories by observation and experience, should have given in to this now generally rejected system of imposture and credulity; nay should profess to have been forced to adopt it from direct and positive observations. “A most unfailing experience (as far as can be hoped in natural phenomena), of the excitement of sublunary nature by the conjunctions and aspects of the planets, has instructed and compelled my unwilling belief.” At the same time he professed through life a supreme contempt for the common herd of nativity casters, and claimed to be the creator of a “new and most true philosophy, a tender plant which, like all other novelties, ought to be carefully nursed and cherished.” His plant was rooted in the sand, and it has perished; nor is it important to explain the fine-spun differences by which his own astrological belief was separated from another not more baseless. Poor through life, he relieved his ever recurring wants by astrological calculations: and he enjoyed considerable reputation in this line, and received ample remuneration for his predictions. It was principally as astrologers that both Tycho Brahe and Kepler were valued by the Emperor Rudolph: and it was in the same capacity that the latter was afterwards entertained by Wallenstein. One circumstance may suggest a doubt whether his predictions were always scrupulously honest. From the year 1617 to 1620, he published an annual Ephemeris, concerning which he writes thus: “In order to pay the expense of the Ephemeris for these two years, I have also written a vile prophesying almanac, which is hardly more respectable than begging; unless it be because it saves the Emperor’s credit, who abandons me entirely, and, with all his frequent and recent orders in council, would suffer me to perish with hunger.” Poverty is a hard task-master; yet Kepler should not have condescended to become the Francis Moore of his day.

In 1620, Kepler was strongly urged by Sir Henry Wotton, then ambassador to Venice, to take refuge in England from the difficulties which beset him. This invitation was not open to the objections which had deterred him from accepting an appointment in Italy: but love of his native land prevailed to make him decline it also. He continued to weary the Imperial Government with solicitations for money to defray the expense of the Rudolphine Tables, which were not printed until 1627. These were the first calculated on the supposition of elliptic orbits, and contain, besides tables of the sun and planets, logarithmic and other tables to facilitate calculation, the places of one thousand stars as determined by Tycho, and a table of refractions. Similar tables of the planetary motions had been constructed by Ptolemy, and reproduced with alterations in the thirteenth century under the direction of Alphonso, King of Castile. Others, called the Prussian Tables, had been calculated after the discoveries of Copernicus, by two of that great astronomer’s pupils. All these, however, were superseded in consequence of the observations of Tycho Brahe, observations far more accurate than had ever before been made: and for the publication of the Rudolphine Tables alone, which for a long time continued unsurpassed in exactness, the name of Kepler would deserve honourable remembrance.

Kepler was the first of the Germans to appreciate and use Napier’s invention of logarithms: and he himself calculated and published a series, under the title ‘Chilias Logarithmorum,’ in 1624. Not long after the Rudolphine Tables were printed, he received permission from the Emperor Ferdinand to attach himself to the celebrated Wallenstein, a firm believer in the science of divination by the stars. In him Kepler found a more munificent patron than he had yet enjoyed; and by his influence he was appointed to a professorship at the University of Rostock, in the Duchy of Mecklenburgh. But the niggardliness of the Imperial Court, which kept him starving through life, was in some sense the cause of his death. He had claims on it to the amount of eight thousand crowns, which he took a journey to Ratisbon to enforce, but without success. Fatigue or disappointment brought on a fever which put an end to his life in November, 1630, in his 59th year. A plain stone, with a simple inscription, marked his grave in St. Peter’s church-yard, in that city. Within seventy paces of it, a marble monument has been erected to him in the Botanic Garden, by a late Bishop of Constance. He left a wife and numerous family ill provided for. His voluminous manuscripts are now deposited in the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg. Only one volume of letters, in folio, has been published from them; and out of these the chief materials for his biography have been extracted.

SIR MATTHEW HALE.

Matthew Hale was born on the 1st of November, 1609, at Alderley, a small village situated in Gloucestershire, about two miles from Wotton-under-Edge. His father, Robert Hale, was a barrister of Lincoln’s Inn, and his mother, whose maiden name was Poyntz, belonged to an ancient and respectable family which had resided for several generations at Iron Acton. Hale’s father is represented to have been a man of such scrupulous delicacy of conscience, that he abandoned his profession, because he thought that some things, of ordinary practice in the law, were inconsistent with that literal and precise observance of truth which he conceived to be the duty of a Christian. “He gave over his practice,” says Burnet, in his Life of Hale, “because he could not understand the reason of giving colour in pleadings, which, as he thought, was to tell a lie.”

Engraved by J. W. Cook.
HALE.
From an original Picture in the Library
of Lincolns Inn.
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall East.

Hale had the misfortune to lose both his parents very early in life, his mother dying before he was three years old, and his father before he had attained his fifth year. Under the direction of his father’s will he was committed to the care of a near relation, Anthony Kingscote, Esq., of Kingscote in Gloucestershire. This gentleman, being inclined to the religious doctrines and discipline of the Puritans, placed him in a school belonging to that party; and, intending to educate him for a clergyman, entered him in 1626, at Magdalen Hall in Oxford. The strictness and formality of his early education seem to have inclined him to run into the opposite extreme at the university, when he became to a certain extent his own master. He is said to have been very fond at this time of theatrical amusements, and of fencing, and other martial exercises; and giving up the design of becoming a divine, he at one time determined to pass over into the Netherlands, and to enlist as a volunteer in the army of the Prince of Orange. An accidental circumstance diverted him from this resolution. He became involved in a lawsuit with a gentleman in Gloucestershire, who laid claim to part of his paternal estate; and his guardian, being a man of retired habits, was unwilling to undertake the task of personally superintending the proceedings on his behalf. It became necessary therefore that Hale, though then only twenty years old, should leave the university and repair to London for the purpose of arranging his defence. His professional adviser on this occasion was Serjeant Glanville, a learned and distinguished lawyer; who, being struck by the clearness of his young client’s understanding, and by his peculiar aptitude of mind for the study of the law, prevailed upon him to abandon his military project, and to enter himself at one of the Inns of Court with the view of being called to the bar. He accordingly became a member of the society of Lincoln’s Inn in Michaelmas term 1629, and immediately applied himself with unusual assiduity to professional studies. At this period of his life, he is said to have read for several years at the rate of sixteen hours a day.

During his residence as a student in Lincoln’s Inn, an incident occurred which recalled a certain seriousness of demeanour, for which he had been remarkable as a boy, and gave birth to that profound piety which in after-life was a marked feature in his character. Being engaged with several other young students at a tavern in the neighbourhood of London, one of his companions drank to such excess that he fell suddenly from his chair in a kind of fit, and for some time seemed to be dead. After assisting the rest of the party to restore the young man to his senses, in which they at length succeeded, though he still remained in a state of great danger, Hale, who was deeply impressed with the circumstance, retired into another room, and falling upon his knees prayed earnestly to God that his friend’s life might be spared; and solemnly vowed that he would never again be a party to similar excess, nor encourage intemperance by drinking a health again as long as he lived. His companion recovered, and to the end of life Hale scrupulously kept his vow. This was afterwards a source of much inconvenience to him, when the reign of licentiousness commenced, upon the restoration of Charles II.; and drinking the King’s health to intoxication was considered as one of the tests of loyalty in politics, and of orthodoxy in religion.