"Among the extravagant pretensions of the alchemists, that of forming a universal medicine was, perhaps, not the most irrational. It was only when they pretended to cure every disease, and to confer longevity, that they did violence to reason. The success of the Arabian physicians in the use of mercurial preparations naturally led to the belief that other medicines, still more general in their application, and efficacious in their healing powers, might yet be brought to light; and we have no doubt that many substantial discoveries were the result of such overstrained expectations. Tycho was not merely a believer in the medical dogmas of the alchemists, he was actually the discoverer of a new elixir, which went by his name, and which was sold in every apothecary's shop as a specific against the epidemic diseases which were then ravaging Germany. The Emperor Rudolph having heard of this celebrated medicine, obtained a small portion of it from Tycho by the hands of the Governor of Brandisium; but, not satisfied with the gift, he seems to have applied to Tycho for an account of the method of preparing it. Tycho accordingly addressed to the Emperor a long letter, dated September 7, 1599, containing a minute account of the process. The base of this remarkable medicine is Venetian treacle, which undergoes an infinity of chemical operations and admixtures before it is ready for the patient. When properly prepared, he assures the Emperor that is better than gold, and that it may be made still more valuable by mixing with it a single scruple either of the tincture of corals, or sapphire, or hyacinth; or a solution of pearls, or of potable gold, if it can be obtained free of all corrosive matter! In order to render the medicine universal for all diseases which can be cured by perspiration, and which, he says, form a third of those which attack the human frame, he combines it with antimony, a well-known sudorific in the present practice of physic. Tycho concludes his letter by humbly beseeching the Emperor to keep the process secret, and reserve the medicine for himself alone! The same disposition of mind which made Tycho an astrologer and an alchemist inspired him with a singular love of the marvellous. He had various automata with which he delighted to astonish the peasants; and, by means of invisible bells, which communicated with every part of the establishment, and which rung with the gentlest touch, he had great pleasure in bringing any of his pupils suddenly before strangers, muttering at a particular time the words, Come hither, Peter,' as if he had commanded their presence by some supernatural agency. If, on leaving home, he met with an old woman or a hare, he returned immediately to his house. But the most extraordinery of all his peculiarities remains to be noticed. When he lived at Uraniburg, he maintained an idiot of the name of Lep, who lay at his feet whenever he sat down to dinner, and whom he fed with his own hand. Persuaded that his mind, when moved, was capable of foretelling future events, Tycho carefully marked everything he said. Lest it should be supposed that this was done to no purpose, Longomontanus relates, that when any person in the island was sick, Lep never, when interrogated, failed to predict whether the patient would live or die. It is stated, also in the letters of Wormius, both to Gassendi and Peyter, that when Tycho was absent, and his pupils became very noisy and merry in consequence of not expecting him soon home, the idiot, who was present, exclaimed, Juncher xaa laudit,--Your master has arrived.' On another occasion, when Tycho had sent two of his pupils to Copenhagen on business, and had fixed the day of their return, Lep surprised him on that day while he was at dinner, by exclaiming, Behold, your pupils are bathing in the sea!' Tycho, suspecting that they were shipwrecked, sent some person to the observatory to look for their boat. The messenger brought back word that he saw some persons wet on shore, and in distress, with a boat upset at a great distance. These stories have been given by Gassendi, and may be viewed as specimens of the superstition of the age." We have already seen how justly, and with what discrimination Sir David Brewster disposes of the bearings of the question between Galileo and the Church. His defence of the alchemists is not less fair and enlightened. We must quote his words:- "The conduct of the scientific alchemists of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries presents a problem of very difficult solution. When we consider that a gas, a fluid, and a solid may consist of the very same ingredients in different proportions; that a virulent poison may differ from the most wholesome food only in the difference of quantity of the very same elements; that gold and silver, and lead and mercury, and indeed all the metals, may be extracted from transparent crystals, which scarcely differ in their appearance from a piece of common salt or a bit of sugar-candy: and that diamond is nothing more than charcoal, we need not greatly wonder at the extravagant expectation that the precious metals and the noblest gems might be procured from the basest materials. These expectations, too, must have been often excited by the startling results of their daily experi ments. The most ignorant compounder of simples could not fail to witness. the magical transformation of chemical action; and every new product must have added to the probability that the tempting doublets of gold and silver might be thrown from the dice-box with which he was gambling. But when the precious metals were found in lead and copper by the action of powerful reagents, it was natural to suppose that they had been actually formed during the process; and men of well-regulated minds even might have thus been led to embark in new adventures to procure a more copious supply, without any insult to sober reason, or any injury inflicted on sound morality. "When an ardent and ambitious mind is once dazzled with the fascination of some lofty pursuit, where gold is the object or fame the impulse, it is difficult to pause in a doubtful career, and to make a voluntary shipwreck of the reputation which has been staked. Hope still cheers the aspirant from failure to failure, till the loss of fortune and the decay of credit disturb the serenity of his mind, and hurry him on to the last resource of baffled ingenuity and disappointed ambition. The philosopher thus becomes an impostor; and by the pretended transmutation of the baser metals into gold, or the discovery of the philosopher's stone, he attempts to sustain his sinking republic and recover the fortune he has lost. The communication of the great secret is now the staple commodity with which he is to barter, and the grand talisman with which he is to conjure. It can be imparted only to a chosen few-to those among the opulent who merit it by their virtues, and can acquire it by their diligence; and the Divine vengeance is threatened against its disclosure." It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that from many a vain pursuit, and reliance upon pure dreams, have resulted valuable discoveries, but which were neither expected nor sought after. Kepler now demands a portion of our space, who while filling one of the most honourable situations to which a philosopher can aspire, and possessing a large salary, although irregularly paid, on account of the imperial treasury being drained by the demands of an expensive war, was constantly involved in pecuniary difficulties. It is humiliating to think of him feeling obliged not merely to abandon in part his higher pursuits, but begging his bread from the Emperor, and even casting nativities. Still, nothing could extinguish his scientific ardour, and "whenever he directed his vigorous mind to the investigation of phenomena, he never failed to obtain interesting and original results." At one period England had some hopes of possessing and supporting him; but whether the treasure would have been duly honoured and properly treated admits of doubt. Sir David is bitter on the subject of our country's patronage and encouragement of philosophers. We copy out his words: "In the year 1620, Sir Henry Wotton, the English ambassador at Venice, paid a visit to Kepler on his way through Germany. It does not appear whether or not this visit was paid at the desire of James I., to whom Kepler had dedicated one of his works, but from the nature of the communication which was made to him by the ambassador, there are strong reasons to think that this was the case. Sir Henry Wotton urged Kepler to take up his residence in England, where he could assure him of a welcome and an honourable reception; but, notwithstanding the pecuniary difficulties in which he was then involved, he did not accept of the invitation. In referring to this offer in one of his letters, written a year after it was made, he thus balances the difficulties of the question-' The fires of civil war,' says he, are raging in Germany. Shall I then cross the sea whither Wotton invites me? I, a German, a lover of firm land, who dread the confinement of an island, who presage its dangers, and must drag along with me my little wife and flock of children?' As Kepler seems to have entertained no doubt of his being well provided for in England, it is the more probable that the British sovereign had made him a distant offer through his ambassador. A welcome and an honourable reception, in the ordinary sense of these terms, could not have supplied the wants of a starving astronomer, who was called upon to renounce a large though an ill-paid salary in his native land; and Kepler had experienced too deeply the faithfulness of royal pledges to trust his fortune to so vague an assurance as that which is implied in the language of the English ambassador. During the two centuries which have elapsed since this invitation was given to Kepler, there has been no reign during which the most illustrious foreigner could hope for pecuniary support, either from the sovereign or the government of England. What English science has never been able to command for her indigenous talent, was not likely to be proffered to foreign merit. The generous hearts of individual Englishmen, indeed, are always open to the claims of intellectual pre-eminence, and ever ready to welcome the stranger whom it adorns; but through the frozen life-blood of a British minister such sympathies have seldom vibrated; and, amid the struggles of faction and the anxieties of personal and family ambition, he has turned a deaf ear to the demands of Genius, whether she appeared in the humble posture of a suppliant, or in the prouder attitude of a national benefactor. If the imperial mathematician, therefore, had no other assurance of a comfortable home in England than that of Sir Henry Wotton, he acted a wise part in distrusting it; and we rejoice that the sacred name of Kepler was thus withheld from the long list of distinguished characters whom England has starved and dishonoured." Leisure, however, according to Sir David's own statement in another part of the volume, is what the philosopher most requires; therefore the means of commanding this invaluable boon should rather be considered by governments and prime ministers, than the bestowing of ribands, stars, or titles. We conclude with the biographer's summary of Kepler's character: "When Kepler directed his mind to the discovery of a general principle, he set distinctly before him, and never once lost sight of, the explicit object of his search. His imagination, now unreined, indulged itself in the creation. and invention of various hypotheses. The most plausible, or perhaps the most fascinating, of these was then submitted to a rigorous scrutiny; and the moment it was found to be incompatible with the results of observation and experiment, it was willingly abandoned, and another hypothesis submitted to the same severe ordeal. By thus gradually excluding erroneous views and assumptions, Kepler not only made a decided approximation to the object of his pursuit, but in the trials to which his opinions were submitted, and in the observations or experiments which they called forth, he discovered new facts and arrived at new views which directed his subsequent inquiries. By pursuing this method, he succeeded in his most difficult researches, and discovered those beautiful and profound laws which have been the admiration of succeeding ages. In tracing the route which he followed, it is easy for those who live under the light of modern science to say that his fancies were often wild, and his labour often wasted; but, in judging of Kepler's methods, we ought to place ourselves in his times, and invest ourselves with the opinions and the knowledge of his contemporaries. In the infancy of a science there is no speculation so absurd as not to merit examination. The most remote and fanciful explanations of facts have often been found the true ones; and opinions which have in one century been objects of ridicule, have in the next been admitted among the elements of our knowledge. The physical world teems with wonders, and the various forms of matter exhibit to us properties and relations far more extraordinary than the wildest fancy could have conceived. Human reason stands appalled before this magnificent display of creative power, and they who drunk deepest of its wisdom will be the least disposed to limit the excursions of physical speculation. The influence of the imagination as an instrument of research has, we think, been much overlooked by those who have ventured to give laws to philosophy. This faculty is of the greatest value in physical inquiries. If we use it as a guide, and confide in its indications, it will infallibly deceive us; but if we employ it as an auxiliary, it will afford us the most invaluable aid. Its operation is like that of the light troops which are sent out to ascertain the strength and position of an enemy: when the struggle commences, their services terminate; and it is by the solid phalanx of the judgment that the battle must be fought and won." It cannot fail to strike the most careless or least scientific reader that the biographer is perfectly master of his subjects, and armed at all points to bestow upon them adequate and appropriate illustration. Sir David is quite at home with them, and possesses all the powers of mind, and all the sympathies of heart as well as the abounding information, necessary to a genuine and genial work of the present class. ART. XIV. 1. Vivia Perpetua: a Dramatic Poem. In Five Acts. FLOWER ADAMS. London: Fox. 1841. By SARAH 2. Ethelstan; or the Battle of Brunanburh, A Dramatic Chronicle. In Five Acts. By GEORGE DARLEY. London: Moxon. 1841. 3. The Hungarian Daughter. A Dramatic Poem. By GEORGE STEVENS. London: Mitchell. 1841. We have more than once entered at considerable length upon the subject of restriction and monopoly established by the theatrical system of patents and of management, which has operated most disastrously as respects the interests of the British drama. It is as impossible, however, to quench for the present or for the future all dramatic talent and susceptibilities by blind, perverse, and partial treatment of authors and of actors, as the attempt would be futile to destroy a relish for Shakspeare, by shutting up for ever Old Drury and Covent Garden; or by passing a law that he should for ever be banished from the stage. But while the absurd and exceedingly foolish order of things to which we allude cannot change human nature nor extinguish genius, it may drive the spirit of man into other channels, and to seek glorious exercise and triumphant delights in fields in some degree distinct from their legitimate kingdom, or where they ought to reign and to abide. Writers whose dramatic impulses are genuine and irrepressible; or who feel that they have a vocation in the dramatic sphere, when finding |