(Tycho), a celebrated astronomer, descended of an illustrious family originally of Sweden but settled at Denmark, was born December 14th 1546, at Knudstorp in the county of Schonen. He was taught Latin when seven years old, and studied five years under private tutors. His father dying, his uncle sent him, in April 1559, to study philosophy and rhetoric to Copenhagen. The great eclipse of the sun on the 21st of August 1560, happening at the precise time the astronomers had foretold, he began to look upon astronomy as something divine; and purchasing the tables of Stadius, gained some notion of the theory of the planets. In 1562, he was sent by his uncle to Leipzig to study law; but astronomy wholly engrossed his thoughts, and in purchasing books on that science he employed all his pocket-money. Having procured a small celestial globe, he was wont to wait till his tutor was gone to bed, in order to examine the constellations and learn their names; and when the sky was clear, he spent whole nights in viewing the stars. In 1565, a difference arising between Brahe and a Danish nobleman, they fought, and the former had part of his nose cut off; which defect he so artfully supplied with one made of gold and silver, that it was not perceptible. It was about this time that he began to apply to chemistry, proposing nothing less than to obtain the philosopher's stone. In 1571, he returned to Denmark; and was favoured by his mother's brother, Steno Belle, a lover of learning, with a convenient place at his castle of Herritzvad near Knudstorp, for making his observations, and building a laboratory. His marrying a country girl, beneath his rank, occasioned such a violent quarrel between him and his relations, that the king was obliged to interpose to reconcile them. In 1574, by his majesty's command, he read lectures upon the theory of the comets at Copenhagen. The year following he began his travels through Germany, and proceeded as far as Venice: he then resolved to remove his family, and settle at Basil; but Frederic II., king of Denmark being informed of his design, and unwilling to lose a man that was capable of being such an ornament to his country, promised to enable him to pursue his studies, to settle upon him for life the island of Hven in the sound, to erect an observatory and laboratory there, and to defray all the expenses necessary for carrying on his designs. Tycho Brahe readily embraced this proposal; and accordingly the first stone of the observatory was laid August 8, 1576. The king also gave him a pension of 2000 crowns out of his treasury, a fee in Norway, and a canonry of Rothild, which brought him 1000 more. James VI. of Scotland, afterwards raised to the crown of England, going to Denmark in order to marry the princess Anne, paid a visit to our author in his retirement at Uraniaburg, made him several presents, and with his own hand wrote a copy of verses in his praise; but, soon after the death of king Frederic, he was deprived of his pension, fee, and canonry; upon which, finding himself incapable of bearing the expenses of his observatory, he went to Copenhagen, whither he brought some of his instruments, and continued his astronomical observations in that city, till Valkendorf, chamberlain to the household of Charles IV. commanded him by the king's order to discontinue them. He then removed his family to Roskock, and afterwards to Holstein, in order to solicit Henry Ranzou to introduce him to the emperor; and that gentleman complying with his request, he was received by the emperor at Prague with the utmost civility and respect. That prince gave him a magnificent house, till he could procure one for him more fit for astronomical observations; assigned him a pension of 3000 crowns; and promised, upon the first opportunity, a fee for him and his descendants: but he did not long enjoy this happy situation; for, upon the 24th of October 1601, he died of a retention of urine, in the 55th year of his age, and was interred in a very magnificent manner in the principal church at Prague, where a noble monument was erected to him.—His skill in astronomy is universally known, and he is famed for being the inventor of a new system, which he endeavoured, though without success, to establish upon the ruins of that of Copernicus. He was very credulous with regard to judicial astrology and prefages. If he met an old woman when he went out of doors, or an hare upon the road on a journey, he used to turn back immediately, being persuaded that it was a bad omen. When he lived at Uraniaburg, he had at his house a madman, whom he placed at his feet at table, and fed himself. As he imagined that everything spoken by mad persons prefigured something, he carefully observed all that this man said; and because it sometimes proved true, he imagined it might always be depended on. A mere trifle put him in a passion; and against persons of the first rank, with whom it was his duty to keep on good terms, he openly discovered his resentment. He was very apt to rally others, but highly provoked if the same liberty was taken with himself. His principal works are, 1. Prognosticae natae astronomiae. 2. De mundi aetheris recentioribus phaenomenis. 3. Epistolarum astronomiarum liber.