is a fabulous history, wife to Cepheus king of Ethiopia, and mother of Andromeda. She thought herself more beautiful than the Nereids, who defied Neptune to revenge the affront; so that he sent a sea-monster into the country, which did much harm. To appease the god, her daughter Andromeda was exposed to the monster, but was rescued by Perseus; who obtained of Jupiter, that Cassiopeia might be placed after his death among the stars: hence the constellation of that name.

astronomy, one of the constellations of the northern hemisphere, situated next to Cepheus. In 1572, there appeared a new star in this constellation, which at first surpassed in magnitude and brightness Jupiter himself; but it diminished by degrees, and at last disappeared, at the end of eighteen months. It alarmed all the astronomers of that age, many of whom wrote dissertations on it; among the rest Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Maurolycus, Lycetus, Granius, &c. Beza, the landgrave of Hesse, Rofa, &c. wrote to prove it a comet, and the fame which appeared to the Magi at the the birth of Jesus Christ, and that it came to declare his second coming; they were answered on this subject by Tycho. The stars in the constellation Cassiopeia, in Ptolemy's Catalogue, are thirteen; in Hevelius's thirty-seven; in Tycho's forty-five; but in the Britannic Catalogue, Mr Flamstead makes them fifty-five.