NICOLAUS, an eminent astronomer, was born at Thorn in Prussia, Jan. 10. 1472. He was taught the Latin and Greek languages at home; and afterwards sent to Cracovia, where he studied philosophy and physic. His genius in the mean time was naturally turned to mathematics, which he pursued through all its various branches. He set out for Italy when he was 23 years of age; but staid at Bononia some time, for the sake of being with the celebrated astronomer of that place, Dominicus Maria; whose conversation, however, and company, he affected, not so much as a learner, as an assistant to him in making his observations. From thence he passed to Rome, where he was no sooner arrived than he was considered as not inferior to the famous Regiomontanus; and acquired, in short, so great a reputation, that he was chosen professor of mathematics, which he taught for a long time with great applause. He also made made some astronomical observations there about the year 1500. Returning to his own country some years after, he began to apply his vast knowledge in mathematics to correct the system of astronomy which then prevailed. He set himself to collect all the books which had been written by philosophers and astronomers, and to examine all the various hypotheses they had invented for the solution of the celestial phenomena, to try if a more symmetrical order and constitution of the parts of the world could not be discovered, and a more just and exquisite harmony in its motions established, than what the astronomers of those times so easily admitted. But of all their hypotheses none pleased him so well as the Pythagorean, which made the sun to be the centre of the system, and supposed the earth to move not only round the sun, but round its own axis also. He thought he discerned much beautiful order and proportion in this; and that all that embarrassment and perplexity from epicycles and excentrics which attended the Ptolemaic hypothesis, would here be entirely removed.

This system, then, he began to consider, and to write upon, when he was about 35 years of age. He employed himself in contemplating the phenomena carefully; in making mathematical calculations; in examining the observations of the ancients, and in making new ones of his own; and after more than 20 years chiefly spent in this manner, he brought his scheme to perfection, and established that system of the world which goes by his name, and is now universally received, (see Astronomy Index). His system, however, was then looked upon as a most dangerous heresy; for which he was thrown into prison by Pope Urban VIII. and not suffered to come out till he had recanted his opinion; that is, till he had renounced the testimony of his senses. He died the 24th of May 1543, in the 70th year of his age.

This extraordinary man had been made canon of Worms by his mother's brother, Lucas Wazelrodins, who was bishop of that place. He was not only the greatest of astronomers, but a perfect master of the Greek and Latin tongues; to all which he joined the greatest piety and innocence of manners.

The following is the account of the discoveries of Copernicus, by Dr Smith, in his Essays on Philosophical Subjects.

"The confusion (says Dr Smith) in which the old hypothesis represented the heavenly bodies, was, as Copernicus himself tells us, what first suggested to him the design of forming a new system, that these, the noblest works of nature, might no longer appear devoid of that harmony and proportion which discover themselves in her meanest productions. What most of all dissatisfied him was, the notion of the equalizing circle, which, by representing the revolutions of the celestial spheres as equable only when surveyed from a point that was different from their centres, introduced a real inequality into their motions; contrary to that most natural, and indeed fundamental idea, with which all the authors of astronomical systems, Plato, Eudoxus, Aristotle, even Hipparchus and Ptolemy themselves, had hitherto set out, that the real motions of such beautiful and divine objects must necessarily be perfectly regular, and go on in a manner as agreeable to the imagination as the objects themselves are to the senses. He began to con-

Vol. VI. Part II. Copernicus, midnight, they appear nearest the earth, are largest, and most sensible to the eye; and seem to revolve backwards in their retrograde motion. To explain these appearances, the system of Ptolemy supposed each of these planets to be at the upper part of their several epicycles in the one case, and at the lower in the other. But it afforded no satisfactory principle of connection, which could lead the mind easily to conceive how the epicycles of those planets, whose spheres were so distant from the sphere of the sun, should thus, if one may say so, keep time to his motion. The system of Copernicus afforded this easily; and like a more simple machine, without the assistances of epicycles, connected together, by fewer movements, the complex appearances of the heavens. When the superior planets appear nearly in conjunction with the sun, they are then in the side of their orbits, which is almost opposite to, and most distant from the earth, and therefore appear smallest and least sensible to the eye. But as they then revolve in a direction which is almost contrary to that of the earth, they appear to advance forward with double velocity; as a ship that sails in a contrary direction to another appears from that other to sail both with its own velocity and the velocity of that from which it is seen. On the contrary, when those planets are in opposition to the sun, they are on the same side of the sun with the earth, are nearest it, most sensible to the eye, and revolve in the same direction with it; but as their revolutions round the sun are slower than that of the earth, they are necessarily left behind it, and therefore seem to revolve backwards; as a ship which sails slower than another, though it sails in the same direction, appears from that other to sail backwards. After the same manner, by the same annual revolution of the earth, he connected together the direct and retrograde motions of the two inferior planets, as well as the stationary appearances of all the five.

Thus far did this new account of things render the appearances of the heavens more completely coherent than had been done by any of the former systems. It did this, too, by a more simple and intelligible, as well as more beautiful machinery. It represented the sun, the great enlightener of the universe, whose body was alone larger than all the planets taken together, as established immovable in the centre, shedding light and heat on all the worlds that circulated around him in one uniform direction, but in longer or shorter periods according to their different distances. It took away the diurnal revolution of the firmament, whose rapidity, upon the old hypothesis, was beyond what even thought could conceive. It not only delivered the imagination from the embarrassment of epicycles, but from the difficulty of conceiving these two opposite motions going on at the same time, which the system of Ptolemy and Aristotle bestowed upon all the planets; I mean, their diurnal westward, and periodical eastward revolutions. The earth's revolution round its own axis took away the necessity for supposing the first, and the second was easily conceived when by itself. The five planets, which seem, upon all other systems, to be objects of a species by themselves, unlike to every thing to which the imagination has been accustomed, when supposed to revolve along with the earth round the sun, were naturally apprehended to be objects of the same kind with the earth, habitable, opaque, and enlightened only by the rays of the sun. And thus this hypothesis, by classing them in Copernicus the same species of things, with an object that is of all others the most familiar to us, took off that wonder and uncertainty which the strangeness and singularity of the appearance had excited; and thus far, too, better answered the great end of philosophy.

Neither did the beauty and simplicity of this system alone recommend it to the imagination; the novelty and unexpectedness of that view of nature which it opened to the fancy, excited more wonder and surprise than the strangest of those appearances, which it had been invented to render natural and familiar, and these sentiments still more endeared it. For though it is the end of philosophy to allay that wonder which either the unusual or seemingly disjointed appearances of nature excite, yet she never triumphs so much as when, in order to connect together a few, in themselves perhaps inconsiderable objects, she has, if I may say so, created another constitution of things, more natural indeed, and such as the imagination can more easily attend to, but more new, more contrary to common opinion and expectation, than any of those appearances themselves.

As in the instance before us, in order to connect together some seeming irregularities in the motions of the planets, the most inconsiderable objects in the heavens, and of which the greater part of mankind have no occasion to take any notice during the whole course of their lives, she has, to talk in the hyperbolical language of Tycho Brahe, moved the earth from its foundations, stopt the revolution of the firmament, made the sun stand still, and subverted the whole order of the universe.

Such were the advantages of this new hypothesis, as they appeared to its author, when he first invented it. But though that love of paradox, so natural to the learned, and that pleasure which they are so apt to take in exciting, by the novelty of their supposed discoveries, the amazement of mankind, may, notwithstanding what one of his disciples tells us to the contrary, have had its weight in prompting Copernicus to adopt this system; yet when he had completed his Treatise of Revolutions, and began coolly to consider what a strange doctrine he was about to offer to the world, he so much dreaded the prejudice of mankind against it, that, by a species of continence of all others the most difficult to a philosopher, he detained it in his closet for thirty years together. At last, in the extremity of old age, he allowed it to be extorted from him, but died as soon as it was printed, and before it was published."

name of an astronomical instrument, invented by Mr Whiston, to exhibit the motion and phenomena of the planets, both primary and secondary. It is built upon the Copernican system, and for that reason called by his name.

Cophthi, Cophits, or Cofti, a name given to the Christians of Egypt, who are of the sect of Jacobites.

The critics are extremely divided about the origin and orthography of the word; some write it Cophthi, others Cophites, Cophitite, Copts, &c. Scaliger derives the name from Coptos, an anciently celebrated town of Egypt; the metropolis of the Thebaid. Kircher refutes this opinion, and maintains, that the word originally signifies "cut" and "circumscribed;" and was was given these people by the Mahometans, by way of reproach, because of their practice of circumcision: but P. Sollier, another Jesuit, refutes this opinion. Scaliger afterwards changed his opinion, and derived the word from Ἀγύπτιος, the ancient name of Egypt, by retrenching the first syllable: but this opinion, too, P. Sollier disputes. John de Leo and others say, that the Egyptians anciently called their country Elchibith, or Cibith, from Cibith their first king, whence Coptite, &c.; others say from Cobtim second king of Egypt. Vansleb derives the word Copt from Copt, son of Misraim, grandson of Noah. All these etymologies P. Sollier rejects, on this principle, that were they true, the Egyptians ought all equally to be called Copts; whereas, in effect, none but the Christians, and among those none but the Jacobites, bear the name, the Melchites not being comprehended under it. Hence he chooses to derive the word from the name Jacobite, retrenching the first syllable; whence Cobite, Cobea, Copta, and Copta.

The Copts have a patriarch who resides at Cairo, but he takes his title from Alexandria: he has no archbishop under him, but 11 or 12 bishops. The rest of the clergy, whether secular or regular, is composed of the orders of St Anthony, St Paul, and St Macarius, who have each their monasteries. Besides the orders of priests, deacons, and subdeacons, the Copts have likewise archimandrites, the dignity whereof they confer with all the prayers and ceremonies of a strict ordination. This makes a considerable difference among the priests; and besides the rank and authority it gives them with regard to the religious, it comprehends the degree and functions of archpriests. By a custom of 600 years standing, if a priest elected bishop be not already archimandrite, that dignity must be conferred on him before episcopal ordination. The second person among the clergy, after the patriarch, is the titular patriarch of Jerusalem, who also resides at Cairo, because of the few Copts at Jerusalem; he is, in effect, little more than the bishop of Cairo: only he goes to Jerusalem every Easter, and visits some other places in Palestine near Egypt, which own his jurisdiction. To him belongs the government of the Coptic church, during the vacancy of the patriarchal see.

To be elected patriarch, it is necessary the person have lived all his life in continence; it is he confers the bishoprics. To be elected bishop, the person must be in the celibate; or, if he has been married, it must not be above once. The priests and inferior ministers are allowed to be married before ordination; but are not obliged to it, as Ludolphus erroneously observes. They have a great number of deacons, and even confer the dignity frequently on children. None but the lowest rank among the people commence ecclesiastics; whence arises that excessive ignorance found among them; yet the respect of the laity towards the clergy is very extraordinary. Their office is longer than the Roman office, and never changes in anything: they have three liturgies, which they vary occasionally.

The monastic life is in great esteem among the Copts: to be admitted into it, there is always required the consent of the bishop. The religious Copts make a vow of perpetual chastity; renounce the world, and live with great austerity in deserts; they are obliged to sleep in their clothes and their girdle, on a mat stretched on the ground; and to prostrate themselves every evening 150 times, with their face and breast on the ground. They are all, both men and women, of the lowest class of the people; and live on alms. The nunneries are properly hospitals; and few enter but widows reduced to beggary.

F. Roderic reduces the errors and opinions of the Copts to the following heads: 1. That they put away their wives, and espouse others while the first are living. 2. That they have seven sacraments, viz. baptism, the eucharist, confirmation, ordination, faith, fasting, and prayer. 3. That they deny the Holy Spirit to proceed from the Son. 4. That they only allow of three ecumenical councils; those of Nice, Constantinople, and Ephesus. 5. That they only allow of one nature, will, and operation, in Jesus Christ, after the union of the humanity with the divinity. For their errors in discipline, they may be reduced, 1. To the practice of circumcising their children before baptism, which has obtained among them from the 12th century. 2. To their ordaining deacons at five years of age. 3. To their allowing of marriage in the second degree. 4. To their forbearing to eat blood; to which some add their belief of a baptism by fire, which they confer by applying a hot iron to their forehead or cheeks. — Others palliate these errors, and show that many of them are rather abuses of particular persons than doctrines of the sect. This seems to be the case with regard to their polygamy, eating of blood, marrying in the second degree, and the baptism of fire; for circumcision, it is not practised as a ceremony of religion, nor as of any divine appointment, but merely as a custom, which they derive from the Ishmaelites; and which, perhaps, may have had its origin from a view to health and decency in these hot countries.

The Copts, at different times, have made several reunions with the Latins; but always in appearance only, and under some necessity of their affairs. In the time of Pope Paul IV. a Syrian was despatched to Rome from the patriarch of Alexandria, with letters to that pope; wherein he acknowledged his authority, and promised obedience; desiring a person might be despatched to Alexandria, to treat about a reunion of his church to that of Rome; pursuant to which, Pius IV. successor to Paul, chose F. Roderic, a Jesuit, whom he dispatched in 1561, in quality of apostolical nuncio. But the Jesuit, upon a conference with two Copts deputed for that purpose by the patriarch, was made to know, that the titles of father of fathers, pastor of pastors, and master of all churches, which the patriarch had bestowed on the pope, in his letters, were no more than mere matters of civility and compliment; and that it was in this manner the patriarch used to write to his friends: they added, that since the council of Chalcedon, and the establishment of several patriarchs independent of one another, each was chief and master of his own church. This was the answer the patriarch gave the pope, after he had received a sum of money remitted to him from Rome, by the hands of the Venetian consul.