CHAPTER VI.

Closing years.

Soon after its publication Kepler’s “Epitome” was placed along with the book of Copernicus, on the list of books prohibited by the Congregation of the Index at Rome, and he feared that this might prevent the publication or sale of his books in Austria also, but was told that though Galileo’s violence was getting him into trouble, there would be no difficulty in obtaining permission for learned men to read any prohibited books, and that he (Kepler) need fear nothing so long as he remained quiet.

In his various works on Comets, he adhered to the opinion that they travelled in straight lines with varying velocity.  He suggested that comets come from the remotest parts of ether, as whales and monsters from the depth of the sea, and that perhaps they are something of the nature of silkworms, and are wasted and consumed in spinning their own tails.  Napier’s invention of logarithms at once attracted Kepler’s attention.  He must have regretted that the discovery was not made early enough to save him a vast amount of labour in computations, but he managed to find time to compute some logarithm tables for himself, though he does not seem to have understood quite what Napier had done, and though with his usual honesty he gave full credit to the Scottish baron for his invention.

Though Eugenists may find a difficulty in reconciling Napier’s brilliancy with the extreme youth of his parents, they may at any rate attribute Kepler’s occasional fits of bad temper to heredity.  His cantankerous mother, Catherine Kepler, had for some years been carrying on an action for slander against a woman who had accused her of administering a poisonous potion.  Dame Kepler employed a young advocate who for reasons of his own “nursed” the case so long that after five years had elapsed without any conclusion being reached another judge was appointed, who had himself suffered from the caustic tongue of the prosecutrix, and so was already prejudiced against her.  The defendant, knowing this, turned the tables on her opponent by bringing an accusation of witchcraft against her, and Catherine Kepler was imprisoned and condemned to the torture in July, 1620.  Kepler, hearing of the sentence, hurried back from Linz, and succeeded in stopping the completion of the sentence, securing his mother’s release the following year, as it was made clear that the only support for the case against her was her own intemperate language.  Kepler returned to Linz, and his mother at once brought another action for costs and damages against her late opponent, but died before the case could be tried.

A few months before this Sir Henry Wotton, English Ambassador to Venice, visited Kepler, and finding him as usual, almost penniless, urged him to go to England, promising him a warm welcome there.  Kepler, however, would not at that time leave Germany, giving several reasons, one of which was that he dreaded the confinement of an island.  Later on he expressed his willingness to go as soon as his Rudolphine Tables were published, and lecture on them, even in England, if he could not do it in Germany, and if a good enough salary were forthcoming.