It is interesting for us to note that at one time there was a
proposal that Kepler should forsake his native country and adopt
England as a home. It arose in this wise. The great man was
distressed throughout the greater part of his life by pecuniary
anxieties. Finding him in a strait of this description, the English
ambassador in Venice, Sir Henry Wotton, in the year 1620, besought
Kepler to come over to England, where he assured him that he would
obtain a favourable reception, and where, he was able to add,
Kepler's great scientific work was already highly esteemed. But his
efforts were unavailing; Kepler would not leave his own country. He
was then forty-nine years of age, and doubtless a home in a foreign
land, where people spoke a strange tongue, had not sufficient
attraction for him, even when accompanied with the substantial
inducements which the ambassador was able to offer. Had Kepler
accepted this invitation, he would, in transferring his home to
England, have anticipated the similar change which took place in the
career of another great astronomer two centuries later. It will be
remembered that Herschel, in his younger days, did transfer himself
to England, and thus gave to England the imperishable fame of
association with his triumphs.
The publication of the Rudolphine tables of the celestial movements
entailed much expense. A considerable part of this was defrayed by
the Government at Venice but the balance occasioned no little trouble
and anxiety to Kepler. No doubt the authorities of those days were
even less willing to spend money on scientific matters than are the
Governments of more recent times. For several years the imperial
Treasury was importuned to relieve him from his anxieties. The
effects of so much worry, and of the long journeys which were
involved, at last broke down Kepler's health completely. As we have
already mentioned, he had never been strong from infancy, and he
finally succumbed to a fever in November, 1630, at the age of
fifty-nine. He was interred at St. Peter's Church at Ratisbon.
Though Kepler had not those personal characteristics which have made
his great predecessor, Tycho Brahe, such a romantic figure, yet a
picturesque element in Kepler's character is not wanting. It was,
however, of an intellectual kind. His imagination, as well as his
reasoning faculties, always worked together. He was incessantly
prompted by the most extraordinary speculations. The great majority
of them were in a high degree wild and chimerical, but every now and
then one of his fancies struck right to the heart of nature, and an
immortal truth was brought to light.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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