History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 03Carlyle, Thomas
History
History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 03
Carlyle, Thomas
Frederick II, King of Prussia, 1712-1786; Prussia (Germany) -- History -- Frederick II, 1740-1786; Social problems
This brief Bohemian Kingship had not yet exploded on the Weissenberg
of Prag, [Battle there, Sunday 8th November, 1620.] when old Sir Henry
Wotton being sent as Ambassador "to LIE abroad" (as he wittily called
it, to his cost) in that Business, saw, in the City of Lintz in the
picturesque green country by the shores of the Donau there, an ingenious
person, who is now recognizable as one of the remarkablest of mankind,
Mr. John Kepler, namely: Keplar as Wotton writes him; addressing the
great Lord Bacon (unhappily without strict date of any kind) on that
among other subjects. Mr. John's now ever-memorable watching of those
_ Motions of the Star Mars,_ [_De Motibus Stellae Martis;_ Prag, 1609.]
with "calculations repeated seventy times," and also with Discovery of
the Planetary Laws of this Universe, some, ten years ago, appears to be
unknown to Wotton and Bacon; but there is something else of Mr. John's
devising [It seems, Baptista Porta (of Naples, dead some years before)
must have given him the essential hint,--of whom, or whose hint,
Mr. John does not happen to inform his Excellency at present.] which
deserves attention from an Instaurator of Philosophy:--
"He hath a little black Tent (of what stuff is not much importing),"
says the Ambassador, "which he can suddenly set up where he will in
a Field; and it is convertible (like a windmill) to all quarters at
pleasure; capable of not much more than one man, as I conceive, and
perhaps at no great ease; exactly close and dark,--save at one hole,
about an inch and a half in the diameter, to which he applies a long
perspective Trunk, with the convex glass fitted to the said hole, and
the concave taken out at the other end, which extendeth to about the
middle of this erected Tent: through which the visible radiations of
all the Objects without are intromitted, falling upon a Paper, which
is accommodated to receive them; and so he traceth them with his pen in
their natural appearance; turning his little Tent round by degrees, till
he hath designed the whole Aspect of the Field." [_Reliqui Wottonianae,_
(london 1672), p. 300.]--In fact he hath a CAMERA OBSCURA, and is
exhibiting the same for the delectation of Imperial gentlemen lounging
that way. Mr. John invents such toys, writes almanacs, practises
medicine, for good reasons; his encouragement from the Holy Roman Empire
and mankind being only a pension of 18 pounds a year, and that hardly
ever paid. An ingenious person, truly, if there ever was one among
Adam's Posterity. Just turned of fifty and ill off for cash. This
glimpse of him, in his little black tent with perspective glasses, while
the Thirty-Years War blazes out, is welcome as a date.
WHAT BECAME OF THE CLEVE-JULICH HERITAGE, AND OF THE PREUSSEN ONE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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