The first planet, which occupied the particular attention of Kepler, was Mars, the long and assiduous study of whose motions conducted him at length to the discovery of those great principles called 'Kepler's Laws.' Rarely do we meet with so remarkable a union of a vivid fancy with a profound intellect. The hasty and extravagant suggestions of the former were submitted to the most laborious calculations, some of which, that were of great length, he repeated seventy times. This exuberance of fancy frequently appears in his style of writing, which occasionally assumes a tone ludicrously figurative. He seems constantly to contemplate Mars as a valiant hero, who had hitherto proved invincible, and who would often elude his own efforts to conquer him, "While thus triumphing over Mars, and preparing for him, as for one altogether vanquished, tabular prisons, and equated, eccentric fetters, it is buzzed here and there, that the victory is vain, and that the war is raging anew as violently as before. For the enemy, left at home a despised captive, has burst all the chains of the equation, and broken forth of the prisons of the tables. Skirmishes routed my forces of physical causes, and, shaking off the yoke, regained their liberty. And now, there was little to prevent the fugitive enemy from effecting a junction with his own rebellious supporters, and reducing me to despair, had I not suddenly sent into the field a reserve of new physical reasonings, on the rout and dispersion of the veterans, and diligently followed, without allowing the slightest respite, in the direction in which he had broken out." But he pursued this warfare with the planet until he gained a full conquest, by the discovery of the first two of his laws, namely, that _he revolves in an elliptical orbit_, and that _his radius vector passes over equal spaces in equal times_. Domestic troubles, however, involved him in the deepest affliction. Poverty, the loss of a promising and favorite son, the death of his wife, after a long illness;--these were some of the misfortunes that clustered around him. Although his first marriage had been an unhappy one, it was not consonant to his genius to surrender any thing with only a single trial. Accordingly, it was not long before he endeavored to repair his loss by a second alliance. He commissioned a number of his friends to look out for him, and he soon obtained a tabular list of eleven ladies, among whom his affections wavered. The progress of his courtship is thus narrated in the interesting 'Life' contained in the 'Library of Useful Knowledge.' It furnishes so fine a specimen of his eccentricities, that I cannot deny myself the pleasure of transcribing the passage for your perusal. It is taken from an account which Kepler himself gave in a letter to a friend.