In April 1559, about three years after his father's death, Tycho was sent to the University of Copenhagen, to study rhetoric and philosophy, with the view of preparing for the study of the law, and qualifying himself for some of those political offices which his rank entitled him to expect. In this situation he contracted no fondness for any particular study; but after he had been sixteen months at college, an event occurred which directed all the powers of his mind to the science of astronomy. The attention of the public had been long fixed on a great eclipse of the sun, which was to happen on the 21st August 1560; and as in those days a phenomenon of this kind was linked with the destinies of nations as well as of individuals, the interest which it excited was as intense as it was general. Tycho watched its arrival with peculiar anxiety. He read the astrological diaries of the day, in which its phases and its consequences were described; and when he saw the sun darkened at the very moment that had been predicted, and to the very extent that had been delineated, he resolved to make himself master of a science which was capable of predicting future events, and especially that branch of it which connected these events with the fortunes and destinies of man. With this view he purchased the _Tabulae Bergenses_, calculated by John Stadius, and began with ardour the study of the planetary motions. When Tycho had completed his course at Copenhagen, he was sent, in February 1562, under the charge of a tutor to study jurisprudence at Leipsic. Astronomy, however, engrossed all his thoughts; and he had no sooner escaped from the daily surveillance of his master, than he rushed with headlong impetuosity into his favourite pursuits. With his pocket money he purchased astronomical books, which he read in secret; and by means of a celestial globe, the size of his fist, he made himself acquainted with the stars, and followed them night after night through the heavens, when sleep had lulled the vigilance of his preceptor. By means of the Ephemerides of Stadius, he learned to distinguish the planets, and to trace them through their direct and retrograde movements; and having obtained the Alphonsine and Prutenic Tables, and compared his own calculations and observations with those of Stadius, he observed great differences in the results, and from that moment he seems to have conceived the design of devoting his life to the accurate construction of tables, which he justly regarded as the basis of astronomy.