His funeral was most sumptuous. Rich and poor united to do honour to the memory of the great man, who had endeared himself to them by his virtues as by his genius. The crown-prince followed the coffin, and the people of Copenhagen stood in two long rows, and uncovered their heads as the coffin of the sculptor was carried past. The king himself took part in the solemnity. At the time of his decease Thorwaldsen had completed his seventy-second year.--ED. {16} Tycho de Brahe was a distinguished astronomer, who lived between 1546 and 1601. He was a native of Denmark. His whole life may be said to have been devoted to astronomy. A small work that he published when a young man brought him under the notice of the King of Denmark, with whose assistance he constructed, on the small island of Hulln, a few miles north of Copenhagen, the celebrated Observatory of Uranienburg. Here, seated in "the ancient chair" referred to in the text, and surrounded by numerous assistants, he directed for seventeen years a series of observations, that have been found extremely accurate and useful. On the death of his patron he retired to Prague in Bohemia, where he was employed by Rodolph II. then Emperor of Germany. Here he was assisted by the great Kepler, who, on Tycho's death in 1601, succeeded him.--ED. {17} The fisheries of Iceland have been very valuable, and indeed the chief source of the commerce of the country ever since it was discovered. The fish chiefly caught are cod and the tusk or cat-fish. They are exported in large quantities, cured in various ways. Since the discovery of Newfoundland, however, the fisheries of Iceland have lost much of their importance. So early as 1415, the English sent fishing vessels to the Icelandic coast, and the sailors who were on board, it would appear, behaved so badly to the natives that Henry V. had to make some compensation to the King of Denmark for their conduct. The greatest number of fishing vessels from England that ever visited Iceland was during the reign of James I., whose marriage with the sister of the Danish king might probably make England at the time the most favoured nation. It was in his time that an English pirate, "Gentleman John," as he was called, committed great ravages in Iceland, for which James had afterwards to make compensation. The chief markets for the fish are in the Catholic countries of Europe. In the seventeenth century, a great traffic in fish was carried on between Iceland and Spain.--ED.