NICHOLAS COPERNICUS 123 philosophy, mathematics, and medicine. Mathematics formed his favorite pur- suit, and by the thorough acquisition of its principles and modes of reasoning he laid the basis of his subsequent eminence. But he took a degree as doctor of medicine ; and according to the comprehensive methods of culture which ob- tained in those days, he paid attention to painting, and made some proficiency as an artist. Scholars were at that period accustomed to travel, and Copernicus proceeded from Cracow to Bologna ; and in that city of feudal palaces and towers he would find a school of painting to cultivate his artistic taste, as well as a uni- versity where he could study astronomy. There he entered upon divers calcu- lations connected with the position of the earth and the plan of the heavenly bodies. Then proceeding to Rome, he became there a mathematical professor, and won vast renown. Soon after the commencement of the sixteenth century he returned to the banks of the Vistula, and having been ordained to the priest- hood, had a canonry at Frauenburg, on the Frische-Haff, bestowed upon him by his uncle. The cathedral is described as a handsome building of brick, erected in 1342, in an elevated part of the town, overlooking the flat sandbanks of the Elbing, as it flows on its way to the Baltic. In connection with his canonry, Copernicus had some contention about his official rights, the nature of which does not appear. All we know is that he settled down in that quiet, out-of-the- way corner of the world, heedless of worldly ambition and indifferent to eccle- siastical honors and emoluments. He was no sceptic, no free-thinker, nor do we find him taking a part in the theological controversies of his age. No mention is made of what he thought and did in relation to the grand quarrel between Luther and Leo, or the Diet of Worms, or the burning of the bull at the gates of Wittenberg, or the other stirring events of the Reformation ; only we know he remained a Catholic, a quiet, self-contained, thoughtful, devout man, childlike in his religion, trustful in his piety, and exemplary in the discharge of clerical duties. We can picture him going through the usual routine of canonical ser- vices in Frauenburg Cathedral, full of faith and prayer. With this vocation he coupled medical practice. He turned to good charitable account that profi- ciency in the healing art which he had acquired at Cracow, and visited the sick and the poor, bringing upon himself the blessing of those who were ready to perish. But the nature of his intellect, sharpened by studies at Bologna and Rome, gave him special advantages in the pursuit of astronomical knowledge ; and as he had a decided taste in that direction, what time he could spare from the cathedral and the treatment of the sick he devoted to the study of the heavens. " He went very little into the world ; he considered all conversation as fruitless except that of a serious and learned cast, so that he formed no intimacies except with grave and learned men." Alone at midnight he would watch the stars; in his study with his books he would inquire of the ancients ; and then the pro- found thoughts passing through his mind he would exchange with the "grave and reverend seigniors " of his acquaintance. The Ptolemaic hypothesis of the universe was then in fashion. It was sup- posed that the earth was the centre of celestial motions, that the sun, the moon,
