Kepler to Müller, 2 September 1630
Johannes Kepler, “Kepler to Müller, 2 September 1630,” Nova Kepleriana 4, September 2, 1630, 78–79, transcribed in Plain Old Text, https://sources.vjbe.net/stable/kve91.
Nova Kepleriana 4 2 Sep, 1630, p. 78–79 Summary
Part of Die Keplerbriefe auf der Nationalbibliothek und auf der Sternwarte in Paris
Kepler sends Friedrich Bartsch to see to the sale of the *Ephemerides* and defends giving Wallenstein his title as Duke of Mecklenburg in the dedication. His last letter to Müller; he died at Regensburg two months later.
Source: Johannes Kepler's letter to Philipp Müller written at Lauban on 2 September 1630, sent with Friedrich Bartsch to see to the sale of the Ephemerides, and defending the title he had given Wallenstein, as Duke of Mecklenburg, in their dedication. It is the last of Kepler's letters to Müller in the collection; Kepler died at Regensburg two months later. The original is lost; the copy is in the Bibliothèque de l'Observatoire, Paris (B, 1, 9 (89); 89, 8. L). First printed in Nova Kepleriana 4, ed. Walther von Dyck and Max Caspar, Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Math.-naturw. Abteilung 31, no. 1 (Munich, 1927), 78–79.
English translation of the letter as printed in Nova Kepleriana 4 (1927), made for Plain Old Text. Each paragraph translates the corresponding paragraph of the original.
Many greetings.
Most famous and most excellent Sir, most kindly friend.
I hope that the letter I sent to Torgau six days ago has been carried to Leipzig with the packs of copies of the Ephemerides, and handed to you. To see to them at Frankfurt (whether they have stayed at Leipzig or have already been sent on to Frankfurt) I send you the bearer, Friedrich Bartsch, my son-in-law’s brother. I beg you again and again to give him your advice, both on the entry in the catalogue and on the selling. Though it will not oblige him to depart from my orders, which he has received by word of mouth, it cannot fail to remind him of many things he might not have thought of himself. I have also given him the slenderest of travelling money, chiefly because of the present dangers of the roads. I have added a little that he is to collect from your citizen Sebastian Meyer, on a bill of exchange drawn by our citizen Paul Werner. And though there is no fear at all that this bill will let him down, yet if anything unexpected should happen, as things now stand, I beg Your Excellency to give him, when he asks, whatever the needs of the journey require, at Leipzig in ready money and at Frankfurt by exchange, since he knows nobody there as yet, and to expect repayment of what you give from me without delay. I have given him the remaining four years of the third part of the Ephemerides, with the title page, so that you may have it complete. You will excuse my patron’s titleWallenstein, Kepler's patron, was invested by the Emperor with the duchy of Mecklenburg in 1629, after its dukes were deposed for siding with Denmark. The dedication of the Ephemerides calls him Duke of Mecklenburg. for its true reasons: what the Emperor prescribes to the Electors and to the imperial chancery, what my patron professes of himself in letters, decrees and coins, what the subjects of the Princes of Mecklenburg have accepted, it was not for me to overturn. Nor was I hired to proclaim the title; but since a dedication to the Prince had to be written, it could be written only with his formal title. Nor has this title, as I used it, driven the former princes from their seats, nor will it hinder anyone’s fortune; it can be granted by way of surrogation or substitution without wrong to those who hold the prior rights; and unless the fates, provoked, rage more cruelly still, peace can grow back, with the title left to us and the province restored to its lords. I would long ago have greeted as Bishops of Magdeburg and Halberstadt first the son of the Elector of Saxony, and now the Emperor’s son,The see of Magdeburg was disputed: its chapter had chosen August, son of the Elector of Saxony, while the Emperor sought it, with Halberstadt, for his son Archduke Leopold Wilhelm. Kepler would give either claimant the title in use. had I had anything to write to them. Farewell, and if news of happy events is going cheap at Leipzig, send me some too.
Lauban, 2 September 1630.
The rest from the bearer.
Your Excellency’s
dutiful servant
J. Kepler,
Mathematician.
To the most famous and most excellent Mr
Philipp Müller, Licentiate of Medicine,
Professor of Philosophy in the renowned University of Leipzig,
my honoured friend.
Leipzig.