In such a condition of affairs it is hardly surprising to find that the great and stern Teacher congratulates the poor and has nothing but pity for the rich; that He has no interest at all in comfort or property.
The poet Marc Antonia Flaminio, for instance, congratulates himself in pretty Latin verses on her singing his poems.
This erroneous estimate was formed when he had seen the Descriptio but had not read it; and his opinion was very different when he became acquainted with the nature of logarithms. The dedication of his Ephemeris for 1620 consists of a letter to Napier dated the 28th of July 1619, and he there congratulates him warmly on his invention and on the benefit he has conferred upon astronomy generally and upon Kepler's own Rudolphine tables.
