SEQUEL TO COPERNICUS. 273 



his book was intended for English readers ; though he describes the 

 mob which was usually to be met with in the streets of London with 

 expressions of great disgust : " Una plebe la quale in essere irrespet- 

 tevole, incivile, rozza, rustica, selvatica, et male allevata, non cede ad 

 altra che pascer possa la terra nel suo seno." 4 The work to which I 

 refer is La Cena de le Cenere, and narrates what took place at a supper 

 held on the evening of Ash Wednesday (about 1583, see p. 145 of the 

 book), at the house of Sir Fulk Greville, in order to give " II Nolano" 

 an opportunity of defending his peculiar opinions. His principal 

 antagonists are two " Dottori d' Oxonia," whom Bruno calls Nundinio 

 and Torquato. The subject is not treated in any very masterly man- 

 ner on either side ; but the author makes himself have greatly the 

 advantage not only in argument, but in temper and courtesy : and in 

 support of his representations of " pedantesca, ostinatissima ignoranza 

 et presunzione, mista con una rustica incivilita, che farebbe prevaricar 

 la pazienza di Giobbe," in his opponents, he refers to a public dispu- 

 tation which he had held at Oxford with these doctors of theology, in 

 presence of Prince Alasco, and many of the English nobility.* 



Among the evidences of the difficulties which still lay in the way 

 of the reception of the Copernican system, we may notice Bacon, who, 

 as is well known, never gave a full assent to it. It is to be observed, 

 however, that he does not reject the opinion of the earth's motion in 

 so peremptory and dogmatical a manner as he is sometimes accused 

 of doing : thus in the Thema Cceli he says, " The earth, then, being 

 supposed to be at rest (for that now appears to us the more true 

 opinion)." And in his tract On the Cause of the Tides, he says, " If 

 the tide of the sea be the extreme and diminished limit of the diurnal 

 motion of the heavens, it will follow that the earth is immovable ; or 

 at least that it moves with a much slower motion than the water." 

 In the Descriptio Globi Intellcctualis he gives his reasons for not ac- 

 cepting the heliocentric theory. " In the system of Copernicus there 

 are many and grave difficulties : for the threefold motion with which 

 he encumbers the earth is a serious inconvenience ; and the separation 

 of the sun from the planets, with which he has so many affections in 

 common, is likewise a harsh step ; and the introduction of so many 

 immovable bodies into nature, as when he makes the sun and the stars 

 immovable, the bodies which are peculiarly lucid and radiant ; and his 

 making the moon adhere to the earth in a sort of epicycle ; and some 



4 Opere dl Giordano Bruno, vol. i. p. 146. 5 Ib. vol. i. p. 179. 



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