GIORDANO BEUXO AXD GALILEO GALILEI. 



115 



commemorated, stitcbed together out of his old 

 Dominican habits, and in the charitably-contrib- 

 uted hat and cloak which completed his outfit at 

 Geneva, he must have made a figure anything 

 rather than recommendatory to an honorary de- 

 gree in the eyes of the magnificent dons of that 

 day, whom he describes as follows : 



" Men arrayed in long robes, attired in velvet, 

 with hands most precious for the number of rings 

 on their fingers, which look as if they could be- 

 long only to the richest of jewelers, and with 

 manners as void of courtesy as a cowherd's." 



To these maligned magnates, however, Bruno 

 addressed a letter, through their vice-chancellor, 

 in which he announced himself as teacher of "a 

 theology more exquisite, and a philosophy more 

 refined, than any that had commonly been pro- 

 fessed or delivered." He added, in language not 

 less vainglorious, that he was " the awakener of 

 the slumbering, and the effectual tamer of stub- 

 born and presumptuous ignorance." He attained 

 his object of getting the gates of the sanctuary 

 of science on the banks of the Isis thrown open 

 to him for the delivery of a course of lectures on 

 the " Immortality of the Soul," and the " Quin- 

 tuple Sphere." His lectures had their usual suc- 

 cess of scandal, and soon had to be closed. 

 Bruno's report of Oxford students (lucus a non 

 lueendo) was not more favorable than of the Ox- 

 ford dons of his day : 



" The scholars," he says, " were idle, ignorant, 

 unmannered, undevout, occupied in no studies but 

 drinking and dueling, toasting in alehouses and 

 country inns, or graduating in the noble science of 

 defense. In short, they took their ease every- 

 where, whether in lecture-rooms or in taverns." 



The Oxford masters and scholars, whom Bru- 

 no encountered on the banks of the Isis, are con- 

 trasted with the English gentlemen he met on the 

 banks of the Thames : 



" Men loyal, frank, well-mannered, well versed 

 in liberal studies, men who may bear comparison 

 for gentilezza with the flower of the best-educated 

 Italians [of course, according to Bruno, the natives 

 of his beloved Naples], reared under the softest 

 skies, amid the most smiling scenery, and richest 

 Nature of the world." 



The ladies of England came in for their share 

 of honor from the Nolan philosopher, though not 

 for that ardent homage which had lately been 

 lavished on their gracious attractions by Eras- 

 mus. Such fervors were reserved by Bruno for 

 Copernicus, Raymond Lully, and Albertus Mag- 

 nus. Though he sometimes boasted of his bonnes 

 fortunes, as of most other things, he had not 



much of the troubadour or votary of the Court 

 of Love in his composition, and he betrayed some 

 scorn of the Tuscan poet languishing for his 

 Laura on the banks of the Sorgue. Yet he had 

 lyrical tributes for some of those English ladies, 

 " the honor of the female sex, all-compact of 

 celestial substance." By Erasmus those nymphce 

 divinis vidtibus, blandce, faciles, had been much 

 more warmly extolled, especially for a fashion 

 now only observed on extraordinary and solemn 

 occasions, or under the mistletoe. 



" Always and everywhere," wrote Erasmus, 

 " they receive you with kisses. They kiss you 

 when you meet them, w : hen you part with them, 

 when you return. If you come back, the sweet 

 kisses begin again ; if they leave you, there is a 

 fresh distribution of kisses. Whichever way you 

 turn, you will find everything embellished by their 

 tender commerce. Faustus, if you had once 

 tasted the delicate perfume of their presence, you 

 would wish to travel— I do not say ten years, as 

 Solon did — but all your life, and to travel always 

 in England ! " 



Bruno's " Wanderjahre " may be said to 

 have comprised all the years of his active life — 

 if a life can be called active which was passed 

 wholly in talking and writing — in teaching Ray- 

 mond Lully's boasted science of discoursing on 

 all subjects without having studied any. It was 

 the science of the old Athenian sophists all over 

 again. Such a situation, with his natural inde- 

 pendence of spirit and fiery temper, threw him 

 only too frequently on the dire necessities of 

 quackery. He had to hlow his own' trumpet 

 wherever he went, mysteriously to adumbrate ar- 

 cana to be more fully imparted only to the ini- 

 tiated, and to start paradoxes chiefly aimed at 

 astonishing the ears of the groundlings. The 

 worst fate that could have befallen his paradoxes 

 would have been to have scandalized nobody. 

 " What did the learned world say to your para- 

 doxes ? " asked the Vicar of Wakefield of George 

 Primrose. " Sir, the learned world said nothing 

 to my paradoxes — nothing at all, sir ! " The 

 learned world were less unkind to Giordano Bru- 

 no. The university world especially said a good 

 deal to his paradoxes, though not much to their 

 advantage. Wherever he lectured, or wherever 

 he challenged disputations, he could always boast 

 at least of a success of scandal. He made suc- 

 cessively Geneva, Paris, London, Oxford, Wit- 

 temberg, Helmstadt, Prague, Padua, and Yenice, 

 too hot to hold him. 



Poor Giordano courted the favor of certainly 

 a curious succession of patrons : Henry III. of 



