178 THE WORLD MACHINE 



himself; he looks upon the firmament of stars and proclaims 

 them suns. Marvellous prevision that another scant half- 

 century will confirm! 



Bruno was not an astronomer ; he was a poet and a meta- 

 physician, and perforce of these something of a mystic. So 

 far as demonstration or proof go he contributed little to the 

 establishment of the new theories. Still, in a worldly way his 

 influence must have been wide. He became a sort of evangelist 

 of the larger light. 



It is evident that in the face of such a philosophy as he had 

 evolved, the oriental fictions which then served the world for 

 faith could hardly keep their hold. At barely twenty he is 

 summoned under accusations of heresy. There must have been 

 a deal of it abroad, for friendly tapers lit him by night from 

 monastery to monastery until, after three years' wandering, 

 the borders of Italy are reached and he is free. He tarries for 

 a little at Geneva ; but it is only twenty-six years since the 

 hand of Calvin had given over the philosopher Servetus to be 

 burned. He goes to Toulouse, famous for its university ; then 

 to Paris. There he becomes a high favourite of the astrology- 

 loving Henri III. A special chair is created for him at the 

 university, because as a heretic he may not say the mass ; his 

 eloquence attracts great audiences. A little later he goes to 

 England in the suite of the French ambassador. He must have 

 been fascinating in conversation ; Elizabeth was among those 

 who felt his charm. He is incidentally a maker of plays ; 

 Shakespeare, impartially appropriating everything in sight, as 

 was his wont, revamps several of them as his own. 



Bruno's stay in England was the happiest, as it was the most 

 fruitful, of his wandering life. He is holding public disputations 

 at Oxford, going about among the homes of the titled and the 

 enlightened. London was then hardly larger than, let us say, 

 Brighton or Omaha. Here he may readily have met Bacon, 

 Shakespeare, Ben Jonson. It may have been his influence which 

 made Gilbert a Coppernican. Bruno was then near thirty- 

 five, and in the plenitude of his powers. It was there that he 

 perfected his philosophy, developed his ideas. It was there 

 that he turned from academic Latin to express his ideas in a 

 language understanded of the people. With Montaigne he is 

 the first of the moderns to deal with philosophical and scientific 

 questions in the common speech of the people, as did the 



