i IMPRESSIONS OF OXFORD 25 



was giving at the time, on the Immortality of the Soul 

 and on the " Five-fold Sphere." The same month he 

 returned to London, and shortly after published the 

 Cena (Ash- Wednesday Supper), in which he ridiculed The c a 

 the Oxford Doctors. Inter alia, he thought they knew 

 a good deal more of beer than of Greek. 1 The impres- 

 sion this attack produced in his London circle was 

 apparently not that which he desired, for in the following 

 dialogue, the Causa, he was much more judicious. 2 The 

 He admitted much in the university that was well 

 instituted from the beginning : " the fine arrangement 

 of studies, the gravity of the ceremonies, careful 

 ordering of the exercises, seemliness of the habits worn, 

 and many other circumstances that made for the require- 

 ments and adornment of a university ; without doubt 

 every one must admit it to be the first in Europe, and 

 consequently in all the world nay, more, " in gentle- 

 ness of spirit and acuteness of mind, such as are 

 naturally brought out in both parts of Britain, it equals 

 perhaps the most excellent of the universities. Nor is 

 it to be forgotten that before speculative philosophy 

 was taught in any other part of Europe it flourished 

 here, and through its princes in metaphysics (although 

 barbarians in speech and of the profession of the cowl) 

 the splendour of one of the noblest and rarest spheres 

 of philosophy, in our times almost extinct, was diffused 

 to all other academies in civilised countries." What 

 Bruno condemned in Oxford was the undue attention 

 it gave to language and words, to the ability to speak 

 in Ciceronian Latin and in eloquent-phrase, neglecting 

 the realities of which the words were signs. As for 

 the knowledge of Aristotle and of philosophy generally 

 that was demanded for the degree of Master or Doctor, 



1 Lag. p. 120 ff. 2 L. p. 220. 



