26 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



Bruno suggests an evasion that probably had its origin 

 in the undergraduate wit of the time. The statute 

 read "nisi potaverit e fonte AristoteUs" but there were 

 three springs in the town, the Fons Aristotelis, Fons 

 Pythagorae^ Fons Platonis, and " as the water for the 

 beer and cider was taken from these springs, one could 

 not be three days in Oxford without imbibing not 

 merely of the spring of Aristotle, but of those of 

 Pythagoras and of Plato as well." Doctors were 

 easily created and doctorates easily bought. There 

 were of course exceptions, men renowned for eloquence 

 and doctrine like Tobias Matthew 1 and Culpepper, 2 

 but as a rule the nobility and best men generally 

 refused to avail themselves of the " honour," and pre- 

 ferred the substance of learning to its shadow. 



VI 



It was after his return from Oxford that the pleasant 

 London, and busy life in London literary society began the 

 period of Bruno's greatest productiveness. In the 

 house of the enlightened and cultured Mauvissiere he 

 found, for the first time since leaving Nola, a home. 3 

 Bruno's position in London has given rise to great 

 difference of opinion ; none of the ordinary contem- 

 porary records make mention of him, or the slightest 

 allusion to his presence in England. At his trial he 

 professed to have brought letters to the French 

 Ambassador from the King of France, to have stayed 

 at the house of the former continuously, to have gone 



1 1546-1628. Studied at University College $ President of St. John's, 1572-7$ 

 Dean of Christ Church (to 1584); afterwards Archbishop of York: "One of a 

 proper person (such people, ceteris paribus and sometimes ceteris imfaribus, were preferred 

 by the Queen) and an excellent preacher " (Fuller, quoted in the Diet. Nat. Biog.} 



2 Warden of New, 1573-99 ; Dean of Chichester, 1577. 

 5 Vide Trig. Sigilli, Dedication. 



