272 HISTORY OF FORMAL ASTRONOMY. 



coverer himself. I shall, therefore, give a separate consideration to 

 this part of the subject. It may be proper, however, in the first place, 

 to make a few observations on the progress of the doctrine, indepen- 

 dently of these physical speculations. 



Sect, 2. — Diffusion of Ike Copernican Theory. 



The diffusion of the Copernican opinions in the world did not take 

 place rapidly at first. Indeed, it was necessarily some time before the 

 progress of observation and of theoretical mechanics gave the helio- 

 centric doctrine that superiority in argument, which now makes us 

 wonder that men should have hesitated when it was presented to them. 

 Yet there were some speculators of this kind, who were attracted at 

 once by the enlarged views of the universe which it opened to them. 

 Among these was the unfortunate Giordano Bruno of Nola, who was 

 burnt as a heretic at Rome in 1600. The heresies which led to his 

 unhappy fate were, however, not his astronomical opinions, but a work 

 which he published in England, and dedicated to Sir Philip Sydney, 

 under the title of Sj^accio della Bestia Trionfante, and which is under- 

 stood to contain a bitter satire of religion and the papal government. 

 Montucla conceives that, by his rashness in visiting Italy after putting 

 forth such a work, he compelled the government to act against him. 

 Bruno embraced the Copernican opinions at an early period, and con- 

 nected with them the belief in innumerable worlds besides that which 

 we inhabit; as also certain metaphysical or theological doctrines, 

 which he called the Nolan philosophy. In 1591 he published De 

 innumerabilibus, immenso, et injigurabili, seu de Universo et Mundis, 

 in which he maintains that each star is a sun, about which revolve 

 planets like our earth ; but this opinion is mixed up with a large mass 

 of baseless verbal speculations. 



Giordano Bruno is a disciple of Copernicus on whom we may look 

 with peculiar interest, since he probably had a considerable share in 

 introducing the new opinions into England ; 3 although other persons, 

 as Recorde, Field, Dee, had adopted it nearly thirty years earlier ; and 

 Thomas Digges ten years before, much more expressly. Bruno 

 visited this country in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and speaks of her 

 and of her councillors in terms of praise, which appear to show that 



3 See Burton's Anat. Mel. Pref. " Some prodigious tenet or paradox of the 

 earth's motion," &c. " Bruno," &c. 



