'GIORDANO BRUNO.*
Tan thinking world invariably repents its false judgments. The men of whom the world was not worthy come by their own at last—. and something more. Giordano Bruno is certainly a ease in-Point. His contemporaries recognized his importance sufficiently to burn him, not sufficiently to be influenced by him. Upon "the herd," whom he despised, he had no effect in his lifetime and has had none since; but Spinoza owed a very great deal to him, and, as Bruno's latest biographer says, it is no small thing to have laid Spinoza under an obligation. Mr. William Boulting has just brought ont a charming Life of the Neapolitan victim of the Inquisition, who died not for one creed or another, but simply for intellectual liberty. To.day a large body of religious and philosophic men, who stand outside the doors of Rome, yet on the threshold of the Roman Catholic Church, may look to him as their spiritual father. A true cosmopolitan, he wandered over Europe for sixteen years, and then came to anchor in prison. The Inquisition considered his case for eight years, and sentenced hint to death at the end of them. Born at Nola, near Naples, in 1548, he entered, while still a boy, the Dominican Order who, by their insistence upon intellectual submission and their services to the Inquisition, weat known as "The Hounds of the Lord"—Domini cants. Here he read all the books in the monastic library, and began in his eighteenth year to doubt the received doctrine of the Trinity. All monks impregnated by the new thought were accustomed to "wear the mask," and without doubt Giordano played the fox with these "Bounds." He became a priest at the ago of twenty-four, I y which time his intellectual brilliance woull seem to have get wind. The Pope sent for him to Rome to explain a treatise he had written on the art of memorizing ; and, having once sot out on his travels, Bruno was loth to return. A full priest now, be was under no authority as to his reading. lie left the beaten track of the Aristotelian philosophy and sought truth as a free-lance, giving
mental adherence to no school of thought. He got hold of the proscribed writings of Copernicus, studied the Spanish heretic) Lully, followed in the footsteps of the Neo-Platonists, delighted in the Arabian thinkers of the tenth and eleventh centuries, and finally discarded his monkish habit and travelled as a learned Professor, giving lectures
In the capitals and Universities of Europe. For some time he maintained himself in Geneva by correcting proofs, but he soon got into trouble with the religious authorities by openly criticizing the theologians in tho Protestant city. He pointed out no loss than twenty mistakes in one man's thesis, and was severely reprimanded by the Council. He was not a man who easily refrained his tongue, and he was a master of satire. "Ignorance," ho said, "is the finest science in the world, because it is acquired without labour and pains, and keeps the mind free from melancholy." It is not wonderful that he was not very well looked on by the conservatives of the period. He did not care greatly for his fellow-men, though ho seems to have had some great friends. There was a good deal of the don about him. Ho was, he says, "cheery when sad and sad in cheer," "an academician of no academy," and sometimes he alludes to himself as "the man with his stomach turned." The Protestants never persecuted hies. Alike in Geneva, Wittenberg, and England he enjoyed peace and a measure of intellectual liberty, but he had little sympathy, all the same, with the Reformation. He says that he had always regarded the Reformers as more ignorant than himself. He disliked the Lutheran insistence on faith to the disparagement of works, he deplored tho cleaving in two of Christendom, and he deprecated the appeal made by Protestantism to the minds of the common people. Such should, he thought, be left to hold literally the dogmas which their intellectual bettors could only accept in a metaphysical sense. In fact, simple people, who could net think, should be loft to believe, but for thinkers he deprecated all doctrines which "disturb human calm and the peace of ages, put out the light of the mind, and avail not in morals." He disliked fools immensely, but he could bo kind to them. An amusing story is told by his biographer of how upon one occasion he reconciled to his superiors a poor monk who had bean banished from his convent as a punishment for believing himself to have the gift of tongues. He restored him to their arms, ho tells us, "the same ass that he was before."
Pride could hardly neglect so brilliant a man. Henry HI. had heard of his books on memory, took lessons of him, and gave him an extraordinary lectureship and a small salary. But Bruno liked to remain nowhere. All skies wore alike to him, for he was a child, as he boasted, of the sun and the earth. He "chiefly yearned for the man whose converse is peaceful, human, true, and profitable "—wherever he might be found. We next hear of him in England, living in London in the house of the French Ambassador "as his gentleman." Hero he saw something of Elizabeth's Court, and renewed an acquaintance with Sir Philip Sidney begun in Italy. Part of his duties was to teach the Ambassador's two little daughters, the youngest of whom, a child of six, he seems almost to have worshipped. His impressions of England are surprising. Ho found our climate the pleasantest in the world. English pasturage and its "flowery ground" formed, he thought, the most beautiful scene ho could imagine. The highly born and learned Englishman he respected, but the common folk he detested and believed the most uncouth in Europe. "The traders and serving-mon " to be found in London disgusted his Italian taste :— "The former, smelling out somehow that you come from abroad, twist their faces at you, jeer, snigger; make disgusting noiseo, and call you dog, traitor, and foreigner, which last is the vilest epithet they can bestow and implies that you are fair game for the worst treatment conceivable ; it matters not whether you be young or old, a noble or gentleman, wearing a robe or bearing arms. Should you, finding yourself in a fix, repel one of thorn or put your hand on your sword, you Khali straightway see them come surging out of their shops and filling the whole street, and you find yourself surrounded by a mob of rowdies who have sprung up more quickly than did the warriors, fabled by the poets, when Jason sowed the dragons' teeth. It would scorn as if earth disgorged them ; but, in fact, they come from the shops, and present a highly dignified and civilised array of long-staves, halberds, partizans and rusty forks which, for whatever worthy purpose the Sovereign may have granted thorn, are always held in readiness for this and the like opportunities. They shall fall on you with outlandish fury, not reflecting on whom, why, wherefore, or hew; there is no deliberation ; each discharges himself of his natural contempt for the stranger ; and, if he be not impeded by the very press of folk, all bent on the same purpose, you shall have the measure of your doublet taken by fist or rod, and, if you be not wary, you shall have your hat staved in. All this even if you be accompanied by some person of means or quality —lot him be count or duke, it shall be to his damage and not to your profit—for, in a herd, these folk are no respecters of rank ; and, however he may disapprove, he must stand aside, look on, and await the finish."
" Serving-men " seemed to him to come from all classes in the community, and to form a class made up of the worst from all : "needy gentlemen, bankrupt merchants, broken-down students, runaway soldiers and sailors, as well as gaol-birds and wastrels who are wont to hang about the Exchange and St. Paul's for hire." Among his reminiscences of London occurs a curious description of a City dinner. He draws a vitriolic portrait of a follow-guest :— "He admired the gold chain round his neck, and then glanced at the Nolan's breast, share the loss of button wore more likely to ho found. Then lie sat bolt upright, took his elbows off the table, shook himself a little, gave a short snort, adjusted his velvet cap, twirled his moustache, made his scented face assume a due expression, arched his eyebrows, distendedhis nostrils, east a glance backward, set himself in order, struck an attitude—left hand to left side, as if ho wore opening a fencing match—held up three fingers of his right hand, and began with a few preliminary flourishes.'" On his return to Italy the Inquisition turned its evil eye in the direction of "the Nolan." With extraordinary frankness he admitted heretical thoughts, but affirmed his constant devotion to the Roman Catholic Church. He had never found difficulty in accepting the doctrine of the Mass. The whole universe was, he was sure, "an eternal transmutation of the World-Soul, the Divine Word, the ever-present Absolute." Religious mysteries he regarded as means of training "human eyes for the perception of the steep passage from darkness to light." Heaven and Hell wore mere goads to keep the ignorant moral. "God is above Good and Evil, but our highest perception of Him is as Good." The individualization of the soul "was for Bruno a fleeting event which, in the infinite bosom of time, has but the stability and duration of a flash." Asked if he believed "Father, Son, and Spirit to be one in essence but distinct persons," he admitted to doubts. "I have held and believed," ho said, "that there is a distinct Godhead in the Father, in the Word and in Love, which is the Divine Spirit ; and in Essence those throe are one; but I have never been able to grasp the three being really Persons." As for the Incarnation, "ho thought the Divine Word was present in the Humanity of Christ." He offered his "submission," whatever that may moan, to the Holy Office, but refused to "retract." He did not undervalue himself or his work. He was a lover of truth rather than a man of much religious feeling. "I have fought ; it is much. . . Victory lies in the hands of Fate," he said, and for this " fight " the Roman Church burned him.
In these days the story seems almost incredible. Why did they do it ? Bruno had no sort of political importance. The spirit of persecution visits the world at intervals, and ho is a bold man who would say to-day that, oven among the civilized, it will never corns back.
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