CHAPTER VIII

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Having made the disagreeable passage from Calais to Dover (Bruno's first experience of a journey by sea) he would not find that almost distinctive character of English scenery which obtains to-day. It was more like that of Northern France. For the most part, corn-land and pasturage were unenclosed, and there was a vast amount of uncultivated or poorly cultivated land, in spite of enclosures made under the Tudors. He presented his credentials to the French Ambassador and went on to Oxford to try his fortunes there.
Opposition, disappointment and defeat always incited Bruno to some fresh attack on the " parrots " ^ who foolishly repeated ancient and defective teaching or, at best, "tried to excuse the defects of their divinity, Aristotle."^ Barbarians who dwelt at the ends of the earth must assuredly be only too glad to welcome so highly qualified a teacher as he. So he began by beating the big drum. He sent a foreword to the Vice-Chancellor and dons of the University which began thus : " Jordanus Bruno of Nola, lover of God, doctor in a more perfect divinity, professor of a purer and more harmless wisdom, a philo- sopher known, esteemed and honourably entreated by the foremost Academies of Europe, a stranger to none but churls and barbarians, the awakener of souls from slumber, the queller of presumptuous and recalcitrant ignorance, one
» C. de le Ceneri, Dial. IV. ^ De la Causa, Dial. III.
8i Y
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who sheweth in all his actions the love he beareth to all men, whether Briton or Italian, female or male, whether bearing the mitre or the crown, the gown or the sword, wearing a cowl or without one; but who chiefly yearns for the man whose converse is peaceful, human, true and profitable; he who seeks not for an anointed head or a crossed brow, for the washed hand or him that is circum- cised, but for those true lineaments of man which be his soul and trained understanding ; one who is abhorred of them that spread foolishness and are but petty dissemblers, but whom men proven and in earnest love, and who is applauded by the nobler sort . . ."^ This is the prelude to a request for permission to lecture.^ Was anything more calculated to
" Cleave the general ear, Make mad the guilty and appal the free, Confound the ignorant and amaze indeed " ?
But, after all, the epistle only follows the pomposity of the age with Brunian emphasis. Even the most courtly and polished gentleman of his time, Sir Philip Sidney, when travelling to the Court of Rudolf II, had his arms emblazoned on whatever house he lodged at, with the announcement in
' Philothei Jordani Bruni Nolani Triginta Sigillorum Explicatio : Ad excellentissi?num oxoniensis Academiae Procancellarium, clarissi- mos doctores atque celeberimos magistros.
^ The letter, the dedication to Castelnau and a few leaves are not in all those copies of the " Thirty Seals " which have been preserved. Moreover they are printed on different paper, a different type was employed, and certain additions, of the nature of improvements, are present, which leads to the conclusion that the extra leaves were in- serted as an afterthought. Cfr. Tocco, F ; Le Opere Latine di G. B. pp. 63-66. May not Bruno have inserted these leaves after his quarrel with the University, as an act of defiance, and conjoined with this a mark, in the form of a dedication to Castelnau, of his appreciation of the service he rendered him after that event ? It would, I think be just like Bruno to do this.
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Latin that they were those of " the most illustrious and well- born gentleman, Philip Sidney, son of the Viceroy of Ireland, nephew of the Earls of Warwick and Leicester, Ambassador from the Most Serene Queen of England to the Emperor." *
What reply Bruno received we do not know. The Uni- versity could hardly have acquired " the fine Oxford manner " so early ; but, surely, inflated speech and self-assertion were " bad form " and " unEnglish " even then, and this letter may be referred to by a certain N. W, who remarks in the preface to a translation of Paulus Jovius by Samuel Daniel, the poet, at that time an undergraduate at Magdalen. He writes : " you cannot forget that which Nolanus (that man of infinite titles amongst other phantastical toys) truly noted by chance in our schools, that by the help of translations all sciences had their offspring." ^
Oxford, like other Universities, was throttled by the dead hand of Aristotle. In 1574 one Barebones, a follower of Ramus, was ejected from the University for daring to attack the thinker whom a strangely ironical fate had made one of the chief props of the Christian Church.^ Bruno was pre- pared to challenge Oxford or any other seat of learning. He had begun, the fight, and he continued it through England, France and Germany, seeking and giving no quarter, un- deterred by authority, undismayed by poverty, superbly contemptuous of censure, immeasurably confident in his own strength and superiority.*
This is the only notice of Bruno at Oxford which has been discovered so far : all else that we know he tells us himself. He set up a class somewhere in the city, and found the University sadly in need of an " awakener " ; he
^ Symonds, J. A ; Sir P. Sidney, 1889, j!S. 38.
» Elton, O ; Modern Studies, 1907,//. 7, 8.
' Mclntyre, J. L ; G. Bruno, 1903,/. 22.
* Cfr. De Monade, Cap. I, v. 38 sq; Cap. VII, v. 128 sq.
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calls her " the widow of true knowledge so far as philosophy and mathematics are concerned." He laughed at her pre- tensions to Greek scholarship. Yet, less than a century before, the Oxford Hellenists, although but a small band, were distinguished by the presence of such scholars as Grocyn, Linacre and Croke, and Erasmus found Greek better taught in England than in Italy.^
Indeed, the English Universities had fallen from their high estate. Sport had always more attraction for the bulk of English gentry than learning, which was almost confined to the priesthood. The French wars and still more the Wars of the Roses were a hindrance to learning. Even before the Reformation John Barclay wrote of men —
" Lesynge their tyme at the unyversyte. Yet count they themselfe of great auctoryte With their proude hodes on their neckes hangynge, They haue the lawde ; but others haue the cunnynge.
They thynke that they haue all scyence perfytely, Within theyr hertes bostynge them of the same, Though they thereto theyr mynde dyd neuer apply ; Without the thynge, they joy them of the name." *
When the Reformation was effected, Erasmus's warning of the menace it would be to learning proved well-founded. The dissolution of the monasteries impoverished that scholarly class which opened ft career to the clever lad of the people and gave him university instruction. But, to employ the words of Descartes, the Universities had not yet begun " to make merchandise of science for the better- ing of their fortunes."
Theology was the main interest. The dons were, for the most part, absentees. Appointed by the Court, they
' Erasmus, Desiderius; Opera Omnia, Lugd. Batav., 1703, Tom. Tert., Epist. ccclxiii. ' Barclay, John ; Shyppe of Fooles.
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followed the Court, clad in velvet. Bruno describes two of these graduates. "One wore two resplendent gold chains on his neck; another twelve rings on two of his fingers : he looked like a rich jeweller." ^ A doctorate was easily obtained ; it was purchasable ; to become a doctor in medicine only needed a fee and that the candidate should have been in the habit of perusing medical books during ten years. The dons " knew much more about beer than about Greek/' says Bruno.^ Most of the students were quite young lads. The statutes provided that any master or doctor diverging one jot from the teaching of Aristotle should be fined five shillings* for each offence.* No one could be admitted to the degree of Master or Doctor unless he had quaffed of the Aristotelian fountain ; but there were three fountains in the city, respectively called Aristotle, Pythagoras and Plato ; the waters thereof were used to qualify cider and beer; "so that," Bruno maliciously observes, " by three or four days' stay in a college or else- where one could imbibe from all three." *
He seems to have found some favour with Matthew, the Dean of Christchurch, and with Culpepper, the Warden of New. He speaks respectfully of both these clergymen.* He would make the acquaintance of Italian teachers at the University, and he probably met Alberico Gentile there at festivals or elsewhere. Gentile came to England in 1580 and was appointed professor of Civil Law at Oxford four years later. Bruno certainly knew him in England^ and met him again at Wittenberg.
After he had taught between two and three months,
^ C.dele Ceneri, Dial. I. " Ibid.
' Equivalent to at least two pounds sterling of to-day's money. * Mclntyre; op. cit., pp.11., -ii. ' Causa, Dial. I.
^ Ibid. Concerning these worthies, consult Lagarde, Op. ital. di G. B.,p. 220, Gottingen, 1888. ' Doc. ix.
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there came to Oxford (in June) Adalbart Laski,^ Palatine of Siradia, a Pole, who was in England on a mission to prevent the exportation of arms to Muscovy. The visit of a prince from regions so remote, one, moreover, who was credited with great bravery as a soldier and with much linguistic learning, created a great stir in England, and Oxford welcomed him with heavy feeding, erudite disputa- tions, spectacular displays and all that ebullience in which the surcharged vitality of the Renaissance found vent. It must have heightened Bruno's acute perception of that " vicissitude " to which he constantly refers that Laski, who had shown his greed of gold by taking the bribes of France at the election of Henry III to the Polish crown,^ soon had to steal away from his English creditors, with all precau- tions of silence and secrecy, accompanied by the occultist Dr John Dee and one Kelly, who was another professor of the art of transmuting base metal into gold.
Among the entertainers of Laski was Mathew Gwinne of St. John's, a young Welshman who became one of Bruno's English friends and, later on, helped Florio in his incom- parable translation of Montaigne. Gwinne was an all- round man ; he added the accomplishment of music to a knowledge of French and Italian. He became a dramatic author (in Latin) and possessed of a smattering of physic* When Laski was at Oxford, Gwinne held forth with others on such problems as whether males or females are longer lived, and whether events can be foretold from the stars.
These disputations, held in honour of the Prince, gave Bruno his chance. He shall tell his own tale. "Search where you will in England to-day you shall find everybody
'■ Camden, W ; Annates, tr. R. Norton, sub anno 1583. — Wood, Anthony k ; Athenae Oxonienses c. Fasti, sub Alaskie. ^ Bain, R. N ; Camb. Mod. Hist, 1904, I II, p. 85. ' Nat. Diet. Biog., 1890, xxiij, 399-400.
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a Doctor in Grammar ; so that the happy country is ruled by a constellation of pedants who exhibit obstinacy, ignorance and presumption, mixed up with such boorish rudeness that it might provoke the patience of Job. Should you doubt, go to Oxford and get them to tell you about what happened to the Nolan when he disputed publicly with these Doctors of theology before the Prince Laski the Pole and certain English nobles. Learn how they replied to his argument and how, on that great occasion, a wretched doctor got stuck, like a chicken in stubble, fifteen times in the fifteen syllogisms he propounded as Coryphaeus of the University. Hear tell how vulgar and violent the pig was, and how patient and forbearing was the other, who shewed his Neapolitan breeding and rearing under a kindly sky. Ask how they put a stop to his public lectures, both on the Immortality of the Soul and on the Quintuple Sphere."^
Brave, tactless, self-assertive missionary of truth ! Like Mr F's aunt, Bruno hated a fool. Nevertheless, to call one's opponent a " pig " merely, was an exhibition of self-restraint in days when scholars, theologians above all, were not con- tent with scurrilous epithets which a bargee might envy and which are now expunged from our dictionaries, but were wont to traduce the whole house and ancestry of an adversary, including the chastity of its female members.^
Bruno, then, aroused the Aristotelian lion from his slumbers in a favourite lair. Oxford rejected him, doubt- less with many an insular sneer at the excitable, gesticulat- ing foreigner, hairy as Pan.'
Later on, when the feeling of resentment had somewhat subdued, while still continuing to pass some satiric strictures on the University he gave a more balanced judgement and
^ C. de le Ceneri, Dial. IV.
^ As evidence, see e.g., Bayle's Dictionary ; article, Schoppius.
' Bruno, G ; Tie innum. imjitenso ei injigur. I. viij.
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even tried to make amends. He admitted that she had been "founded on an excellent basis and was marked by such decorum, dignified ceremonies and many other adjuncts as to place her, in these respects, first in Europe, while in polish and quickness of mind she can hold her own." ^ But — she was Aristotelian to the core. Three generations later Sir Thomas Browne wrote of the Copernican theory as being still a subject for debate among the learned.^
' De la Causa, Dial. I.
' Browne, Sir T ; Pseudodoxia Epidemica, I. vj, c. 5.