CHAPTER X

IMPRESSIONS OF ELIZABETH'S ENGLAND
Bruno produced seven books while in England. The first of these, a treatise on the Lullian art, Mnemonics and Metaphysics in Latin,^ appeared in 1583. The second, entitled " The Ash- Wednesday Supper," ^ the main object of which was to refute Aristotelian Physics and Astronomy and extend the Copernican conception ; the third " On Cause, Principle and The One," ' a metaphysical work, and the fourth, " The Infinite Universe And Its Worlds " * were in Italian, dedicated to Castelnau, and appeared in 1584. The " Supper " professes to have been printed in Paris ; the " Cause " and " Infinite Universe " at Venice ; but experts declare that all were issued from some unidentified London press.^ Bruno told the Inquisitors that " all those which set forth on the title-page that they were printed at Venice were really printed in London. The printer wished it to appear that they were printed in Venice to secure a better sale and get them abroad better ; for if it had been indicated that they were printed in England their sale would have been more difficult. They were all printed in England although they bear the mark of Paris and elsewhere."^ The " Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast ," ' dedicated to
1 ExpHcatio triginta sigillorum. . . , Quibus adjectus est sigillus sigillorum. . . .
^ La cena de le Ceneri. ' De la causa, principio et uno.
' De Vinfinito, universo et mondi.
' Cfr. Elton, O ; Modern Studies, 1907, p. 322, n. 20. — Mclntyre, J. L ; G. Bruno, 1903, p. 358, n. 5.
" Doc. xi. ' Spaccio de la Bestia trionfante.
IMPRESSIONS OF ELIZABETHS ENGLAND lOI
Sidney, bears the press- mark " Paris, 1584" ; but, since the work contains a reference to a riot at Naples which occurred in May 1585, it is obvious that it must have been printed after that date.^ The next work, the " Cabala Of The Steed Like unto Pegasus, With the Addition of the Ass of Cyllene,"^ bears the press-mark "Paris, 1585," and is dedicated to an imaginary bishop of Casamarciano, a little place in Bruno's native province. Following this, in the same year, came "The Transports Of Intrepid Souls," ^ purporting, like the Cabala, to have been printed by a fictitious Antonio Baio at Paris. It was dedicated to Sidney.
Several of the Italian books contain remarks on England ; but the " Ash-Wednesday Supper " has pages of satiric observation mingled with half humorous exaggeration, never without a touch of severity. Bruno makes some apology for these in the " Causa " but sticks to his main indictment. He was struck by the pasturage in England, so rich and green, by the splendid flocks of " pretty, ex- cellent, fat, white and nimble lambs" it nourished, and by the Englishman's love of sport ; * he liked the climate, " the heavens being more temperate than anywhere else beyond and on this side the Equinoctial ; snow and heat being banished from the subjacent earth as well as the excessive heat of the sun, which the perpetually green flowery ground witnesses, and so enjoys a perpetual spring." ^ Like Erasmus, he found the Englishwoman charming. She is " graceful, gentle, soft, delicate, youthful, beautiful, slender, with fair hair, rosy cheeks, divine eyes, firm breasts and shining hands " ; ® to select from a string
'■ Fiorentino, F ; Dialoghi Morali di G. B., Giornale Napoletano, N.S., 18S2, fasc. ig,p. 42. " Cabala del Cavallo Pegaseo, con I'aggiunta de I'Asino Cillenico. ' De Gli Eroici Furori. * Spaccio, III, iij.
^ Spaccio, III, ij. * Cena, Dial. I.
I02 GIORDANO BRUNO
of epithets. He " lives long on the almsbasket of words " to express his admiration ! One of the very best stanzas that he wrote in England praises the " gentle nymphs who make a stay on the green banks of the Thames so charm- ing " : just before this, he had spoken of " the beautiful and gracious nymphs of Father Thames." ^ He noticed the marking of the royal swans, and the great flocks of crows ; how inhuman the game-laws were and how eager was the Englishman to be a landowner.'^ He valued the broad- minded Britons who became his friends, and the educated Italianate gentlemen of the Court. But his disposition was not a specially forbearing one, and he was fastidious as Horace in shrinking from the rude humours of the mob. " I hate the populace " he told Castelnau.^
To pass from Italy to France was to go back more than one generation in polish of manner and cultivation of mind ; and, compared with France, England was still a semi- barbarous country. Poetry, after nearly two centuries of almost complete silence, was indeed chirping the first im- perfect notes of a new morning-song, and Spenser trilled a fresh, delightful music in his " Shepheard's Calender " ; Lyly in " Euphues," a rural romance, attempted to give finish and elegance to British prose ; but " Marlowe's mighty line " did not yet resound in the rude play-houses of the metropolis, and " Gordobuc," " Ralph Royster Doyster" and a few masque-like productions of Lyly represented the best that had as yet been done for British drama.
• Eroici, P. II, Dial. V.
' Spaccio, Dial. Ill, ij. iij. — " What must we do with the swan, demanded Juno. Said Jupiter, I order that it be marked on the bill with my seal and put into the Thames ; because there it will be more safe than in any other part. And thus none will be able to rob me, for fear of capital punishment." Ibid. II, iij,
» De Vinfinito, Proem. Epist. Cfr. Horace ; Odes, III, i.
IMPRESSIONS OF ELIZABETH'S ENGLAND IO3
After a year's residence in England, he could not contain his disgust for the British commonalty. He expresses it with wonted ebullience, hurling epithet after epithet and piHng metaphor on metaphor. "England can boast a common people which will yield to none other in disrespect, outlandishness, boorishness, savagery and bad bringing up." "When they see a foreigner they become so many wolves and bears, by the Lord ; they put on the malevolent look of a pig when you take away his trough." English courtiers " who sit near the sun " [Elizabeth] are well bred, but the natural proclivities of the masses, or at least of some of them, are only comparable with those of " Arabs, Tartars and Cannibals." He describes the swaggering bully who, " if you don't make way for him, will give you a shove with his shoulder and spin you round. Should you be a foreigner you shall be made as well acquainted with space as if you had encountered a bull." ^
He speaks of two great classes in the English plebs : there are traders and serving-men. The former, " smelling out somehow that you come from abroad, twist their faces at you, jeer, snigger, make disgusting noises, 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 them or put your hand on your sword, you shall straight- way see them come surging out of their shops and filling
1 Cena, Dial. II.
* Three generations later, an Englishman, returning from the continent, would, if he were incautious enough to wear foreign dress or foreign manners, be pelted with garbage by the London rabble, who would shout " French dogs ! French dogs ! A Mounseer ! A Mounseer ! " A character of England, as it was lately presented to a Noble Man of France, London, 1659.
I04 GIORDANO BRUNO
the whole street, and you find yourself surrounded by an excrementitious 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 seem as if earth disgorged them ; but, in fact, they come from the shops, and present a highly dignified and civilized array of long- staves, halberds, partizans and rusty forks which, for what- ever worthy purpose the Sovereign may have granted them, are always held in readiness for this and the like opportu- nities. They shall fall on you with outlandish fury, not reflecting on whom, why, wherefore or how ; there is no deliberation; each discharges himself of his natural con- tempt 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 — let 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." ^
The serving men, he says, are of various grades : needy gentlemen, bankrupt merchants, broken-down students, run- away soldiers and sailors as well as gaol-birds and wastrels who are wont to hang about the Exchange and St. Paul's for hire.2
Even in refined circles, the loving cup was passed round, much to Bruno's disgust : he draws a nauseating picture of this and of some other scenes.
These are not the only strictures he makes on English social life. The work entitled "The Ash Wednesday Supper " is an attack on Aristotelian Physics and Cosmo- logy, but this is led up to by a row on the Thames and a 1 Cena, Dial. 11. » Ibid.
IMPRESSIONS OF ELIZABETH'S ENGLAND I05
walk through London to Fulke Greville's abode, where a supper has been prepared for Bruno and his antagonists. A hot disputation follows the repast. Everyone seems to have taken this as a veridical account of real happenings. I cannot do so. I do not dispute that, at some time, Greville may have heard Bruno debating the point, perhaps in his own apartment, and certainly it would be a very frequent subject of discussion between Bruno and his friends or visitors at Beaumont House, and he admits that this was the case at supper on an Ash Wednesday. When asked by the Inquisitors whether he had written concerning an Ash Wednesday Supper and what was his purpose therein, he replied : " I have written a book in five dialogues so entitled, which dealt with the earth's movement, and, because I debated the matter in England at an Ash Wednesday supper with certain doctors of medicine at the house of the French Ambassador at which I dwelt, I called the dialogues the Ash Wednesday Supper. It may be that there are certain errors in the book which I cannot now recall pre- cisely.i The book was intended to ridicule these doctors and their opinions concerning these matters." ^ The In- quisitors did not pursue the subject. It has been suggested that Bruno deliberately made a false statement as to where the supper took place in order to minimize his offence, and located it, therefore, at the house of an orthodox Catholic. That would not be like Bruno : like other men he sometimes evades an inconvenient question or puts the best face he can on the answer he is obliged to give, but, to direct unescapable questioning, he invariably gives perilously straightforward replies. The Inquisitors knew about the book ; they may have had it before them ; taken au pied de la lettre it refutes Bruno's reply so far as the place is con-
' There were errors in his exposition of Copernicanism which he corrected in He Immenso. ^ Doc. xiij.
I06 GIORDANO BRUNO
cerned. And he could not have forgotten where the supper was held after he had written a whole book around it. A careful examination of the work convinces me that, while the supper and disputation are based on facts, these have been altered, rearranged and played upon by Bruno's lively imagination and worked up into literary form. He wants to make discussion go down by furnishing attractive dishes ; he wants at the same time to open the safety-valve of his indignation at British obtuseness and British manners. If he and a few friends discussed Natural Philosophy and fish together on Ash Wednesday, it would be quite in his manner to turn the Aristotelian physics and cosmology into a " Supper of Ashes."
He more than hints that he has invested everything with such literary merit in his prefatory letter to Castelnau. " You will ask me, ' What symposium, what banquet is this ? ' ' It is a supper.' ' What supper ? ' ' Ash Wed- nesday's.' ' Who talks about a supper on Ash Wednesday ? The repast must have taken place before then. Would you say " I have eaten ashes like bread " ? ' i ' No, it is a banquet after sunset'^ on the first day of Lent, which our priests call the day of Ashes and Remembrance.' * What is the banquet for ? ' Not to consider the mind and pos- sessions of the very noble and worthy Master Fulke Greville, at whose honoured abode it takes place ; nor the fine man- ners of the very courteous gentlemen who were there as lookers-on and listeners; but who will may see what nature is capable of in producing two fantastic fooleries,'
* Psalm cii, 9.
^ We must always bear in mind the possibility of symbolic allusion in an age passionate for allegory and at the hands of a past -master of the art. The Aristotelian sun had set for the wise. I do not wish to push this, however, after the manner of Shakespeare-Baconians.
' I.e., the journey and the display of ignorant prejudice at the discussion.
IMPRESSIONS OF ELIZABETH'S ENGLAND 107
two dreams, two shadows ^ and two quartan agues, of which as one goes on, criticizing the historical meaning and then tasting and chewing, one comes on apposite topographical, geographical, moral enquiries, and yet others of a metaphy- sical, mathematical and natural character." ^
Bruno must have gone often enough to Court by water (the usual and pleasanter route), and he says that on this occasion he was accompanied by Florio and Gwynne, the former, at least, being very well acquainted with London ; yet (although it is late, the company await them at West- minster and they are in a hurry) he makes his party go eastward in order to get westward to Westminster; they ignore the nearest stage — the Temple Stairs — and take their boat from Dorset Stairs,' as if to indicate more clearly that this long introduction to the main subject of the work, with the " topographical and geographical enquiries " and absurdities it includes, is a literary in- vention.
Nor is this all. Although England had thrown off the yoke of Rome the Anglican Church did not violently re- pudiate venerable religious habits, nor has it ever ceased to observe Ash Wednesday as a Fast-day. The Courtiers were not Puritans. But it might be urged that there would be no court-festivities on that day, and it would be a convenient season for a quiet supper and discussion. This may be so. Yet the town-house of the Grevilles was close by Holborn ; and one did not go from St. Clements Dane to Holborn by water. Prof. Elton suggests that Greville was lodging " in or near Whitehall." * Assuredly he was not lodging near Whitehall. The crowd of people
• Query, the dream of the supper and journey to it and the dream of the Peripatetic physicists ?
• Cena, Proem. Epist. ' Elton, O ; op. cit., p. 12.
• Elton, O ; loc. cit.
Io8 GIORDANO BRUNO
and servants whom the guests find in the hall is suggestive of the palace itself, and Bruno, who gibes at their rudeness,^ may have directed his sarcasm at Elizabeth's servitors because he had experienced small courtesy at their hands.
If my view be correct, Bruno has run together a multi- tude of experiences, one of which may have been at Greville's table, and adorned them, not merely to "ridi- cule these doctors," but also to satirize English manners. Let us look at Elizabeth's London through Bruno's eyes.
Two messengers come to him from a certain esquire at the Court, asking him to give his views concerning the Copernican theory. He replies that he does not see through Copernicus' eyes, but with his own.^ We next find Bruno in conversation with Fulke Greville, whom we must infer is the esquire in question. Greville asks Bruno why he believes in the rotation of the earth. Bruno replies that he has not the measure of Greville's capacity for grasping it ; he (Bruno) may be as one of those who talk to images and address the dead ; if Greville will furnish the reason for his belief he will reply to it. Greville is very pleased at this answer, and invites Bruno to meet and discuss the problem with a company of gentle- men and learned folk on Ash-Wednesday. Bruno accepts, but begs that opponents may be chosen who are not "ignoble people, miscreate and of small understanding in these matters. Master Fulke replies that Bruno need have no fear, for the men he has in mind are of the best learning and behaviour." ^ The " learning and behaviour " thus skil- fully introduced is by no means exhibited to their advantage in the sequel. Bruno hears no more of the matter, and when the day appointed comes round he waits and waits ; dinner time passes over, so he gives the whole thing up and goes
' Cena, Dial. II, end. ^ Ibid., Dial. I.
' Ibid., Dial. II.
IMPRESSIONS OF ELIZABETH S ENGLAND IO9
out to call on some Italian friends. He does not return to Beaumont House till after sunset and, behold, John Florio and Matthew Gwynne are kicking their heels at the doorway while they impatiently await his return. They tell him he must hurry on with them; for a company of knights, gentlemen and doctors have assembled at Greville's and expect him. Bruno is aggrieved and shows it: he supposed he should be asked to dinner and discuss the matter with a long day ahead. Gwynne says certain knights desired to be present, but they were unable to come to dinner and have come to the later meal. Reading between the lines, Bruno, while always ready to praise those English gentry who have travelled in Italy and learned manners there, has received a slight or so from them and resents it. It is conceivable that Greville may have found in this some side-hit at himself.
Our author then works up his London experiences, placing the narrative in the mouth of Teofilo, who serves as his own mask.
The little party who, although in such a hurry, have taken anything but the shortest cut, reach the great watery highway — the safest, speediest and pleasantest route to Westminster. " Yelling ' oars ' we wasted as much time as it would have taken to go by land and do a trifle of busi- ness on the way. At length two boatmen answered from afar and slowly, slowly drew in. After much question and reply as to whence, where, why, how and when, they brought the prow to the foot of the stairs. And lo ! one of them, who might have been old Charon, held out his hand to the Nolan, and another, who was his son I think — a fellow of about 65 — took us in." The boat looked like a cork — it was so ancient and worm-eaten— but it went like lead, so palsied were the arms of the rowers. Its creakings and gratings, mingling with the splash, splash of the feeble oarsmen, were
no GIORDANO BRUNO
the burlesque of a musical accompaniment and incited Florio to break out with a love-ditty, and Bruno followed on with another song. " It took us a long time to make little way and, before we had covered a third of our journey, just past a place called the Temple, our old fathers, instead of hurry- ing on, turned the prow shorewards. The Nolan asked, ' What are you doing ? Do you want to take breath ? ' Their answer was interpreted to him : they were not going farther; their station was at this spot. Entreaty after entreaty proved worse than useless . . . Having paid and thanked them (what else could be done to such scoundrels in such a place ?) they showed us the way to the street. . . . The footpath commenced in mud which, nilly willy, must be gone through." Here comes a sly laugh at himself, in the satiric spirit which pervades the whole composition : " The Nolan, who had studied and taught in the schools more than we, said, ' I observe a filthy way out : follow me.' But while he was yet speaking, he got so firmly stuck in the mud that he could not stir a limb ; and we had to help one another, hoping that this purgatory would soon come to an end. But by malicious luck, he and we found ourselves engulfed in a slimy passage, which was sur- rounded by strong walls, as if it had been a veritable enclosure of jealousy or a garden of delights. And, there being no light to guide us, we could not tell the way back or on ; so, hoping every step would be the last, we waded on up to the knees through that deep and gloomy hell." Bruno must have sighed for his Italian cities, their side- streets, even, paved with stone !
At last the adventurers came to a mud-cake with a stoay margin where they could walk dry-foot, but in some danger of tumbling and breaking head or limb. " Finally, we arrived at what seemed to us to be the Elysian field's — the main street .... and behold ! there we were about
IMPRESSIONS OF ELIZABETH'S ENGLAND III
twenty paces from the spot which we had set out from to look for a boat — close to the Nolan's abode! .... We had so effectively annexed Masters Filth and Slime that we could hardly move our limbs."
They now debate what shall be done. Shall they venture on through dangerous streets in black night? Civility urges that they must not disappoint the expectant supper- party. After much hesitation Bruno musters up courage to keep his word. Soon they are descried and mobbed, and matters grow very bad "at the pyramid near the mansion where three streets meet" (Charing Cross). Bruno musters up enough of the "dog's language" to say " Thank ye, Master " to a man of higher rank than the rest who is content with giving him a mere shove or two, "and not a reminder from the boss of his buckler or the crest of his helmet. There be gentlemen who are such in nothing but descent ; and it is to their advantage and ours to have nothing to do with them."
Arrived at last, " we enter and find many sorts of people and many servants in the hall. They neither made way nor inclined the head nor gave any sign of reverence, but disdainfully did us so much favour as to point to the way upstairs." The guests had wearied themselves out with waiting and were sat down to supper. There is a little polite dispute as to seats of honour; finally, Florio takes the foot of the table, with Greville on his right and Bruno on his left, and the meal is resumed.^
After supper comes the discussion. " Your Englishmen of quality," says Bruno, "know that their own tongue is confined to their own island, and would deem themselves savages could they not speak Latin, French, Spanish and Italian."^ But English doctors who are called Nundinio and Torquato were present, and they were not travelled 1 Cena, Dial. II. ' Ibid., Dial. III.
112 GIORDANO BRUNO
men. Even small tradesmen educated at the grammar schools could write to one another in Latin, so, in deference to the doctors, the debate was conducted in that language, since Bruno spoke no English.
The portraits of Bruno's opponents were engraved for all time by a scornful, pitiless burin : there they stand, self- important pompous pedants. One " has an emphasis on his face such as the Father of the Gods wore when he sat at the celestial council to fulminate an awful sentence against impious Lycaon."^ He "admired the gold chain round his neck and then glanced at the Nolan's breast, where the loss of a button were more likely to be found." " Then he 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, distended his nostrils, cast a glance backward, set himself in order, struck an attitude — left hand to left side, as if he were opening a fencing-match — held up three fingers of his right hand and began, with a few preliminary flourishes." ^
But the longer Bruno stayed in England the more recon- ciled he became to its ways. He even finds it " a beautiful, fortunate and chivalrous country." When in Germany he forgot the petty annoyances and disappointments he had experienced and expressed his admiration at the aggressive achievements of our sea-dogs.^ After all, he had spent the most peaceful days he ever knew during his exile in England. A French contemporary wrote of " blessed England, the abode of quiet and humanity." * Yet even here " the Nolan " was far from feeling settled ; for Castelnau's recall had been issued and he had long awaited it to be put into effect. And even the most distinguished among Elizabeth's courtiers were
' Ovid ; Metamorph., I, 170 sqq. ' Cena, Dial. IV.
' De Immenso, Lib. I. ' Languetus, H ; Epistolce, xciv.
IMPRESSIONS OF ELIZABETH'S ENGLAND II3
far from recognizing the genius of the most distinguished ItaHan they had ever received among them. The " footfall of his thought" raised little echo here/ contemporary Englishmen seem to have had small inkling of the profound originality of his speculations ; his Neo-Platonism they could easily grasp and found it all too familiar ; his subject-matter was, in truth, not cared for, and his Italian style, by no means easily read, even by his own countrymen, was very unpleasing to a generation that delighted in Tasso.
At last, late in October, 1585, the Castelnau family went back to France, Bruno with them. Black clouds were already gathered round the Ambassador ; still more evil days awaited that generous gentleman. During the journey he was robbed of everything he had, down to his shirt. He landed at Calais in a state bordering on destitution. ^ A recently discovered manuscript informs us that Bruno, who, even less than Castelnau, could afford the loss of worldly goods, was also plundered. A diarist enters, under Dec 27, 1585, " Jordanus has told me that his man-servant either has robbed him or suffered him to be robbed." *
Bruno had spent two and a half of the years when a man's powers are at their fullest flow in England, and these years had witnessed the writing and actual produc- tion of great books. Not content with these labours he was husy at an astronomical work, to be called the " Purgatory of Hell," which he promised to lend to Smith "that he might see the fruit of redemption." * We hear no more of
' Bacon groups him with Patrizzi, Telesio, Campanella and others as neither excellent nor successful {Hist. Nat. ei Exper., Londini^ 1622). He is just mentioned by the author of Antidicsonus and by Thomas Watson in the dedication oi Compendium Memoriae Localis ; the former ranking him with Dickson and others as a self-advertising writer on mnemonics ; the latter speaking of his mystical and profound
' Mclntyre; op. cit.,p. 47. Auvray, L ; op. cit. * Cena, Dial. V.
H
114 GIORDANO BRUNO
this. Was it ever printed ? He may have altered the title,
and we may possess the work in the Latin poem De Im-
tnenso ; for he would seem to have been labouring on this
during the hours of waiting to embark at Dover/ although
it was not finally finished and published until six years
later.
^ De Immenso, I, iv, schol.