ally the Italians. The astute monk reciprocated her good-will by
paying her the customary tribute of flattery. He won the friendship of
Sir Philip Sidney, to whom he dedicated two of his books, and enjoyed
the acquaintance of Spenser, Sir Fulke Greville, Dyer, Harvey, Sir
William Temple, Bacon, and other wits and poets of the day.

At that time--somewhere about 1580--Shakespeare was still serving his
apprenticeship as playwright, and had perhaps less claim on the notice
of the observant foreigner than his elder contemporaries. London was
still a small town, where the news of the day spread rapidly, and where,
no doubt, strangers were as eagerly discussed as they are now within
narrow town limits. Bruno's daring speculations could not remain the
exclusive property of his own coterie. And as Shakespeare had the
faculty of absorbing all new ideas afloat in the air, he would hardly
have escaped the influence of the teacher who proclaimed in proud
self-confidence that he was come to arouse men out of their theological
stagnation. His influence on Bacon is more evident, because of their
friendly associations. Bruno lectured at Oxford, but the English
university found less favor in his eyes than English court life.
Pedantry had indeed set its fatal mark on scholarship, not only on the
Continent but in England. Aristotle was still the god of the pedants of
that age, and dissent from his teaching was heavily punished, for the
dry dust of learning blinded the eyes of the scholastics to new truths.

Bruno, the knight-errant of these truths, devoted all his life to
scourging pedantry, and dissented _in toto_ from the idol of the
schools. No wonder he and Oxford did not agree together. He wittily
calls her "the widow of sound learning," and again, "a constellation of
pedantic, obstinate ignorance and presumption, mixed with a clownish
incivility that would tax the patience of Job." He lashed the
shortcomings of English learning in 'La Cena delle Ceneri' (Ash
Wednesday Conversation). But Bruno's roving spirit, and perhaps also his
heterodox tendencies, drove him at last from England, and for the next
five years he roamed about Germany, leading the life of the wandering
scholars of the time, always involved in conflicts and controversies
with the authorities, always antagonistic to public opinion. Flying in
the face of the most cherished traditions, he underwent the common
experience of all prophets: the minds he was bent on awakening