eresting to modern readers, and in its majestic exaltation and poetic
imagery is a true product of Italian culture.

Bruno was evidently a man of vast intellect and of immense erudition.
His philosophic speculations comprehended not only the ancient thought,
and that current at his time, but also reached out toward the future and
the results of modern science. He perceived some of the facts which were
later formulated in the theory of evolution. "The mind of man differs
from that of lower animals and of plants not in quality but only in
quantity.... Each individual is the resultant of innumerable
individuals. Each species is the Starting point for the next.... No
individual is the same to-day as yesterday."

Not only in this divination of coming truths is he modern, but also in
his methods of investigation. Reason was to him the guide to truth. In a
study of him Lewes says:--"Bruno was a true Neapolitan child--as ardent
as its soil ... as capricious as its varied climate. There was a
restless energy which fitted him to become the preacher of a new
crusade--urging him to throw a haughty defiance in the face of every
authority in every country,--an energy which closed his wild adventurous
career at the stake." He was distinguished also by a rich fancy, a
varied humor, and a chivalrous gallantry, which constantly remind us
that the intellectual athlete is an Italian, and an Italian of the
sixteenth century.

A DISCOURSE OF POETS

From 'The Heroic Enthusiasts'

_Cicada_--Say, what do you mean by those who vaunt themselves of myrtle
and laurel?

_Tansillo_--Those may and do boast of the myrtle who sing of love: if
they bear themselves nobly, they may wear a crown of that plant
consecrated to Venus, of which they know the potency. Those may boast of
the laurel who sing worthily of things pertaining to heroes,
substituting heroic souls for speculative and moral philosophy, praising
them and setting them as mirrors and exemplars for political and
civil actions.

_Cicada_--There are then many species of poets and crowns?

_Tansillo_--Not only as many as there are Muses, but a great many more;
for although genius is to be met with, yet certain modes and species of
human ingenuity cannot be thus classified.

_Cicada_--There are certain schoolmen who barely allow Homer to be a
poet, and set down Virgil, Ovid, Martial, Hesiod, Lucretius, and many
others as versifiers, judging them by the rules of poetry of Aristotle.