ething
like the science of the true historian, the critical spirit begins to
manifest itself, and life is not treated as a mere spectacle, but the
laws of its evolution and progress are investigated also. We admit that
the desire to represent life at all costs under dramatic conditions still
accompanies Mr. Symonds, and that he hardly realizes that what seems
romance to us was harsh reality to those who were engaged in it. Like
most dramatists, also, he is more interested in the psychological
exceptions than in the general rule. He has something of Shakespeare's
sovereign contempt of the masses. The people stir him very little, but
he is fascinated by great personalities. Yet it is only fair to remember
that the age itself was one of exaggerated individualism, and that
literature had not yet become a mouthpiece for the utterances of
humanity. Men appreciated the aristocracy of intellect, but with the
democracy of suffering they had no sympathy. The cry from the
brickfields had still to be heard. Mr. Symonds' style, too, has much
improved. Here and there, it is true, we come across traces of the old
manner, as in the apocalyptic vision of the seven devils that entered
Italy with the Spaniard, and the description of the Inquisition as a
Belial-Moloch, a 'hideous idol whose face was blackened with soot from
burning human flesh.' Such a sentence, also, as 'over the Dead Sea of
social putrefaction floated the sickening oil of Jesuitical hypocrisy,'
reminds us that rhetoric has not yet lost its charms for Mr. Symonds.
Still, on the whole, the style shows far more reserve, balance and
sobriety, than can be found in the earlier volumes where violent
antithesis forms the predominant characteristic, and accuracy is often
sacrificed to an adjective.

Amongst the most interesting chapters of the book are those on the
Inquisition, on Sarpi, the great champion of the severance of Church from
State, and on Giordano Bruno. Indeed, the story of Bruno's life, from
his visit to London and Oxford, his sojourn in Paris and wanderings
through Germany, down to his betrayal at Venice and martyrdom at Rome, is
most powerfully told, and the estimate of the value of his philosophy and
the relation he holds to modern science, is at once just and
appreciative. The account also of Ignatius Loyola and the rise of the
Society of Jesus is extremely interesting, though we cannot think that
Mr. Symonds is very happy in his comparison of the J