still the home of orthodoxy, and most inaccessible to
Liberal ideas, unless they wear a political garb. It need not astonish
us, therefore, that a bitter attack on a Freethought martyr like
Giordano Bruno should emanate from the land of John Knox; or that it
should appear in the distinctly national magazine which is called the
_Scottish Review_. The writer does not disclose his name, and this is a
characteristic circumstance. He indulges his malevolence, and airs his
ignorance, under a veil of anonymity. His stabs are delivered like those
of a bravo, who hides his face as he deals his treacherous blow.

Many books and articles have been written on Giordano Bruno, but this
writer seems ignorant of them all, except a recent volume by a Romish
priest of the Society of Jesus, which he places at the top of his
article, and relies upon throughout as an infallible authority. It does
not occur to him that an account of Bruno by a Jesuit member of the
Church which murdered him, is hardly likely to be impartial; nor does
he scent anything suspicious in the fact that the documents reporting
Bruno's trial were all written by the Inquisition. He would probably
sniff at a report of the trial of Jesus Christ by the Scribes and
Pharisees, yet that is precisely the kind of document on which he relies
to blast the memory of Bruno.

Some of those Inquisition records he translates, apparently fancying he
is making a revelation, though? they have long been before the scholarly
public, and were extensively cited in the English _Life of Bruno_, by I.
Frith, which saw the light more than twelve months ago. Berti reprinted
the documents of Bruno's trial in Venice in 1880, so that the startling
revelations of Father Previti are at least seven years behind the fair.

Before dealing, however, with the use he would make of those documents,
we think it best to track this Scotch slanderer throughout his slimy
course, and expose his astounding mixture of ignorance, impudence and
meanness.

Let us take two instances of the last "virtue" first. He actually
condescends to attempt a feeble point in regard to Bruno's name. Bruno,
he sagely observes--with an air of originality only intelligible on the
ground that he is conscious of writing for the veriest ignoramuses--is
the same as _Brown_; and hence, if we take the baptismal name of Filippo
Bruno, it simply means Philip Brown. Well, what of that? What's in a
name? One great English poet rejoiced in th