e vulgar name of Jonson; two
other English poets bore the no less vulgar name of Thomson; while
at least two have descended so low as Smith. We might even remind the
orthodox libeller that Joshua, the Jewish formi of Jesus, was as common
as Jack is among ourselves. Perhaps the reminder will sound blasphemous
in his delicate ears, but fact is fact, and if reputations are to depend
on names, we may as well be impartial.

Now, for our second instance. Bruno was betrayed to the Venetian
Inquisition by Count Mocenigo while he was that nobleman's guest.
Mocenigo had invited him to Venice in order that he might learn what
this writer calls "his peculiar system for developing and strengthening
the memory," although this "peculiar" system was simply the Lullian
method. What the nobleman really wanted to learn seems to have been the
Black Art. He complained, and Bruno resolved to leave him; whereupon the
"nobleman," who had harbored Bruno for months, forcibly detained him,
and denounced him to the Inquisition as a heretic and a blasphemer. A
more dastardly action is difficult to conceive, but our Scotch libeller
is ready to defend it, or at least to give it a coat of whitewash. He
allows that Mocenigo does not appear to have been animated "with the
motive of religious zeal," and that his "conscience" never "troubled
him" before the "personal difference." But he discovers a plea for
this Judas in his "sworn statement" to the Inquisition that he did not
suspect Bruno of being a monk until the very day of their quarrel. What
miserable sophistry! Would not a man who violated the most sacred laws
of friendship and hospitality be quite capable of telling a lie? Still
more miserable is the remark that Bruno was not ultimately tried on
Mocenigo's denunciations, but on his own published writings. Jesus
Christ was not tried on the denunciations of Judas Iscariot, but on
his own public utterances, yet whoever pleaded that this gave a sweeter
savor to the traitor's kiss?

So much--though more might be said--for the writer's meanness. Now for
his other virtues, and especially his ignorance. After dwelling on the
battle at Rome over the proposal to erect a public monument to Bruno,
this writer tells us that "a small literature is arising on the
subject," and that the name of Bruno is "suddenly invested with an
importance which it never formerly possessed." Apparently he is unaware
that, so far from a small literature arising, a large Bruno li