Charles Nodier, Molière was indebted to Bruno for several scenes; but it is difficult to settle questions of plagiarism. Bruno's comedy is long, full of absurd incidents and Neapolitan buffoonery, and might have suggested a good deal to such a prolific mind as Molière's. In it he has exhibited "the amorousness of one old man named Bonifacio, the sordid avarice of another named Bartolomeo, and the pedantry, not less sordid, of a third named Manfurio." Ladies of vacillating virtue, soldiers, sailors, and scamps concert together to deceive these three old men, and wring money from their sensuality, their avarice, and their superstition. Bonifacio, desperately in love with Vittoria, is nevertheless alarmed at the enormous expense. necessary to make his addresses acceptable. He had recourse to Scaramure, a reputed magician, who sells him a wax figure, which he is to melt, and thus melt the obdurate heart of his fair one. After a succession of disasters, Bonifacio is seized by pretended police, who force from him a heavy ransom. Bartolomeo becomes the dupe of Cencio, an impostor, who sells him a receipt for making gold. Manfurio, the pedant, is beaten, robbed, and ridiculed throughout. The sensualism and niggardliness of Bonifacio, and the pedantry of Manfurio, are hit off with true comic spirit; and the dialogue, though rambling and diffuse, is enlivened by lazzi-not always the most decent, it is true-and crowded with proverbs. Dramatic art there is none: the persons come on and talk; they are succeeded by fresh actors, who, having talked, also retire to give place to others. The whole play leaves a very confused impression. The hits at alchemy and pedantry were, doubtless, highly relished in those days. It is very strange to pass from this comedy to the work which succeeds it in Wagner's edition, La Cena de le Ceneri. In five dialogues he combats the hypothesis of the world's inmobility; proclaims the infinity of the universe, and warns us against seeking its centre or circumference. He enlarges on the difference between appearances and reality in celestial phenomena; argues that our globe is made of the same substance as the other plan ets, and that every thing which is, is living, so that the world. may be likened to a huge animal.* In this work he also answers his objectors, who bring against his system the authority of Scripture, exactly in the same way as modern geologists an swer the same objection, viz. by declaring that the revelation in the Bible was a moral not a physical revelation. It did not pretend to teach science, but, on the contrary, adopted ordinary notions, and expressed itself in the language intelligible to the vulgar. In this work there are some digressions more than usually interesting to us, because they refer to the social condition of England during Elizabeth's reign. The two works, De la Causa and De l' Infinito, contain the most matured and connected exposition of his philosophical opinions. As our space will not admit of an analysis, we must refer to that amply given by M. Bartholmess. The Spaccio de la Bestia Trionfante is the most celebrated of all his writings. It was translated by Toland, in 1713, who printed only a very few copies, as if wishing it to fall into the hands of only a few choice. readers. The very title has been a sad puzzle to the world, and has led to the strangest suppositions. The "Triumphant Beast," which Bruno undertakes to expel, is none other than this: ancient astronomy disfigured the heavens with animals as constellations, and under guise of expelling these, he attacks the great beast (superstition) whose predominance causes men to believe that the stars influence human affairs. In his Cabala del Cavallo Pegaseo, he sarcastically calls the ass "la bestia trionfante viva," and indites a sonnet in praise of that respectable quadruped: An idea borrowed from Plato, who, in the Timæus, says, Obтws ouv ohn κατὰ λογὸν τὸν εἰκότα δεῖ λέγειν τόνδε τὸν κόσμον ζῶον ἔμψυχον ἔννουν τε τῇ ἀληθείᾳ dià TÀY TOÙ Dcoυ yevíoðaι пpóvoιav.-p. 26, ed. Bekker. Compare also Politicus, p. 273. Bruno may have taken this directly from Plato, or he might have learned it from the work of his countryman, Telesio, De Rerum Naturá. "Secondo il senso volgare et ordinario modo di comprendere e parlare." The whole of the early portion of Dialogue 4 (in which this distinction is maintained) is worth consulting.-Opere, i. 172 89. Vol. ii. pp. 128-154. "Oh sant' asinità, sant' ignoranza, Qual sola puoi far l' anima sì ouone Ch' uman ingegno e studio non l'avanza!" etc. The Spaccio is an attack upon the superstitions of the day,-a war against ignorance, and "that orthodoxy without morality, and without belief, which is the ruin of all justice and virtue." Morality, Bruno fancifully calls "the astronomy of the heart;" but did not even Bacon call it "the Georgics of the mind?" The Spaccio is a strange medley of learning, imagination, and buffoonery; and on the whole, perhaps the most tiresome of all his writings. M. Bartholmess, whose admiration for Bruno greatly exceeds our own, says of it: "The mythology and symbolism of the ancients is there employed with as much tact as erudition. The fiction that the modern world is still governed by Jupiter and the court of Olympus, the mixture of reminis cences of chivalry, and the marvels of the middle ages, with the tales and traditions of antiquity-all those notions which have given birth to the philosophy of mythology, of religions, and of history-the Vicos and the Creuzers—this strange medley makes the Spaccio so interesting. The philosopher there speaks the noble language of a moralist. As each virtue in its turn appears to replace the vices which disfigure the heavens, it learns from Jupiter all it has to do, all it has to avoid all its attributes are enumerated and explained, and mostly personified in the allegor ical vein; all the dangers and excesses it is to avoid are characterized with the same vigor. Every page reveals a rare talent for psychological observation, a profound knowledge of the heart, and of contemporary society. The passions are subtly analyzed and well painted. That which still more captivates the thoughtful reader is the sustained style of his long fiction, which may be regarded as a sort of philosophic sermon. Truth and wisdom, justice and candor, take the place in the future now occupied by error, folly, and falsehood of every species. In this last respect the Spaccio has sometimes the style of the Apocalypse." Without impugning the justice of this criticism, we must add, that the Spaccio taxes even a bookworm's patience, and ought to be read with a liberal license in skipping. Perhaps of all his writings, Gli Eroici Furori is that which would most interest a modern reader, not curious about the philosophical speculations of the Neapolitan. Its prodigality of sonnets, and its mystic exaltation, carry us at once into the heart of that epoch of Italian culture when poetry and Plato were the great studies of earnest men. In it Bruno, avowing himself a disciple of Petrarch, proclaims a Donna more exalted than Laura, more adorable than all earthly beauty: that Donna is the imperishable image of Divine Perfection. It is unworthy of a man, he says, to languish for a woman; to sacrifice to her all those energies and faculties of a great soul, which might be devoted to the pursuit of the Divine. Wisdom, which is truth and beauty in one, is the idol adored by the genuine hero. Love woman if you will, but remember that you are also a lover of the Infinite. Truth is the food of every heroic soul; hunting for Truth the only occupation worthy of a hero.* The reader of Plato will trace here a favorite image; and was it not Berkeley who defined Truth as the cry of all, but the game few run down? * Vide, in particular, the fine passage, Opp. Ital. ii. 406–7. FIRST EPOCH. FOUNDATION OF THE INDUCTIVE METHOD. § I. THE LIFE OF BACON. FRANCIS BACON was born on the 22d January, 1561. Mr. Basil Montagu, the laborious and affectionate (we had almost said idolatrous) biographer of Bacon, wishes us to believe that the family was ancient and illustrious; and favors us with rhetorical flourishes about Bacon retiring to the "halls of his ancestors." This is somewhat different from the story of Bacon's grandfather having kept the sheep of the Abbot of Bury.* But although we can claim for Bacon no illustrious ancestry, we must not forget his excellent parentage. His father, Sir Nicholas, was generally considered as ranking next to the great Burleigh as a statesman. His mother, Anne, daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, "was distinguished both as a linguist and as a theologian. She corresponded in Greek with Bishop Jewel, and translated his Apologia from the Latin so correctly, that neither he nor Bishop Parker could suggest a single alteration." His health was very delicate, which made him sedentary and reflective. Of his youth we know little, but that little displays * See this question of lineage, and a great many other curious points, satisfactorily settled in an article on the Lives of Bacon, London Review, Jan. 1836. + Edinb. Review, July, 1837, p. 9. This is the brilliant article on Bacon, by Macaulay, which has excited so much attention. It is reprinted in his Essays. |