[121] He well deserves this name, in spite of his recantation at Venice; for it seems incredible that he could not by concessions have purchased his life. As Breugger wrote with brutal crudity to Kepler: 'What profit did he gain by enduring such torments? If there were no God to punish crimes, as he believed, could he not have pretended any thing to save his life?' We may add that the alternative to death for a relapsed apostate was perpetual incarceration; and seven years of prison may well have made Bruno prefer death with honor.
[122] op. cit. p. 70.
[123] Both Berti and Quinet have made similar remarks, which, indeed, force themselves upon a student of the sixteenth century.
[124] This theological conception of history inspired the sacred drama of the Middle Ages, known to us as Cyclical Miracle Plays.
[125] It was my intention to support the statements in this paragraph by translating the passages which seem to me to justify them; and I had gone so far as to make English versions of some twenty pages in length, when I found that this material would overweight my book. A study of Bruno as the great precursor of modern thought in its more poetical and widely synthetic speculation must be left for a separate essay. Here I may remark that the most faithful and pithily condensed abstract of Bruno's philosophy is contained in Goethe's poem Proemium zu Gott und Welt. Yet this poem expresses Goethe's thought, and it is doubtful whether Goethe had studied Bruno except in the work of his disciple Spinoza.
[126] Spaventa in his Saggi di Critica.
[127] We may remind our readers of Henri IV.'s parting words to Joseph Scaliger: 'Est-il vrai que vous avez été de Paris à Dijon sans aller à la selle?'
[128] Lettere, vol. i. p. 239.
[129] It was under the supervision of the Servites that Sarpi gained the first rudiments of education. Thirst for knowledge may explain his early entrance into their brotherhood. Like Virgil and like Milton, he received among the companions of his youthful studies the honorable nickname of 'The Maiden.' Gross conversation, such as lads use, even in convents, ceased at his approach. And yet he does not seem to have lost influence among his comrades by the purity which marked him out as exceptional.
[130] Lettere, vol. i. p. 237.