- deed one of the charges against him, when he came
to his trial in Venice, that he had praised the heretic prince, the news of whose assassination in 1589 was received in Rome with a salute of cannon.
Bruno's method of lecturing must have been very startling to those who were accustomed to the grave airs of the learned professors. He was enthusiastic and eloquent, and so eager that his hearers should grasp his meaning that he would adopt every sort of different manner of addressing them. Sometimes grave and prophet-like, at other times lively and gay: sometimes fierce and combative, and then, again, indulging in gross buffoonery. He was bent on attracting attention and rousing the indifference of his audiences. In his writings, too, he showed varying moods. The wit, the scoffer, the poet, the mystic, and the prophet all appear. Great as his learning was, he depended more on his intuitions; that is to say, the imaginative poet in him was stronger than the scientific scholar. But some of the wisest philosophers in after-years owed a great deal to his wonderfully far-reaching thoughts and ideas.
In 1583 he went to London with letters furnished by the King of France to his Ambassador. He found Queen Elizabeth very sympathetic. A friendly welcome was extended by her court to all foreigners, and she herself spoke Italian fluently. He was also fortunate in having a cultured and liberal-minded patron in the Ambassador, M. Castelnau de Mauvissière, who
