What on earth, too, does he mean by Bruno's "great obscurity" when he returned to Italy and fell into the jaws of the Inquisition? Every scholar in that age was more or less obscure, for the multitude was illiterate, and sovereigns and soldiers monopolised the public attention. But as notoriety then went, Bruno was a famous figure. Proof of this will be given presently. Meanwhile we may notice the cheap sneer at Bruno as "a social and literary failure." Shelley was a literary failure in his lifetime, but he is hardly so now; and if Bruno was poor and unappreciated, Time has adjusted the balance, for after the lapse of three centuries he is loved and hated by the rival parties of progress and reaction. Now let us disprove the Scotch libeller's statements as to "the extreme obscurity in which Giordano Bruno lived and died." Bruno was so "obscure" that he fled from Naples, and doffed his priest's raiment, at the age of twenty-eight or twenty-nine, because his superiors were proceeding against him for heresy, through an act of accusation which comprised no less than one hundred and thirty counts. He was so "obscure" that the rest of his life was a prolonged flight from persecution. He was so "obscure" that the Calvinists hunted him out of Geneva, whence he narrowly escaped with his life; the documents relating to the proceedings against him being still preserved in the Genevan archives. He was so "obscure" that he took a professorship at Toulouse, and publicly lectured there to large audiences for more than a year. He was so "obscure" that King Henry III. made him professor extraordinary at Paris, and excused him from attending Mass. He was so "obscure" that the learned doctors of the Sorbonne waxed wroth with him, and made it obvious that his continued stay in Paris would be dangerous to his health. He was so "obscure" that he lived for nearly three years as the guest of the French ambassador in London. He was so "obscure" that he was known at the court of Elizabeth. He was so "obscure" that he was a friend of Sir Philip Sidney, and an intimate associate of Dyer, Fulk Greville, and the chief wits of his age. He was so "obscure" that he was allowed, as a distinguished foreigner, to lecture at Oxford, and to hold a public disputation on the Aristotelian philosophy before the Chancellor and the university. He was so "obscure" that on his return to Paris he held another public disputation under the auspices of the King. He was so "obscure" that his orations were listened to by the senate of the university of Wittenberg. He was so "obscure" that he was publicly excommunicated by the zealot Boethius. He was so "obscure" that the Venetian Inquisition broke through its stern rule, and handed him over as a special favor to the Inquisition of Rome. He was so "obscure" that he was at last "butchered to make a Roman holiday," the cardinals having presided at his trial, and his sentence being several pages at length.