earth and kissed it with unspeakable joy.[3] Perhaps the suggestion of Bartholmèss is not groundless, that the volcanic soil and air of Nola influenced the character of the people as of the wine. "Hence the delicacy of their senses, vivacity of gesture, mobility of humour, and passionate ardour of spirit."[4] [Sidenote: Childhood of Bruno.] Of the childhood of Bruno little is to be learned. Cicala, his home, he describes as a "little village of four or five cottages not too magnificent."[5] In all probability his upbringing was simple, his surroundings homely. We need not go further, and suppose that his surroundings were not only homely, but degraded and vicious.[6] His father, although a soldier by profession, seems to have been a man of some culture; at least he was a friend of the poet Tansillo, who excited the admiration of the young Bruno, and first turned his mind towards the Muses. Tansillo's poetry, following the taste of the age, was not too refined, but its passion called forth a ready reflection in the ardent nature of the lad. It was perhaps the only door to the higher artistic life of the time which was open to Bruno; the neighbours, if we may judge from satiric references in the Italian Dialogues, were of a rough homely type. Bruno tells, for example,[7] how Scipio Savolino (perhaps his uncle) used to confess all his sins to Don Paulino, Curé of S. Primma that is in a village near Nola (Cicala), on a Holy Friday, of which "though they were many and great," his boon companion the Curé absolved him without difficulty. Once was enough, however, for in the following years, without many words or circumstances, Scipio would say to Don Paulino, "Father mine, the sins of a year ago to-day, you know them"; and Don Paulino would reply, "Son, thou knowest the absolution of a year ago to-day--go in peace and sin no more!"