Right here let it be said of Bruno that whatever may have been his weaknesses before the Inquisition at Venice, he stood firmly by his creed when put to the final test, and died an ideal martyr's death because his creed did not agree with that of his persecutors. And so terminated the life of one of Italy's greatest ornaments and scholars. The occasion had not then the importance we assign it now. The burning of a heretic was a frequent spectacle, and the year 1600 was the year of Jubilee, in which the death of one unbeliever more was but the incident of a day. He had himself foreseen it, saying, "Torches, fifty or a hundred, will not fail me, even though the march past be at mid-day, should it be my fate to die in Roman Catholic Country." There remains yet to comment on his character and to analyze his views. The greatest blot upon the former is his attitude before the Venetian Tribunal. Here he was at first defiant, even polemical, strong in his asserted right to use the natural light of sense and reason. Under greater stress he modified this to one of absolute and indignant denial, and finally became submissive to the last degree, cringing and finally begging for pardon on bended knees. That this attitude changed with his better realization of his predicament is undeniable. Moreover what keen and sensitive natures may do under the influence of torture is never to be predicated. How many of us could resist the persuasiveness of the rack when it came to modifying our beliefs? But whatever may have been his weakness at that time, he completely rehabilitated himself before his end, for were not his ashes scattered to the winds as a token that he completely failed to recant? Surely no martyr to science or dogma ever died a more dignified death, for the edification or example of others.