errand of making Mocenigo so wise that the Council of Ten would no longer be able to treat him as a person of no importance. Within a very few months this strange bargain bore its fruit. The _magnifico_ discovered that he was no wiser than before, and that so far from being richer, he had given money to the Nolan for which no equivalent had been returned. He accused his teacher of being a cheat; and Bruno, whose temper had never been under restraint, answered, with more truth than prudence, that his employer was a fool. Mocenigo denounced him to the Inquisition. The Pope claimed him, and after some demur he was surrendered by the Serene Republic. On his trial before the Inquisition Bruno protested that he was a loyal son of the Church, and that if he had spoken heresy it was when he was speaking philosophically, and not theologically. The distinction would not serve, and he was condemned to death. Whether he was burnt in the body or only in effigy has been disputed. The balance of evidence is in favour of the contention that he actually suffered. In that case the date of his death is 1599. [SN: _Literary character of his work._] Some anti-clerical writers on the Continent, and a few Englishmen who sympathise with them, have been attracted to Bruno because they can use his name as a weapon in their warfare with ecclesiastical authority. It is needless to add that numbers quote him as an example of papal tyranny who have never made the certainly not inconsiderable effort required to read any one of his treatises. We can speak of him here only as a man of letters, and can put aside his Latin treatises and purely philosophic work. His wandering life, and perhaps the restless explosive nature of the man, made it impossible for him to produce books on a large scale. Bruno was essentially a writer of pamphlets, which he produced as opportunity served. Three of these may be mentioned here as especially characteristic of the Nolan’s genius and spirit--_La Cena del le Ceneri_ (‘The Ash Wednesday Supper’), dedicated to Castelnau de Mauvissière, French ambassador in London; the _Spaccio della Bestia Trionfante_ (‘The Driving out of the Triumphant Beast’); and _Gli Eroici Furori_ (‘The Heroic Furies’), the latter two dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney. All are in dialogue, and the last-named contains much verse. Although he excuses himself for part of what appears in _Spaccio della Bestia Trionfante_ by saying that it is the personages who speak in their character, not he, the dialogue form (the most difficult perhaps of all in literature) does not appear to me to be well managed. There is too much of the Nolan, and the other personages are apt to be too obviously dummies, who either repeat him, or are put up merely to be knocked over. But this in itself is typical of the author. The dialogues are the literary expression of the very remarkable human being who was Giordano Bruno, the most volcanic and fuliginous of men.