In his constant insistence on the necessity of freeing the universities from the tyranny of Aristotle, Bruno is at one with Bacon, as he is also in his interest in science. He is like Bacon, too, in his passionate idealism in the search for truth, in his interest in the allegorical interpretation of ancient myth, and in his encyclopedic reading and infinite power of memory. He lacked Bacon's shrewd judgment of men, and this was one of the causes of his downfall. Mr. Boulting gives a very clear account of the tragedy in the life of this man who found so little chance for freedom of thought, even in Protestant countries. In the stories about Bruno's experiences in Geneva, in the universities of Toulouse and Paris, and in German universities, as well as in the account of the long and solemn trial by the Inquisition, one finds much material for reflection on the limitations of human intelligence and upon the hardships met, even in universities devoted to the investigation of truth, by a man of original and bold intelligence.

The most interesting chapters for students of English literature are those devoted to Bruno's life in Oxford and London and the analysis of the "Ash Wednesday Supper." The whole of the introduction to the account of this supper, which was supposed to have taken place at the house of Fulke Greville, Mr. Boulting thinks is imaginary, Bruno's object being to stimulate interest in the philosophical portion of the treatise through this rather sensational attack on London life and manners. Giordano Bruno must have been an extremely difficult person to get on with; his lack of tact, hiз airs of superiority, must have prevented the fine idealism and the originality of the thought of the man from having the influence that they might have attained had their author possessed something of Sidney's personal charm. Yet the total effect of the book is to give a profound sympathy for this child of the Renaissance, moving about in worlds not realized, clinging to the Church as a sort of anchor while attacking her shams and falsehoods, finding in Calvin and his followers an intolerance matched only by that of the Inquisition, and unable, for all his restlessness of intellect and greatness of learning, to come at any solution of the mystery of life.

Bruno, G. Pensieri. Istituto editoriale italiano, Milano. Campanella, T. La Citta del sole. Istituto editoriale italiano, Milano.

Dickerman, S. O. Du Bartas and St. Ambrose. Modern Philology, XV, 419.

Nitze, William A.

Corneille's Conception of Character and the Cortegiano. Modern Philology, XV, 129 and 385. Jackson, Thomas Graham. A Holiday in Umbria, with an Account of Urbino and the Cortegiano of Costiglione. London, Murray.

Petre, M. D. Machiavelli and Modern Statecraft. Edinburgh

Review, July, 1917, 93.

Parenti, Giorgio. Nicolo Machiavelli e il Trentino. Firenze. Fisher, C. D. Petrarch. London and New York, Oxford University Press.

Wilkins, E. H. Notes on Petrarch. Modern Language Notes, XXXII, 193.

Stuart, Duane Reed. The Sources and the Extent of Petrarch's Knowledge of the Life of Vergil. Classical Philology, XII, 365.

Cook, Albert S. Petrarch and the Wine of Meroe. American Journal of Philology, XXXVIII, 312.

An Alliterative Poem

Edited with Introduction and Notes

By

JAMES HOLLY HANFORD,

Associate Professor of English in the University of North Carolina

and

JOHN MARCELLUS STEADMAN, JR.,
Instructor in English in the University of North Carolina

Mors et vita duello conflixere mirando;

Dux vitae mortuus regnat vivus.

CHAPEL HILL
Published by the University