the possession of
fat fellowships, felt no sympathy for an eccentric interloper of Bruno's
stamp. They allowed him to lecture on the Soul and the Sphere.

[Footnote 90: Preface to 'Lo Spaccio della Bestia' (_Op. It._ vol. ii.
p. 108).]

[Footnote 91: _Op. It._ vol. i. p. 150.]

[Footnote 92: _Op. It._ vol. i. p. 123.]

They even condescended to dispute with him. Yet they made Oxford so
unpleasant a place of residence that after three months he returned to
London. The treatment he experienced rankled in his memory. 'Look where
you like at the present moment, you will find but doctors in grammar
here; for in this happy realm there reigns a constellation of pedantic
stubborn ignorance and presumption mixed with a rustic incivility that
would disturb Job's patience. If you do not believe it, go to Oxford,
and ask to hear what happened to the Nolan, when he disputed publicly
with those doctors of theology in the presence of the Polish Prince
Alasco.[93] Make them tell you how they answered to his syllogisms; how
the pitiful professor, whom they put before them on that grave occasion
as the Corypheus of their university, bungled fifteen times with fifteen
syllogisms, like a chicken in the stubble. Make them tell you with what
rudeness and discourtesy that pig behaved; what patience and humanity he
met from his opponent, who, in truth, proclaimed himself a Neapolitan,
born and brought up beneath more genial heavens. Then learn after what
fashion they brought his public lectures to an end, those on the
Immortality of the Soul and those on the Quintuple Sphere.'[94] The Soul
and the Sphere were Bruno's favorite themes. He handled both at this
period of life with startling audacity.

[Footnote 93: See Wood, _Ath. Oxon._ p. 300.]

[Footnote 94: _Op. It._ vol. i. p. 179.]

They had become for him the means of ventilating speculations on
terrestrial movement, on the multiplicity of habitable worlds, on the
principle of the universe, and on the infinite modes of psychical
metamorphosis. Such topics were not calculated to endear him to people
of importance on the banks of Isis. That he did not humor their
prejudices, appears from a Latin epistle which he sent before him by way
of introduction to the Vice Chancellor.[95] It contains these pompous
phrases: 'Philotheus Jordanus Brunus Nolanus magis laboratae theologiae
doctor, purioris et innocuae sapientiae professor. In praecipuis Europae
academiis notus, probatus et honorific