Indeed the story of Bruno's life, from his
visit to London and Oxford, his sojourn in Paris and wanderings through
Germany, down to his betrayal at Venice and martyrdom at Rome, is most
powerfully told, and the estimate of the value of his philosophy and the
relation he holds to modern science, is at once just and appreciative.
The account also of Ignatius Loyola and the rise of the Society of Jesus
is extremely interesting, though we cannot think that Mr. Symonds is very
happy in his comparison of the Jesuits to 'fanatics laying stones upon a
railway' or 'dynamiters blowing up an emperor or a corner of Westminster
Hall.' Such a judgment is harsh and crude in expression and more
suitable to the clamour of the Protestant Union than to the dignity of
the true historian. Mr. Symonds, however, is rarely deliberately unfair,
and there is no doubt but that his work on the Catholic Reaction is a
most valuable contribution to modern history--so valuable, indeed, that
in the account he gives of the Inquisition in Venice it would be well
worth his while to bring the picturesque fiction of the text into some
harmony with the plain facts of the footnote.

On the poetry of the sixteenth century Mr. Symonds has, of course, a
great deal to say, and on such subjects he always writes with ease,
grace, and delicacy of perception. We admit that we weary sometimes of
the continual application to literature of epithets appropriate to
plastic and pictorial art. The conception of the unity of the arts is
certainly of great value, but in the present condition of criticism it
seems to us that it would be more useful to emphasise the fact that each
art has its separate method of expression. The essay on Tasso, however,
is delightful reading, and the position the poet holds towards modern
music and modern sentiment is analysed with much subtlety. The essay on
Marino also is full of interest. We have often wondered whether those
who talk so glibly of Euphuism and Marinism in literature have ever read
either Euphues or the Adone. To the latter they can have no better guide
than Mr. Symonds, whose description of the poem is most fascinating.
Marino, like many greater men, has suffered much from his disciples, but
he himself was a master of graceful fancy and of exquisite felicity of
phrase; not, of course, a great poet but certainly an artist in poetry
and one to whom language is indebted. Even those conceits that Mr.
Symonds feels bound to censure have something charming about them. The
continual use of periphrases is undoubtedly a grave fault in style, yet
who but a pedant would really quarrel with such periphrases as sirena de'
boschi for the nightingale, or il novella Edimione for Galileo?

From the poets Mr. Symonds passes to the painters: not those great
artists of Florence and Venice of whom he has already written, but the
Eclectics of Bologna, the Naturalists of Naples and Rome. This chapter
is too polemical to be pleasant. The one on music is much better, and
Mr. Symonds gives us a most interesting description of the gradual steps
by which the Italian genius passed from poetry and painting to melody and
song, till the whole of Europe thrilled with the marvel and mystery of
this new language of the soul. Some small details should perhaps be
noticed.