have given the full evidence of this influence of Bruno upon Goethe. Well, therefore, may be said of the Italian poet-philosopher what Goethe makes Faust say, that the trace of his earthly days will not perish for ages to come.'

V.

Both moderate Church reformers and independent thinkers were subjected to the fiery doom. It has been brought to recollection, during the Bruno commemoration, that another progressive theologian and philosophical thinker, a native of Nola, like himself, Pomponio Algieri, was burnt, at the age of twenty-five, at Rome, in a cauldron of boiling oil, pitch, and turpentine, his head and hands standing out in the midst of the flames, and his torments lasting a quarter of an hour. Few know that in Luther's days, even in Germany-at Köln, at Passau, and at Munich, wherever the Papal power still was strong-Adolf Klarenbach and Peter Flystedt, Leonhard Kaiser and Georg Wagner were burnt at the stake.

To the memory of the two first-named, Luther dedicated a hymn of praise. The martyrdom of Leonhard Kaiser also he sang, by way of alluding to the meaning of his names, as the death of 'a strong and fearless lion, who bore his family name, too, with good right as the first and foremost of his race.' But can we compare these with a philosophical genius like Bruno, a knight of intellect of towering greatness, the ardour of whose poetical vein has its counterpart in the mighty grasp of his intuition and the profundity of his reason?

6

What were his sufferings in the darkness of the dungeon in which the Inquisition kept him? What ferocious attempts were made to bend and break the energy of the highly cultured, unfrocked friar whose mind was nourished with the love of antiquity? If, as a prisoner, he had a moment of faltering, the answer has been given in the words: How can you expect that torture, even though applied for hours, should prevail against a whole life of study and inquiry? Campanella, who after Bruno was kept in prison for twentyseven years, said of his own sufferings:- The last time I was tortured, it was for forty hours. I was fettered with cords which cut to the very bones; I was hung up with hands tied back, a most sharp piece of wood being used, which cut out large parts of my flesh and produced a vast loss of blood. Perhaps some day, when the archives of the Vatican become fully accessible, we shall learn a little more of Bruno's last years of torment.

On being informed of his doom, he, in the face of a horrible death, heroically said to his inhuman judges:-'Perhaps you pronounce your sentence with greater fear than that with which I receive it!' Among those who formed the tribunal was Cardinal Bellarmin, the same who later on forced Galilei to an apparent recantation, and Cardinal Sanseverina, who had called the massacre of the night of St.

Bartholomew 'a splendid day, most pleasant to Catholics.' The sentence against Bruno was, as usual, to be carried out without the spilling of blood.' In the bandit-language of the Inquisition, as Hermann Brunnhofer expresses it, this signified burning at the stake. Before the victim of priestcraft was sacrificed, his tongue was torn with pincers. But it still speaks to posterity in powerful accents. More and more it is seen that a great deal of that which, in this country, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Lyell, Lubbock, and others, have by their masterly and successful researches made the common intellectual property of all educated people, had been divined, in some measure, by the prescient genius of Bruno. Unaided by exact science, he anticipated in a general way the scientific results of ages to come.

The struggle against Obscurantism has still to be carried on. Whilst I am writing this, numerous voices of the ultramontane Press come in from abroad which speak in tones of inquisitorial fury of the 'Bruno scandal,' urging a crusade for the restoration of the temporal power of the Papacy. Some of these papers go the length of justifying the burning of the Italian thinker by 'the necessity of guarding the Church against dangerous heresies.' The Salzburger Chronik says:—' He that will not listen and obey, must be made to feel. In order to save the good, the evil must be annihilated. This doctrine is the very basis of the penal law and of the divine command, which punish murder, and which therefore must all the more punish the murder of souls. This is in accordance with human conscience and with justice.'

Bruno himself foresaw an age of enlightenment, a coming century of progress, when the powers of darkness would sink down to the nether world, and the hearts of men be filled with truth and justice. To this prediction refers the proud inscription on his monument :— 'To Giordano Bruno this memorial has been raised by the century prophesied by him, on the very spot where his pile burnt.' It may be open to doubt whether this nineteenth century has fulfilled yet all that which Bruno foretold. But whether Galilei's often-quoted word was spoken or not on the famous occasion when the Papal Church fancied it could stop the rotation of the world by bringing him down on his knees, the truth of his saying, in more than one sense, becomes ever apparent: Eppur si muove!' 'And yet it

moves!'

HEALTH-SEEKING

IN TENERIFE AND MADEIRA.

THE Canary Islands have long been famous in travellers' tales for the balminess of their air and the beauty of their scenery, but until a very few years ago the majority of Englishmen looked upon them much as the Romans of Virgil's day regarded the penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos. Only a few adventurous spirits had carried their search for sunshine so far out of the beaten track; to the average invalid Tenerife was as much outside the sphere of practical healthseeking as Timbuctoo. Nor can this be wondered at, when the difficulties of access and the total absence of suitable accommodation are borne in mind; moreover the virtues of the climate were practically little known even to physicians, and few people care to make themselves the subject of experiment in such a matter. Now that the Canaries are being extensively advertised as a land flowing with the elixir of life, where disease drops from the sufferer almost as soon as his feet touch its sacred soil, the pendulum, as usually happens, seems likely to swing too far the other way. Exaggerated expectation will too surely breed disappointment, and the rising tide of popularity may, in its inevitable ebb, leave the new health resort in lower water than it was before. This would be a pity, for the natural advantages of the islands are certainly very great, and, indeed, in some cases of disease altogether unrivalled. My object in this paper is to give the results of my personal observations of Tenerife during a short visit made in the spring of the present year. I may claim to be an impartial witness, for I went there with no other object in view than to seek for rest and change of scene, and my ideas of the climate and hygienic possibilities of the island were so vague that my mind was free from bias of any kind on the subject. As very few European physicians have visited the Canaries, the impressions which I formed there may have some interest for invalids and lovers of sunlight generally, who are on the outlook for some new haven of refuge for the winter.

Tenerife is the largest of the group of 'seven sisters' which form the Canary Islands; it measures about sixty miles in length by thirty in breadth at the widest part. To most people it is probably known

chiefly, if not solely, for the famous 'Peak' which rises more than twelve thousand feet from the sea level, and is visible from fifty to a hundred miles around. The island was not so very long ago of some commercial importance, and did a large trade in Canary wine and in cochineal. The oidïum ruined the one and the introduction of aniline dyes the other, and the Tenerifeans are now fain to fall back on their climate as a staple product, embodying 'the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.' In former days Tenerife supplied European apothecaries with Guanche mummies and 'Dragon's blood' (the juice of the dragon tree, Dracaena Draco), which served as ingredients of mystic potency in their horrible concoctions; people are now awaking to the fact that in its air the island possesses a natural medicine which has more than all the supposed virtues of these charms.

Santa Cruz, the capital of Tenerife, is easily reached from Plymouth in five days. The town is beautifully situated, with a background of conical mountains and flanked by steep red cliffs which reminded me of some of the Norwegian fjords. As most visitors use Santa Cruz simply as a landing-place, and at once hurry on to Orotava, its value as a health resort is scarcely so much appreciated as it deserves to be. It is warmer and therefore more relaxing than Orotava, where the trade wind from the north-east makes itself more or less felt every day, but for that very reason it suits some patients better. Dr. Douglas, a former patient of mine, has established a sanatorium at Salamanca, about a mile from Santa Cruz. He has a fine house and a charming flower garden, in which his patients. looked very comfortable as they sat in the shade. One gentleman who had tried Orotava without much success had found the air of Santa Cruz very beneficial. I was informed that Mr. Camachio, the proprietor of the principal hotel at Santa Cruz, intends to build another at Salamanca which will be expressly fitted up for the reception of invalids, for whom there is at present no proper accommodation in the capital itself. From Santa Cruz I proceeded to Orotava, on the north side of the island. The distance is only twenty-five miles, but it takes six hours to cover it, as the ascent for the first five miles is very steep. On the crest of this slope at a height of 2,000 feet above the sea is Laguna, the ancient capital of Tenerife. It is situated on a plateau surrounded by hills, and has the advantage—almost unique in the island of Tenerife-of having comparatively level ground around it for some distance. Within easy reach of it are the charming forests of Agua Garcia and Mercedes and the Anaga hills. The town itself, though interesting to a stranger for its historical associations and the quaint architecture of its buildings, is one of the dreariest places in the world. It has such a deserted appearance that one might almost take it for a city of the dead; it reminds one of Defoe's description of London after the

Great Plague. Its climate, however, in the summer and autumn is deliciously cool, and hence it is the favourite residence during the hot weather not only of the well-to-do inhabitants of Santa Cruz, but of many people from Orotava. In winter, however, it is often cold and wet, so that, as Mrs. Stone says in her excellent work,' 'If any one should be tired of the perpetual sunshine of Orotava, and long for rains and murky skies such as England possesses, he can obtain a semblance of them by going to Laguna in the winter months.' The severity of this remark, however, may have been partly due to the particularly bad weather which the lady experienced on the occasion of her winter visit.

From Laguna to Orotava the road winds down a gentle declivity for twenty miles. The valley of Orotava, though it has been greatly praised, did not strike me as particularly beautiful. Humboldt described it as the loveliest valley in the world. Perhaps, as Mr. Edwardes2 has suggested, the very extravagance of the praise that has been lavished on it prepares the mind for something so transcendently beautiful that no mere earthly landscape could come up to the expectations that have been excited. It must be remembered also that Humboldt was a young man and was just starting on his travels when he saw Orotava, and he described his impressions long afterwards, when probably distance of time and indistinctness of memory lent enchantment to the view. Even the most ardent champion of the Fortunate Islands must allow that the country lacks the greenness of Madeira, and the 'finish' of the Riviera, and has a general appearance of not being well kept. As in most volcanic districts in the South, the fig, the cactus, and the vine flourish, but the latter is not now extensively cultivated in the valley of Orotava. The aloe is largely used for making hedges, but it does not seem to blossom nearly so freely as in the south of France and in Italy. The cliffs and lower hills are covered with a small shrubby euphorbia, whilst higher up the magnificent Euphorbia canariensis with its candelabra-like branches, often attaining a height of twenty feet, is very abundant. The valley itself has something of the form of an amphitheatre sloping down to the sea. There are two towns of Orotava, the Puerto or port, and La Villa or old town. The former is only fifty feet above the sea-level, while La Villa is nearly a thousand feet higher, though only two miles and a half from Puerto. Dotted about the valley of Orotava there are some twenty or thirty villas at various elevations between Puerto and La Villa; these are let to foreigners, mostly Englishmen. Both Puerto and La Villa are depressing places at first; the streets are grass-grown and deserted like those of Laguna, and one would be glad to have even one small wave of that 'full tide of human existence ' which delighted Johnson in Fleet Street. This desolate appearance

1 Tenerife and its six Satellites.

2 Rides and Studies in the Canary Islands, p. 25.