Note 4 — GEORGE BRANDES (continued 10)

A comic analogy to Bruno's doctrine may be found in the following lines of Hotspur's (Henry IV., Pt. I. iii. l):

"Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth In strange eruptions: oft the teeming earth Is with a kind of colic pinch'd and vex'd By the imprisoning of unruly wind Within her womb; which, for enlargement striving, Shakes the old beldam Earth, and topples down Steeples and moss-grown towers."

But no one will seriously attribute this passage to the philosophical influence of Giordano Bruno. Hotspur was quite capable of hitting upon this image without any suggestion from Nola or Naples.