own account, fifteen times he worsted his chief adversary, who could only reply by abuse. He stood up in the assembly a small man, "rough hewn," with disheveled hair, wearing an old coat with several buttons wanting, while the Oxford doctors, whose opposition he describes as based on "ignorance, presumption, and rustic rudeness," wore "twelve rings on two fingers and two chains of shining gold." While they were attempting to defend the old teaching of Aristotle from the attacks of a man they regarded as an eccentric charlatan, he explained his new ideas, which were to them startling and highly objectionable.
Small wonder that after three months his public lectures were brought to an end and he returned to London. Here he made several friends, among them Sir Philip Sidney, the poet-soldier, of whom he had already heard in Italy, for Sidney had studied at Padua. Fulk Greville, who described himself on his epitaph as "Servant to Queen Elizabeth, Councilor to King James, and friend to Sir Philip Sidney," also became intimate with him, and at his house Bruno held a second disputation, at which he again seems to have aggravated his hearers. He had a sincere admiration for Sidney and dedicated a book of sonnets to him. The protection given to him by Queen Elizabeth he repaid by referring to her in his poems in terms of the highest flattery, which no doubt she appreciated. But this praise of a Protestant Queen, who herself was excommunicated, was eventually
