A Tale of the Sixteenth Century. BY C. E. PLUMPTRE. Who may dare To name things by their real names? The few They have been nailed to crosses-thrown to flames. Anster's Translation of "Faust." IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. London: CHAPMAN & HALL, LIMITED, 11, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C. 1884. 6693 PREFACE. HISTORICAL tales are of two descriptions. One, where a few historical characters are wrought into a story that is otherwise wholly fictitious; the other, where one or two fictitious characters are interwoven with personages and events that are wholly historical. This story is of the latter description. I cannot indeed venture to hope that it will be found entirely free from inaccuracies, since how seldom is history itself perfectly accurate? Yet I can honestly say that I have spared myself as little in the way of research as if I had been writing a biography of Giordano Bruno, instead of a romance. Since this story will probably find more readers amongst those who are interested in the life and times of Bruno, than with ordinary novel readers; and since, moreover, there is no detailed account of Bruno in our language, I have thought it well to notify in this Preface what are the characters and events that are fictitious, so that the reader may be enabled to separate fact from fiction. (1.) The slight sketch of the parents of Bruno, in the early part of this tale, is, with the exception of their names, entirely fictitious; or, if it has any basis in fact, it is only such as rests upon negative evidence. It is somewhat singular, that in an age like this, when the doctrine of |