4 JEROME CARDAN. 



found referring with unfilial bitterness to either of his 

 parents. He always avoids making any express statement 

 that would reflect positive dishonour on his mother 1 ; and 

 both of her and of his father he speaks often with a re- 

 verent affection 2 . He speaks more frequently, however, 

 of his father, whom he certainly preferred, although he 

 does not venture much beyond the remark made in an ir- 

 resolute way on one occasion, that " my father appeared to 

 me (if such a thing may be said) better and more loving 

 than my mother 3 ." 



There was a rest then from blows for the sick child 

 when he had attained his seventh year, but sorrow only 

 laid aside one shape to reappear and vex him in another 4 . 

 When the boy had first been brought to Milan, he had 

 lodged with his aunt and mother in the Via dell' Arena 5 , 

 by the Pavian gate, and they had afterwards removed 



1 See a curious example in page 2, note 1. He evades there and 

 everywhere the direct statement that his mother was married, but in 

 that passage leads up to the inference that she had been married pri- 

 vately. In the same spirit he says, when he relates his exclusion from 

 the College of Physicians on the ground of illegitimacy, that he was 

 rejected * suspicione oborta quod (tarn male a patre tractatus^spurius 

 essem." De Consolatione, Lib. iii. p. 75. That his tenderness was not 

 towards himself is shown by the whole tenor of his life. He would, 

 for himself, rather have taken a perverse pleasure in the proclamation 

 of a fact that rubbed respectability against the grain. 



2 See especially De Util. ex Adv. Cap. Lib. iii. p. 430. 



3 De Propr. Vit. p. 12. 



4 "Mala sors minime me deseruit, infortunium commutavit non 

 sustulit." De Propr. Vit. p. 13. . 



5 De Propr. Vit. cap. xxiv. p. 92. 



