24 JEROME CARDAN. 



He who was mocked so often, he would beat through the 

 bands they tied about his heart, he would do some great 

 thing that should command the homage due to his nature, 

 not the less because he was a child. At the beginning of 

 Jerome's tenth year 1 , his father moved to another house in 

 the same street, which he occupied for three years, and 

 during those three years Jerome again carried the lawyer's 

 bag, Fazio insisting upon the use of the child's service 

 with great pertinacity, the mother and the aunt con- 

 senting 1 . 



The position of young Jerome was, however, about this 

 time improved ; his father had certainly grown kinder 1 , 

 warmed very probably towards him by the signs of intel- 

 lect that he exhibited, and by ,the readiness with which 

 he picked up information, even about the geometrician's 

 darling studies 2 . There came also two nephews of Fazio, 

 one after the other, who shared Jerome's labour, either 

 serving in his place, or lightening his work, so that some- 

 times he was not called upon to go abroad at all, or, if he 

 went, he would not have so much to do 1 . Then there 

 were other changes of abode 1 ; first to the Via del 

 Cusani, and afterwards, until the completion of his six- 

 teenth year, Jerome lived with his father in the house of 

 a relation, Alessandro Cardan. 



1 DeFropr. Vita Liber, p. 15. 



2 De Ut. ex Adv. Capiend. Lib. iii. p. 429. 



