26 JEROME CARDAN. 



out of doors regarded as a questionable comrade 1 , a young 

 man with no lawful parents and no prospects, hearing his 

 mother reproached coarsely for his birth 3 , holding the posi- 

 tion of a servant, with no visible means of escape from it, 

 we feel that there is something touching in the pride of 

 loneliness on which his heart depended for its solace: 

 "As much as it was permitted me," he tells us afterwards, 

 "I lived to myself; and, in some hope of future things, 

 despised the present 3 ." 



Jerome had been instructed by his father 4 in reading, 

 writing, and arithmetic, in geometry, in some astrology, 

 and had learnt also in the same company to chatter Latin; 

 but he was nineteen years old 5 before Fazio consented to 

 his earnest wish that he might study thoroughly that 

 language then the only tongue used by ] the learned 

 and endeavour to make use of his abilities. The taste for 

 mathematics communicated to him by his father, Cardan 

 always retained. When in his fresh youth he became 

 eager to obtain a name that should not die, and must 



1 But, he says : " Ubi adeptus literas Latinas, statim etiam in urbe 

 nostra cognitusTuL" De Vita Propria, cap. xxxii. p. 138. 



2 " Apud patrein longam servitutem sustinui, et pro spurio ab illo 

 jactatus, etiam indecora matri simul audiebam." Dial, de Morte. 

 Opera, Tom. i. p. 676. 



3 "Itaque quam licuit vixi mihi; et in aliqua spe futurorum praesen- 

 tia sprevi." De Propr. Vit. cap. ix. p. 42. 



4 De UtiL ex Adv. Capiend. p. 428. De Propr, Vit. cap. xxxiv. 

 p. 155. 



5 De Libris Propriis (ed. Lugd. 1557), p. 9. 



