30 JEROME CAEDAN. 



old, was named Evangelista ; the other nephew, Ottone 

 Cantone, the tax-gatherer, was very rich, and when on 

 his death-bed offered to bequeath his wealth to the young 

 Jerome. It was the one worldly gift that fortune offered 

 to him in his early life, a bequest by which he would have 

 been enabled to obtain for himself education, and to carry 

 out his most ambitious schemes of study. Fazio, however, 

 acting on his son's behalf, refused the legacy, declaring that 

 the money was ill-gotten. The despised publican died, 

 therefore, intestate, and his property passed into the hands 

 of his surviving brother, the friar, who, being forbidden 

 to acquire wealth for himself, of course devoted it to pious 

 uses. 



The geometer's contempt of wealth did not include a 

 contempt of the homage he might earn to himself from 

 younger relations, as a man who would leave one day a 

 will behind him 1 . Jerome's health being delicate, it 

 pleased his father to excite the reverence of other young- 

 men in the family, by telling them that in the event of 

 his son's death this or that one of them would be his heir. 

 It was a weak way of boasting, and hazardous withal; 

 for in those days, although it was not much more likely 

 than it is now that young men would allow generous 

 blood to take a jaundice from exposure to such influ^ 

 encing, yet there were thousands of calculating fathers 

 1 De Util. ex Adr, Capiend. p. 429. 



