36 JEROME CARDAN. 



weak health, and specially in consideration of the fact 

 that during those years, and for some time afterwards, his 

 legs from the knees downwards never became warm in 

 bed until the morning 1 , he was not required to rise; in- 

 deed, he was required not to rise until the end of the 

 second hour after sunrise 2 . Fazio himself, it should be 

 observed, was not himself then out of bed 3 . .; .During the 

 last hour or two of morning rest, lying awake, the boy 

 commonly saw figures, that were colourless, and seemed 

 to be built up of rings of mail, rising out of the right 

 corner of the bed 4 . The figures, following each other in 

 a long procession, were of many kinds houses, castles, 

 animals, knights on horseback, plants, trees, musical in- 

 struments, trumpeters in the attitude of blowing, groves, 

 woods, flowers, and wild shapes that represented nothing 

 he had ever seen before these figures rising out of the 

 right-hand corner, and describing an arch, descended into 

 the left-hand corner, and were lost. Jerome had pleasure 

 in this spectacle, and made a secret of it. On one occa- 

 sion, when his eyes were fixed intently upon the proces- 

 sion, his Aunt Margaret asked whether he saw anything; 

 but he believed, he tells us, that if he revealed the mys- 



1 De Vita Propr. cap, xxxvii. p. 29 and pp. 161, 162. 



2 Ibid. p. 11 and p. 160. 



3 ' Somno matutino indulgere permisit, nam et ipse ad tertiam diei 

 horam decumbebat." De Ut. ex Adv. Cap. p. 428, 



4 De Vita Propr. p. 160. 



