46 JEROME CARDAN. 



again lodged with Targio, he disputed publicly with very 

 great success, and was a teacher in the Gymnasium of the 

 first books of Euclid. He even undertook for a few days 

 to discourse upon dialectics in the place of the appointed 

 teacher, Brother Romolo Serveta ; and afterwards he took 

 for a short time a class of elementary philosophy on 

 behalf of a physician named Pandolfo 1 . He was evi- 

 dently working hard, learning to read and write Latin, 

 not by the ordinary way of grammar rules, but by prac- 

 tice and by native tact, with books and dictionaries 2 . 



The years of study now commenced were years of 

 happiness to the young student. He worked hard, 

 partly to make up for lost time, partly in fear that he 

 might be recalled by his father if ill-tidings of him 

 were sent home 3 . At Pavia he was master of him- 

 self, and between the sessions, when he went home to 

 Milan, he assumed the right of managing his own affairs. 

 His mode of studying was suited to his tastes, though 

 perhaps not exactly orthodox. The common course of a 

 day's study was as follows 4 : After a morning's work he 

 walked in the shade outside the town- walls ; then he 

 dined ; then he gave up his time to music. The young 

 philosopher then took his fishing lines and went a-fishing 

 under shelter of the groves and^ woods not far beyond 



1 De Vita Propr. p. 16, for the preceding details. 



2 Ibid. cap. xxxiv. 3 De Consol. p. 75. 

 4 De Vit, Propr. cap. xl. 



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