64 JEROMD CARDAN. 



for dice and music, with one Ambrose Varadeus; after- 

 wards he had found a friend at Pavia in Prosper Mari- 

 non. A pallid youth, Ottaviano Scoto, of Venice, who 

 lost fifty sheets of Cardan's early efforts as an author, was 

 a friend with whom the young student was upon familiar 

 terms of lend and borrow as to books anil money 1 . This 

 was his closest intimacy ; out of it sprang one of the 

 leading events in his after-life. Another of his close 

 friends was Gaspardo Gallearato. Love of pleasure coun- 

 teracted, in a great degree, Jerome's desire to play the 

 misanthrope. In society he had also the satisfaction of 

 rasping any tender point in a discussion. As much 

 through love of argument as malice he perversely advo- 

 cated the opinions that were most distasteful to his com- 

 pany 2 , and loved a single combat of the tongue, in which 

 it appears that he never failed to silence his opponent, for 

 he could bring into play not only a quick wit and a rare 

 amount of ready knowledge, but he could assume also a 

 tone so rude and overbearing that few who had contested 

 with him once would court a second battle. 



Though the natural gifts and acquirements of Cardan 

 were disfigured by harsh feeling towards others and an 

 obtrusive consciousness of self, it is curious to observe how 



1 De Vit. Propr. cap. xv. p. 68. 



2 " Illud inter vitia mea singulare et magnum agnosco, et sequor, ut 

 liberitius nil dicam quam quod audientibus displiceat, atque in hoc, 

 sciens ac volens, persevero." De Vit. Prop. cap. xiii. p. 60. 



