THE MAGIC APULEIUS. 69 



any youth of quick and ready wit should find that he 

 could make out at once the general sense of a Latin 

 story. Any shrewd man acquainted with Italian can 

 scramble at first sight through the meaning of a Spa- 

 nish book, and of French, another allied tongue, young 

 Jerome must have picked up a great number of hints 

 from the French armies that overran his native district. 



After the purchase of his Apuleius, the student may 

 have prided himself much on the discovery of the great 

 deal that he could extract from books in these languages, 

 before they had become, or when they had not long 

 become, matters of systematic study. The seller of the 

 Apuleius could be looked back to at last from a distance 

 of time as though he had been one of the legendary 

 beings who come into the market-places to sell magic 

 books, and then are seen no more. The impression would 

 accord well with his superstitious fancy ; he himself would 

 very soon believe it, and could easily let Greek slip in- 

 sensibly into the list of tongues miraculously placed within 

 his power. It is no proof of deliberate untruth that 

 Cardan has put down among the mysteries of life this 

 vague impression in one place, but does not the less 

 candidly relate elsewhere the pains with which he toiled 

 along the usual paths of study. 



Those paths led him, at the beginning of the year 1526, 

 to the attainment of one object of ambition. He was in 



