92 JEROME CARDAN. 



of knowledge or of study 1 ." The early treatise upon 

 gambling, written in Italian, is represented by a Latin 

 disquisition, published at a later date, on dice and cards 2 . 

 This is recast from the early work, and has few traces of 

 maturity about it. It contains much curious minute 

 information about the games played in those days, and 

 the tricks of gamblers, good to be consulted by all writers 

 on the history of such amusements. The book is, at the 

 same time, very characteristic of the writer's temper. 

 Gambler himself, and writing in that avowed character a 

 treatise on his favourite amusement, Jerome takes no pains 

 to defend his reputation, or to justify a love of dice. 

 He lays it down coolly and philosophically, as one of his 

 first axioms, that dice and cards ought to be played for 

 money, since if there be no stake to win there is nothing 

 to mitigate the fact that time is to be lost 3 . To play at 

 dice and cards for amusement purely, he says, when there 

 are books, music, conversation, and so many wiser and 

 better ways of passing time agreeably, is the part only 



1 De Libris Propriis. Liber ultimus. Opera, Tom. i. p. 97. "Fuerant 

 enim conatus juveniles: et indolis potius indicia, quam fructus scientiae 

 aut studiorum." 



2 De Libris Propriis (1557), p. 11. 



3 " Impositus est tamen modus, circa pecuniae quantitatem, alias certe 

 nunquam ludere licet: quod quam sumunt excusationem de leniendo 

 taedio temporis, utilius id fiat lectionibus lepidis, aut narrationibus 

 fabularum vel historiarum, vel artificiis quibusdam pulchris nee labo- 

 riosis ; inter quae etiam lyra, vel cheli pulsare, aut canere, carminaque 

 componere, utilius fuerit. . . . Lib. de Ludo Alese, cap. ii. 



