122 JEROME CAKDAN. 



by slow marches to possess the spirit of Cardan, great 

 enough to be worth announcing by a dozen heralds. 



So, declared the victim after the event, it was an- 

 nounced. The dream of the shut gate of the paradise he 

 quitted to embrace a white-robed maiden foreboded no 

 bad wife to him, it pointed to his son 1 . A knowledge of 

 the mighty grief for which the way was opened by his 

 marriage, caused the shadow of the tutelary genius to 

 haunt his doors when he slept for the last time alone at 

 Sacco. So such things were afterwards interpreted. At 

 Gallarate, Jerome, in spite of all warnings, ignorant of 

 the future, and by no lore able to divine the way to 

 larger dinners, wrote much and ate sparingly. He 

 bravely bore his poverty, and knew that he should work 

 his way to fame. 



In addition to the writings that have been already 

 mentioned, he was turning into Latin his treatise upon 

 games, and making slow progress with his analysis of 

 the contradictory opinions of the doctors. But he 

 consumed much time in seeking the relief of music 

 for his cares, and relief to his pocket from the dice- 

 board 2 , for he was slipping, when his son was born, 

 every week lower down * into an abyss of hopeless 



1 " Somnii interpretatio non in puella desiit sed in filiis vim suam 

 ostendit." De Vita Propr. cap. xxvi. p. 98. 



" Anmis erat trigesimus tertius exactus, cum ludis et musica serum 

 consumpseram, nee interea quicquamegregiiinveneram aut perfeceram. 

 Siquidem libros de Fato et librum Ludo latrunculorum, paulo plus 

 quam inehoaveram." De Libris Prop. Lib. ult. Opera, Tom. i. p. 100' 



