A DREAM OF THE MOON. 137 



formed the last of the eight masses of study that were re- 

 presented by his spiritual life in the eight stars. 



In the succeeding year (1535) Jerome read through 

 the works of Cicero, word for word as he tells us 1 . This 

 task he had probably set himself, with a view to the im- 

 provement of his Latin style, his scholarship being at 

 that time far from accurate. He had picked up Greek, 

 French, and Spanish, without much care for learning 

 them grammatically, and in Latin he wrote rather by 

 tact and impulse than by rule. His labours were in 

 some respects very much hindered by the badness of his 

 memory 2 , and they were also partly hindered, though on 

 the whole more helped, by the restlessness of disposition 

 which made him, in study as in action, prompt always in 

 decision and impatient of delay. The same impatience 

 made him sharp in argument; but while, as it has been 

 already said, men surprised at his acerbity avoided wordy 

 warfare with him, Jerome took no credit to himself for 

 his unchallenged honours as a disputant. It was a pro- 

 perty, as he affirmed, belonging to him which he could 

 no more change than a stone could change its character. 

 " Surely," he said, with a happy stroke of humour, " it is 

 no matter of glory to the cuttle-fish that he can make 



the dolphins fly 3 ." 



1 De Libris Propriis. Liber ult. 



2 De Ut. ex Adv. Cap. Lib. ii. p. 277. 



3 De Vit. Propr. cap. xiii. 



