A PRINTER FOUND. 143 



early essays, and who had lost them. He was a pallid 

 youth, one of the few old companions whose friendship 

 Cardan afterwards desired, avoiding richer and more 

 powerful associates. Octavian paid absolute homage in 

 his friendship to the stronger mind of Jerome, adhered to 

 him through good and ill report, believed implicitly in 

 his great talents, and loved him with the utmost warmth 

 of youthful friendship. By the death of his father in 

 Venice, this believing friend, Ottaviano Scoto, became 

 master of a printing-office. 



Then Cardan dusted his manuscript about the Bad 

 Method of Practice among Physicians, and opened his 

 heart to Scoto. If he could only prove to the Milanese 

 that he was not the worse physician for his knowledge of 

 geometry, a better day might shine into his chambers. 

 If he could only print his book ! The distant hope of 

 a great good, to attain which the poor philosopher had 

 sighed so long in vain, seemed but a trifle in accomplish- 

 ment. " What you propose is a light matter," said the 

 sanguine printer, who took cheerfully all risk of publica- 

 tion on himself. "And if," he added, "I knew that I 

 was to lose all my outlay on it, I would still print the 

 volume for your sake. I think, however, that it will be 

 no great venture." The book De Malo Medendi Usu 

 was therefore printed at Venice, in 1536, Scoto alone 

 correcting the proofs, because there were no ready or 



