JEROME'S APPEAL TO THE WORLD. 181 



obscure position, and to make some approach towards the 



N fame for which he longed, for he was thirty- seven years old 



and still unrecognised, Cardan proposed to bind up with 



liis second venture as a public author a notice, which was 



in effect, though not in form, an appeal from his own 



countrymen to scholars in all quarters of the world. He 



trusted that the merit of his book, unquestionably very 



great, would recommend him to men at a distance. 



Among them, perhaps, when they saw by the motto 



round his portrait that he was in no esteem at home, and 



read in the concluding notification how many and divers 



books that he had written were still left unprinted in his 



study, there might be one or two who would desire to 



bring his genius more fully out into the light, and who, 



for the love of knowledge, would extend to him a helping 



hand. The notification was of a legal kind, and it is to 



be found printed in black letter at the end of the first edi" 



tion of the Practice of Arithmetic. In many parts it is 



curious, as illustrating not only Jerome's anxiety to 



escape from the cold and hungry state of a neglected 



scholar, but also the law of copyright in those days, the 



small money value set by Cardan on his writings, and the 



care taken by the Church to provide a censorship which 



did in fact render impossible the publication of a good 



many philosophical works. It of course prevented the 



world at large from being edified or shocked by the 



