BAD READING BY STARLIGHT. 199 



CHAPTER XL 



THE WOLF AT THE BOOK. 



JEROME certainly was not living a brilliant life before 

 the world when his three books of Consolation were first 

 issued to the public. After the events of the year 1539 

 he began to breathe; but it was not until four years 

 afterwards that he experienced any real change of for- 

 tune. The stars were supposed to have predicted that 

 his death would take place before he reached the age of 

 forty, certainly before he should attain to the full age of 

 forty-five; "but," says Cardan, "it was when I ought to 

 have died that I began really to live 1 ." The error lay of 

 course, however, not with the stars, but with the imper- 

 fect readers of their language. 



At that time which should have been the close of his 



1 '" Et astrologiae cognitio quam tune liabebam, et ut mini videbatur 

 et omnes aiebant, me non excessurum xl. vitae annum, certc non ad 

 xlv. perventurum multum obfuit. Ego interim partim necessitate, 

 partim ofierentibus se voluptatibus quotidie, cum recte vivere delibe- 

 rarern, dclinquebam. Negligens ob malam spem res ipsas : in deli- 

 berando aberrabam, et frequentius in opere peccabam. Donee eo ven- 

 tum est, ut qui finis vitae futurus credebatur, viveudi initium fecerit, 

 xliii. scilicet annus." De Vit. Prop. p. 44. 



