WORK AND WANT. 201 



something about the Consolation of Lovers and the Ira- 

 mortality of the Soul. At Greek he did work. In the 

 last-named year, being admonished by a dream, he betook 

 himself to the study of that language with so much 

 earnestness of purpose, that the smattering which he had 

 begun to acquire six years before, and beyond which he 

 had not passed, was in four months enlarged into a con- 

 siderable acquaintance with the language; he became 

 able to understand it so well that he might read for hours 

 without being checked by any difficulty, and spent time 

 in writing Greek, not, he says, as a sign of scholarship, 

 but of the energy with which he studied 1 . 



During these years, 1540 and 1541, and during the 

 first part of the year 1542, Jerome allowed all other work 

 to fall into neglect, because the Fates had sent to him a 

 golden goose 2 . Antonio Vicomercato, a patrician of 

 Milan, was inclined to amuse himself daily with the poor 

 mathematician and physician over the dice-table, very 

 well content to lose. Cardan of course was alike glad to 

 play at dice, and glad to win. He went to Antonio's 

 house daily, and stopped .often the whole day; they 

 played for from one to three or four reals a game, and as 



1 "Non enim veteranus, sed tyro militabat, turn maxime 



existens. Express! ibi vim non eruditionem." De Sapientia, &c. 

 pp. 429, 430. The reference substantiates the account given in the text 

 of Cardan's literary work in the years 1540 41. 



2 All that relates to Vicomercato will be found in the 38th chapter 

 of the book De Vita Propria. 



