202 JEKOME CARDAN. 



Jerome always rose a winner, he was al>le to take home 

 about a gold piece daily, sometimes more and sometimes 

 less. For two years and some months almost all other 

 sources of income dried away from him, while he culti- 

 vated this. His credit sank; even pen, ink, and paper 

 were neglected. 



With money so earned, or with money however earned, 

 in the midst of his poverty he was improvident. He 

 enjoyed musical evenings, and music, as he said, led to 

 unprofitable company. The taste of the period was for 

 part-singing, and it was not easy to collect four or five 

 men who could sing readily together, and who could 

 think and feel together also. If he had musical com- 

 panions to his house they cost him heavily for suppers, 

 and corrupted the minds of his children. For most 

 singers, he said and I suspect that he could not easily 

 libel the good table-companions of the sixteenth century 

 most singers are drunken, gluttonous, impudent, un- 

 settled, impatient, stolid, inert, ready for every kind of 

 lust. The best men of that sort are fools 1 . Upon such 

 men, despising them but relishing their music, Cardan 

 squandered a good deal of his money. 



One day, at the end of August (1542), Vicomercato 

 announced a sudden change in his own life, and he was 

 not to be satisfied unless Cardan would swear as he did 

 1 De Util. 6x Adv. Cap. Opera, Tom. ii. p. 1 17. 



