204 JEROME CAKDAN. 



worked in that most miserable age, compelled a removal to 

 Milan of the University of Pavia 1 . As the same wars 

 crippled the university funds, and the professors could 

 not get their salaries, very few of them thought it worth 

 their while to come to Milan with their chairs; many 

 chairs, therefore, were vacant, and among them that of 

 Medicine, which was again offered by the senate to 

 Cardan 2 . He had before refused it, because he did not 

 think the salary secure ; when, however, the office was 

 brought home to his own door, at which the wolf was sit- 

 ting all day long, the poor philosopher thought very 

 wisely, that even to have money owing to him would 

 beget a financial state much more respectable than hope- 

 less want; there was also a decided gain of respectability 

 in point of position. The Plat lectureship only required 

 his services on holidays, and was no introduction to a re- 

 gular professor's chair. As for his duties to the University 

 of Pavia, while its lectures were delivered at Milan they 

 would not take him far out of his way, or require the 

 abandonment of any of his home resources. He could 

 cultivate his practice, indeed, all the more easily for hold- 

 ing rank in his own town as a Professor of Medicine as 

 well as Mathematics. Work he must, for at this time a 



1 D&Libris Propriis. Liber ultimus. Opera, Tom. L p. 106. 



2 De Vita Propria, cap. xxxvii. ; where will be found authority for 

 all that follows on this subject. 



