210 JEBOME CARDAN. 



Samson Carrasco, being thrown from his horse by the 

 knight, and having his ribs broken, sent it is said quite 

 naturally for an algebrist to heal his bruises 1 . Keeping 

 in mind this old association of ideas, we find that there 

 was nothing exceptional in the position of Cardan as 

 teacher of mathematics and practitioner in physic, nothing 

 odd in his combination of the callings of an almanac- 

 maker, an algebrist, and a physician. 



Robert Recorde's book, just mentioned, was published 

 in 1557, and as Cardan's book of the great art was then 

 already twelve years old, it may T)e justly inferred that 

 Cardan was one of the first European writers upon 

 algebra. It is necessary that we should now understand 



reste as your travell doth merite. And all that love learnyng say 

 thereto, Amen. 



MASTER. Amen, and amen." They were the last words he printed. 

 Robert Kecorde's books had quaint titles, fanciful and witty, some- 

 times half-metrical, prefaces, and had bits of his verse scattered upon 

 the front of them. The spirit of the title to the work mentioned above 

 may be briefly expressed in four lines writ on the title of a previous 

 book, The Pathwaie of Knowledg: 



" Geometries Verdicte. 

 All fressha fine wittes by me are filed ; 



All grosse, dull wittes wishe me exiled. 

 Though no mann's witte reject will I, 

 Yet as they be, I wyll them trye." 



1 " En esto fueron razonando los dos hasta que llegaron a un pueblo 

 donde fue' ventura hollar un Algebrista con quien se euro el Sanson des- 

 graciado." D. Quijote. Part. ii. cap. xv. I was directed to this 

 passage by Hutton's Mathematical Dictionary, article Algebra. The 

 general information contained in this chapter is chiefly derived from 

 the same source, and from Montucla's History of Mathematics when 

 no other authority is cited. 



