266 JEROME CARDAN. 



before mentioned, Lodovico Ferrari, then fifteen years 

 old, went, poor and uninstructed, into Jerome's service. 

 But he was a boy of very extraordinary natural ability; 

 Cardan soon put him to use as an amanuensis, and 

 accepted him next as a pupil and a friend not indeed 

 because he was a good boy, for he was nothing of the 

 kind. His temper was so bad that Jerome went near 

 him with caution, and shrunk often from the task of 

 speaking to him. He grew up also irreligious, given to 

 habitual and open scorn of God. The friendship between 

 him and Cardan grew out of their common love of know- 

 ledge, out of the problems upon which they had worked 

 together, out of Lodovico's sense of obligation to the man 

 by whose hand he was raised, and out of Jerome's pride 

 at having fairly brought before the world so fine an intel- 

 lect. Ferrari also was a neat and rosy little fellow, 

 wicked as he may have been, with a bland voice, a 

 cheerful face, and an agreeable short nose, attentive in 

 trifling things, and fond of pleasure. By his manners 

 and his brilliant genius he made way for himself in the 

 world with wonderful rapidity. His worldly career pre- 

 sented, in its early course, a great contrast to that of the 

 unlucky philosopher who taught him Latin, Greek, and 

 mathematics, and upon whose shoulders he knew how to 

 rise. 



At the age of eighteen Ferrari began to teach, and 

 excited universal admiration in the town. He was 



