THE BOOK OF PRECEPTS. 29 



the events of his career thus far detailed, in order that 

 we may put the right construction upon some of his 

 half-wise, half-bitter words, that otherwise can easily be 

 misinterpreted, we shall receive a very distinct notion of 

 Jerome's personal character we shall see that he was at 

 heart a gentleman as well as a philosopher, and a man of 

 the world according to the temper of the day in which 

 he lived. They will help us also to form a just measure 

 of the quality of his mature intellect, obviously much 

 riper when he wrote them than it was when he wrote the 

 books on Consolation and on Wisdom. Incidentally, also, 

 they serve to illustrate, sometimes in a very striking way, 

 the temper of the days in which he lived; the chapter 

 upon travelling, for example, is in that respect extremely 

 curious. The following selection from these precepts 

 contains about one-fourth of the whole. I have retained 

 the original form of the tract, and have endeavoured to 

 retain also its exact spirit, at the same time preserving a 

 fair balance between the trivial and the weighty matters 

 discussed in it. The Preface and Conclusion have not 

 been abbreviated. Comment upon these precepts would 

 be impertinent ; but I have, for the convenience of the 

 reader, prefixed asterisks to those sayings which illustrate 

 most effectively either the life of Cardan or his times. 



