70 JEROME CARDAN. 



time regarded as a monument of wisdom, and being very 

 entertaining, was extremely popular. Jerome himself did 

 not count it among the works upon which he relied most 

 for immortality; it was of a kind, he said, to please the 

 public, but there were other of his writings more likely to 

 satisfy the wise 1 . These Twenty-one Books upon Subtilty 

 were dedicated by the prudent citizen to the governor of 

 his province, Ferrante Gonzaga, whom he praises most for 

 a late negotiation which he had conducted, and which had 

 justified some hope of peace. 



The hope was not fulfilled. In 1550, Jerome, as be- 

 fore said, stayed away from Pavia because the university 

 was unable to pay his salary. In the succeeding year he 

 again lectured there, but a cat of the most placid character 2 

 having been left at home one day, dragged out upon the 

 tiles some of his written lectures (written after delivery, 

 he taught extemporaneously 3 ), and tore them upon the 

 house-top. The book upon Fate, which lay more ready 

 to her ckws, she had not touched. Who can doubt what 

 followed ? At the end of the year, quite unexpectedly, 

 his lectures ceased, and his professorship was not assumed 

 again for eight whole years. 



His reason for retirement 4 was again the turmoil in the 



1 De Libris Propr. Lib. ult. Tom. i. p. 72. 



2 De Vita Propria, cap. xxxvii,, for this story of the cat's conduct 

 and its consequences. 3 Ibid. cap. xii. 



4 De Libris Propriis. Lib. ult. Op. Tom. i. p. 81. "Gallorege 



