86 JEROME CARDAN. 



of life ; delighted in elegant company, in gaiety, and 

 pleasure; and spent much of the great wealth that he 

 knew how to scrape together, in expensive entertainments. 

 He had a wife and one daughter when Jerome knew him, 

 but the stars were promising him a considerable family. 

 Cassanate had left his father, who was still living at 

 Besancon, to settle in Scotland a land rarely accepted 

 as a home by strangers from the south ; and there he had 

 been, when he wrote to Cardan, attached for four years 

 to the household of Archbishop Hamilton. He was then 

 thirty-six years old. 



The archbishop, who was so distracted by incessant 

 labours in state affairs " that he could scarcely find time 

 to breathe," since he is to become now a foremost person 

 in this narrative, must be recalled in a few words to the 

 memory. He was an actor in some of the most familiar 

 scenes of our domestic history the troubles that surrounded 

 Mary Queen of Scots. Mary, who herself became one 

 of Cardan's patrons, was only nine years old when that 

 famous physician set out to meet John Hamilton at Paris. 



It will be remembered that Mary's father, James V, 

 having made no provision for the administration of his 

 kingdom, left the office of regent open to be battled for 

 after his death. The Koman Catholic party advocated 

 the claim of Cardinal Beatoun to that dignity; to him 

 there was opposed the brother of our archbishop, James 

 Plamilton, Earl of Arran, who was next heir to the 



