130 JEROME CARDAN. 



great astonishment, as being the most wonderful person he 

 had ever seen 1 ." 



It was not until October that Cardan had audience of 

 the king, and he had then, as wejhave seen, not cured the 

 archbishop of a dropsy, but had taught him how to fortify 

 himself against the attacks of asthma. The statement 

 that Jerome had prophesied to Hamilton his death upon 

 the gallows, is perhaps founded on a popular tradition. 

 It is incorrect. He calculated his nativity 2 ; and inas- 

 much as he was born at ten in the morning, on the 3rd of 

 February, 1512, found that he would attain his felicity 

 through much anxiety and peril (as any man could see 

 that he was doing when the prophesy was made), and 

 that if he lived over the year 1554, he would be in great 

 danger from passion of the heart 3 , or poison, in the year 

 1560. He was taken in the capture of Dunbarton Castle, 

 condemned in a summary way, and hung four days after- 

 wards at Sterling, in 1571, being the first bishop in Scot- 

 land who died by the hands of an executioner. Of that 

 certainly the stars told nothing to Cardan. He was per- 

 fectly in earnest as an astrologer, and perfectly sincere. 



1 Burnet, vol. ii. p. 208 (ed. 1681). In his appendix of documents, 

 as many readers will remember, he quotes in illustration a passage 

 from Cardan's Horoscope of Edward. 



2 Geniturarum Exemplar, p. 26. 



3 Or shall we translate " Passio Cordis suffering by the cord," to 

 make good the fame of the astrologer. 



