138 JEROME CARDAN. 



crime, His disposition was completely trained to philo- 

 sophic studies." 



Urged to calculate the horoscope of this boy, Cardan 

 provided a sufficiently long life for him, though he de- 

 clared 1 , what seemed certain enough, that his vital powers 

 would be always low. " At the age of twenty-three years, 

 nine months, and twenty-two days, languor of mind and 

 body would afflict him. At the age of thirty-four years, 

 five months, and twenty days, he would suffer from skin 

 disease and a slight fever. After the age of fifty-five 

 years, three months, and seventeen days, various diseases 

 would fall to his lot. As long as he lived he would be 

 constant, rigid, severe, continent, intelligent, a guardian 

 of the right, patient in labour, a rememberer of wrongs 

 and benefits ; he would be terrible, and have desires and 

 vices growing from desire, and he would suffer under im- 

 potence. He would be most wise, and for that reason the 

 admired of nations; most prudent, magnanimous, fortu- 

 nate, and, as it were, another Solomon." 



The king's death followed so soon after these predic- 

 tions, that Cardan made it his business to re-consider 

 them, and in his book, after a recitation of his false con- 

 clusions, he proceeded to give a dissertation headed 

 "What I thought afterwards upon the subject." One 



1 Genituranim Exemplar, p. 19. 



