150 JEROME CARDAN. 



He therefore took pains to disgust him with the enter- 

 prise on which he was engaged, by whipping him for 

 nothing on the naked skin. At the same time, the fol- 

 lower who had picked up some knowledge of our tongue 

 stood by to improve the occasion, asking the boy, while 

 he still smarted, " Volgo Doura ?" (which is English for 

 Will you go to Dover?) but the little Spartan answered 

 only " No." Then the attendant asked him, " Volgo 

 Milan?" and he signified a positive assent. Therefore, 

 by no means meaning that the youth should come to 

 harm, Cardan abided by his first intention. While they 

 were on the way from England, William's father died, 

 and there is a story of a ghostly head and dead face that 

 appeared to the boy and frightened him when they were 

 on the water 1 . 



Jerome Cardan, in his route homeward, passed through 

 Gravelines, Bruges, Ghent, and Brussels, to Louvain. 

 At Louvain he talked with Gemma Frisius, properly 

 named Reinerut, but entitled Frisius from his birth in 

 Friesland. Gemma Frisius was professor of medicine in 

 the Louvain University, and, like Cardan, excelled in 

 mathematics. He had been often summoned to the court 

 of Charles V, but had refused every invitation, much 

 preferring the tranquillity of academic life. He was a 

 remarkably small man, of the most insignificant aspect ; 

 1 Preface to the Dialogue de Morte, for the preceding. 



