BOOK-WRITING. 157 



yet all in accordance with my earliest ambition 1 ." The 

 dreams of his youth were realised. 



In 1555 Jerome wrote on the Uses of Water, and, 

 having been lately ill, wrote a work called 'AA^eta, or De 

 Dedicatione. In 1557 he wrote a summary of medical 

 science entitled " Ars Curandi Parva," other medical 

 books, and some miscellaneous essays. He wrote, also, a 

 letter to his old patient, Gaddi, then in prison an Oration 

 in Praise of the Milanese College quite in good faith, to 

 that had he come at last and, among other things, a 

 Declaration of the Size of Noah's Ark. From this list I 

 have omitted the reply to Scaliger, published in 1556, 

 because that is part of an affair that will require separate 

 consideration. 



In the year 1557 Cardan published, also, for the second 

 time, a little work "On his own Books," which included 

 many biographical details, and made good up to that year 

 the register of all his writings. In the same year happened 

 a domestic event that gave importance to the date. I 

 take it, therefore, as the next point up to which the 

 several threads into which this narrative occasionally 

 divides itself have to be brought. 



Before quitting the subject of these books, we should 

 not omit to take notice of a protest, published afterwards 

 by Cardan, on the subject of a liberty taken at Basle with 

 1 Geniturarum Exemplar, p. 92. 



