158 JEROME CARDAN. 



his work on the Variety of Things. That elaborate 

 supplement to the books on Subtilty was printed at Paris, 

 Lyons, and Nuremberg, both in Italian and in French, as 

 translated by Richard de Blanche. The printer of an 

 edition issued at Basle, Henricus Petrus, set among re- 

 formers, interpolated in one chapter half a dozen words 

 hostile to the Dominicans. Jerome wrote to the printer 

 on the subject, who replied in justification, What did a 

 few words more or less matter to him so far away. The 

 offensive sentence was reproduced in an edition published 

 soon after at Avignon. Cardan therefore appealed to the 

 world on the subject years afterwards in the third and 

 last essay on his works, and made that interpolation the 

 occasion of one of the very few allusions to the religious 

 movements of the time that were suffered to escape his 

 pen. Few as they are, they are all consistent and distinct. 

 " As the writings of Saint Jerome himself," he says, 

 " were interpolated by men who did not agree with his 

 opinions, so, lest any person be misguided or deceived by 

 others in my works, let it be known to all that I nowhere 

 play the theologian, and that I wish never to stick a hook 

 into another man's mass. But so far as regards my own 

 way of life and my religion, I desire to follow what is 

 safest, to obey that law, and use those rites, ceremonies, 

 and customs under which I was born, which have been 

 obeyed and used for so many centuries by my forefathers; 



