RECONCILEMENT OMENS. 199 



ness, and proposed that he should either learn a trade, or 

 learn to read and write, or sing and play, either of which 

 he could have done easily, for he already could read a 

 little, and sing reasonably well. Jerome undertook to 

 provide for him, if he chose to study, maintenance in the 

 house, with proper clothing. William chose to be taught 

 a trade, and Cardan, when they went to Pavia, had in his 

 mind shoemaking, as a business that would be tolerably 

 light, and not too mean. 



Just before quitting Milan, Jerome having resumed, ac- 

 cording to his promise, his old kindness towards his son, had 

 given him a new silk gown of the kind usually worn by 

 physicians. On a Sunday, Gianbatista having put it on, 

 went out beyond the Porta Tosa. " There was a butcher 

 there," says the philosopher 1 , "and as usual outside that 

 gate there were pigs. One of them rose up out of the mud, 

 and so denied my son by wild running against him, that 

 not only his servant, but the butchers and neighbours had 

 to run out with weapons and drive off the pig, so that the 

 thing seemed to be a prodigy. When the animal was at 

 last half wearied, and my son ran away, it left him. On 

 account of that occurrence he came back to me sorrowful 

 beyond his wont, and told me all, and asked me what it 

 might portend to him? I answered, that he should take 

 1 De Vita Propria, cap. xxxvi. 



