THE SOLACE OP BOOKS. 245 



written in the temper of a follower of Epictetus, and 

 contains many allusions to its author's private history. 

 It was first published at Basle, in 1561. 



Jerome had been engaged also when his son died upon 

 the fourth book of a work on Secrets 1 , which included 

 such topics as occult speaking and cipher writing ; medical 

 problems, for example, stone, hernia, deafness, &c. ; philtres, 

 and the natural vision of demons. Sixty-six secrets were 

 explained in it ; and of the explanations six were approved 

 by personal experiment, two had not been tried, the rest 

 were half tried. After his son's death he had no heart to 

 test them any further. 



He sought relief rather in philosophic meditations, and 

 began to console himself with the writing of a bulky 

 work, entitled Theonoston, in five books. The first 

 book, all written at Pavia, was upon Tranquillity, and 

 was begotten of the struggle to find rest for his own 

 troubled mind. The second book was on the Prolongation 

 of Life, a medical treatise. The third book, partly written 

 at Pavia, but some of it ten years later, was on the Immor- 

 tality of the Soul; the fourth on Contemplation; and the 

 fifth on the Life of the Soul after Death, and its Felicity. 



The only medical work written at this time by Cardan 

 was a comment on the Anatomy of Mundinus. Mun- 

 dinus was the text-book upon which, until Vesalius broke 



1 The account of works written in these years is from the last book 

 De Libris Propriis. Op. Tom. i. p. 118. 



