MARVELS. 309 



will die soon if you do not take care." He was taken ill 

 eight days afterwards, and died in the evening. But, 

 says Cardan, I saw that in no mysterious way ; it was plain 

 to me as a physician. 



Though treasuring up every incident of justified fore- 

 boding that arose out of the incessant watchfulness for 

 omens, Jerome was conscientious in his superstition, and 

 where there had been no foreboding he did not claim as 

 a mystery the chance fulfilment of words lightly spoken. 

 An instance of this he set down in his old age: " I re- 

 member," he said, "when I was a youth, that a certain 

 Gian Stefano BifFo had been persuaded that I was a cheiro- 

 mancer, when I was. nothing less. He came and asked 

 me to predict to him something of his life. I told him that 

 he was befooled by his companions; he urged me; I then 

 begged his pardon if I should predict him anything too 

 serious, but that he was in great danger of being promptly 

 hung. Within a week he was seized and put under tor- 

 ture; he pertinaciously denied the charge against him; 

 nevertheless, in six months he died by the cord, after his 

 hand had been cut off." 



It is not at all necessary to doubt any of the marvels 

 that Cardan relates. A man who sees in almost every 

 occurrence of the day a portent upon which to speculate, 

 who is thoroughly and honestly superstitious, may be able, 

 in the course of a long life, to store up a very large 



