JEROME CARDAN n 



which vexed him in later years. To judge from his 

 conduct in the matter of Otto Cantone's estate, Fazio 

 seems to have been as great a despiser of wealth as his 

 son proved to be afterwards. His virtue, such as it was, 

 must have been the outcome of one of those hard cold 

 natures, with wants few and trifling, and none of those 

 tastes which cry out daily for some new toy, only to be 

 procured by money. The fact that he made his son run 

 after him through the streets of Milan in place of a 

 servant is not a conclusive proof of avarice ; it may just 

 as likely mean that the old man was indifferent and 

 callous to whatever suffering he might inflict upon his 

 young son, and indisposed to trouble himself about 

 searching for a hireling to carry his bag. The one in- 

 dication we gather of his worldly wisdom is his dissatis- 

 faction that his son was firmly set to follow medicine 

 rather than jurisprudence, a step which would involve 

 the loss of the stipend of one hundred crowns a year 

 which he drew for his lectureship, an income which he 

 had hoped might be continued to a son of his after his 

 death. 1 



Amidst the turmoil and discomfort of what must at 

 the best have been a most ill-regulated household, the 

 boy's education was undertaken by his father in such 

 odds and ends of time as he might find to spare for the 

 task. 2 What with the hardness and irritability of the 

 teacher, and the peevishness inseparable from the 



1 " Quod munus profitendi institutiones in urbe ipsa cum honor- 

 ario centum coronatorum, quo jam tot annis gaudebat, non in me 

 (ut speraverat) transiturum intelligebat." De Vita Propria, ch. x. 



P- 35- 



2 "Pater jam ante concesserat ut Geometriae et Dialecticse 

 operam darem, in quo (quanquam praeter paucas admonitiones, 

 librosque, ac licentiam, nullum aliud auxilium praebuerit) eas 

 tamen ego (succicivis temporibus studens) interim feliciter sum 

 assecutus." De Consolatione, Opera, torn. i. p. 619. 



