JEROME CARDAN 113 



men yet living. But besides this one, he records, in the 

 De Subtilitate, few facts concerning Britain. He quotes 

 the instances of Duns Scotus and Suisset in support of 

 the view that the barbarians are equal to the Italians in 

 intellect, 1 and he likewise notices the use of a fertilizing 

 earth presumably marl in agriculture, 2 and the lon- 

 gevity of the people, some of whom have reached their 

 hundred and twentieth year. 3 The first notice of us 

 in the De Varietate is in praise of our forestry, foras- 

 much as he remarked that the plane tree, which is 

 almost unknown in Italy through neglect, thrives well 

 in Scotland, he himself having seen specimens over 

 thirty feet high growing in the garden of the Augustinian 

 convent near Edinburgh. The lack of fruit in England 

 he attributes rather to the violence of the wind than to 

 the cold ; but, in spite of our cruel skies, he was able to 

 eat ripe plums in September, in a district close to the 

 Scottish border. He bewails the absence of olives and 

 nuts, and recommends the erection of garden-walls in 

 order to help on the cultivation of the more delicate fruits. 

 In a conversation with the Archbishop of St. An- 

 drews he was told that the King of Scots ruled over 

 one hundred and sixty-one islands, that the people of 

 the Shetland Islands lived for the most part on fish 

 prepared by freezing or sun-drying or fire, and had no 

 other wealth than the skins of beasts. Cardan pictures 



1 " Ejusdem insulae accola fuit loannes, ut dixi, Suisset [Richard 

 Swineshead] cognometo Calculator : in cujus solius unius argumenti 

 solutione, quod contra experiment^ est de actione mutua tota labor- 

 avit posteritas ; quern senem admodum, nee inventa sua dum 

 legeret intelligentem, flevisse referunt. Ex quo baud dubium esse 

 reor, quod etiam in libro de animi immortalite scripsi, barbaros 

 ingenio nobis baud esse inferiores : quandoquidem sub Brumae caelo 

 divisa toto orbe Britannia duos tarn clari ingenii viros emiserit." 

 .De Subtilitate, p. 444. 



2 Ibid.) p. 142. 3 p. 369. 



I 



