248 JEROME CARDAN 



blocks like those which Cardan, had he been the artist, 

 would have chosen first of all. 



Naude, after he has recorded the fact that, from his 

 first essay in letters, he had been a zealous and apprecia- 

 tive student of Cardan's works, sets down Cardan's 

 picture of himself, taken from his own Horoscope in the 

 Geniturarum Exempla, "nugacem, religionis contemp- 

 torem, injuriae illatae memorem, invidum, tristem, in- 

 sidiatorem, proditorem, magum, incantatorem, frequenti- 

 bus calamitatibus obnoxium, suorum osore, turpi libidini 

 deditum, solitarium, inamcenum, austerum, sponte 

 etiam divinantem, zelotypum, lascivum, obscoenum, 

 maledicum, obsequiosum, senum conversatione se delec- 

 tantem, varium, ancipitem, impuru, et dolis mulierum 

 obnoxium, calumniatorem, et omnino incognitum propter 

 naturae et morum repugnantiam, etiam his cum quibus 

 assidue versor." The critic at once goes on to state 

 that in his opinion this description, drawn by the person 

 who ought to know best, is, in the main, a correct one. 

 What better account could you expect, he asks, of a 

 man who put faith in dreams and portents and auguries; 

 who believed fully in the utterances of crazy beldames, 

 who saw ghosts, and who believed he was attended by 

 a familiar demon ? Then follows a catalogue of moral 

 offences and defects of character, all taken from Cardan's 

 own confessions, and a pronunciation by Naud6 that 

 the man who says he never lies, must be of all liars the 

 greatest ; the charge of mendacity being driven home 

 by references to Cardan's alleged miraculous compre- 

 hension of the classic tongues in a single night, and his 

 pretended knowledge of a cure for phthisis. There is no 

 need to follow Naud6 farther in his diatribe against the 

 faults and imperfections, real and apparent, of Cardan's 

 character; these must be visible enough to the most 



