JEROME CARDAN 263 



and fields adjacent. Should you become over-heated or 

 wet with rain, cast off and dry your damp clothes, and 

 don dry ones. Sup heartily, and go to bed at eight ; 

 and when, by the brevity of the night, this is not con- 

 venient, take a corresponding rest during the day. 

 Abstain from summer fruit, from black wine, from vain 

 overflow of talk, from falsehood and gaming, from trust- 

 ing a woman or over-indulging her, for she is a foolish 

 animal and full of deceit. Over-fondness towards a 

 woman will surely bring evil upon you. Bleed and 

 purge yourself as little as possible ; learn by experience 

 of other men's faults and misfortunes ; live frugally ; 

 bear yourself suavely to all men ; and let study be your 

 main end. All this and more have I set forth in the 

 books I have named. Trust neither promises nor hopes, 

 for these may be vain and delusive ; and reckon your 

 own only that which you hold in your hand. Farewell." 

 From the fact that Cardan took part in an unofficial 

 medical conference in Paris, that he afterwards super- 

 seded Cassanate as the Archbishop of St. Andrews' 

 physician, and did not find himself with a dozen or so 

 quarrels on his hands, it may be assumed that he was 

 laudably free from the jealousy attributed by tradition 

 to his profession. This instance becomes all the more 

 noteworthy when his natural irascibility, and the 

 character of the learned controversy of the times comes 

 to be considered. He does not spare his censure in re- 

 marking on the too frequent quarrels of men of letters, 1 

 albeit these quarrels must have lent no little gaiety to the 

 literary world. No one who reads the account of Gian 



1 " Ita nostra astate, lapsi sunt clarissimi alioqui viri in hoc 

 genere. Budseus adversus Erasmum, Fuchsius adversus Corna- 

 rium, Silvius adversus Vesalium, Nizolius adversus Maioragium : 

 non tarn credo justis contentionum causis, quam vanitate quadam 

 et spe augendae opinionis in hominibus." Opera, torn. i. p. 135. 



