JEROME CARDAN 287 



orthodoxy in the minds of the leaders of the post- 

 Tridentine revival, is abundantly possible ; but there 

 is nothing in all his life and works to show that he was, 

 according to the standard of every age, anything else 

 than a spiritually-minded man. 1 It would be hard to 

 find words more instinct with the true feeling of piety, 

 than the following taken from the fifty-third chapter of 

 the De Vita Propria, " I love solitude, for I never seem 

 to be so entirely with those who are especially dear to 

 me as when 1 am alone. I love God and the spirit of 

 good, and when I am by myself I let my thoughts dwell 

 on these, their immeasurable beneficence; the eternal 

 wisdom, the source and origin of clearest light, that 

 true joy within us which never fears that God will for- 

 sake us ; that groundwork of truth ; that willing love ; 

 and the Maker of us all, who is blessed in Himself, and 

 likewise the desire and safeguard of all the blessed. 

 Ah, what depth and what height of righteousness, mind- 

 ful of the dead and not forgetting the living. He is the 

 Spirit who protects me by His commands, my good 

 and merciful counsellor, my helper and consoler in 

 misfortune." 



Two or three of Cardan's treatises are in the materna 

 lingua, but he wrote almost entirely in Latin, using a 

 style which was emphatically literary. 2 His Latin is 

 probably above the average excellence of the age, and 

 if the classic writers held the first place in his estimation 

 as naturally they would he assuredly did not neglect 

 the firstfruits of modern literature. Pulci was his 

 favourite poet. He evidently knew Dante and Boc- 



1 A proof of his liberal tone of mind is found in his appreciation 

 of the fine qualities of Edward VI. as a man, although he resented 

 his encroachments as a king upon the Pope's rights. 



2 In the De Vita Propria, ch. xxxiii. p. 106, he fixes into his prose 

 an entire line of Horace, " Canidia afflasset pejor serpentibus Afris." 



