JEROME CARDAN 289 



bristle with quotations, Horace being his favourite author. 

 " Vir in omni sapientiae genere admirandus." l As with 

 many moderns his love for Horace did not grow less as 

 old age crept on, for the De Vita Propria is perhaps 

 fuller of Horatian tags than any other of his works. 

 It would seem somewhat of a paradox that a sombre 

 and earnest nature like Cardan's should find so great 

 pleasure in reading the elegant poco curante triflings of 

 the Augustan singer, were it not a recognized fact that 

 Horace has always been a greater favourite with serious 

 practical Englishmen than with the descendants of those 

 for whom he wrote his verses. 



It was a habit with Cardan to apologize in the 

 prefaces of his scientific works for the want of elegance 

 in his Latin, explaining that the baldness and simplicity 

 of his periods arose from his determination to make his 

 meaning plain, and to trouble nothing about style for 

 the time being ; but the following passage shows that he 

 had a just and adequate conception of the necessary 

 laws of literary art. " That book is perfect which goes 

 straight to its point in one single line of argument, 

 which neither leaves out aught that is necessary, nor 

 brings in aught that is superfluous : which observes 

 the rule of correct division ; which explains what is 

 obscure ; and shows plainly the groundwork upon which 

 it is based." 2 



The De Vita Propria from which this extract comes 

 is in point of style one of his weakest books, but even in 

 this volume passages may here and there be found of 

 considerable merit, and Cardan was evidently studious 

 to let his ideas be presented in intelligible form, for 

 he records that in 1535 he read through the whole 



1 Opera, torn. i. p. 505. 2 De Vita Propria^ ch. xxvii. p. 72. 



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