from spoiling the child through sparing the rod.

The troublous times in which Cardan lived too often interrupted his brief career of prosperity, but they never affected his industry. In 1550, when Italy was in a condition of extreme peril and agitation, the philosopher calmly wrote his thirteen books on Metoposcopy, whereby he applied astrology to the lines on the forehead, and from a consideration of both foretold fortunes, and believed in the predictions. This occupation he varied with researches and essays on Subtlety and the Variety of Things-the former a book of much learning, ingenuity, and childish folly. As an illustration of the last, we may cite his theory of mountains:

Their origin (he says) is threefold. Either the earth swells, being agitated by frequent movements, and gives birth to mountains, as to pimples rising from a body. or their soil is heaped up by the winds, which is often the case in Africa; or, what is most natural and common, they are the stones left after the material of the earth has been washed away by running water, for the water of a stream

descends into the valley, and the stony mountain itself rises from the valley, whence it happens that all mountains are, more or less, made of stones. Their height above the surrounding soil is because the fields are daily eaten down by the rains, and the earth itself decays; but stones, besides that they do not decay, also for the most part grow.

On which delicious philosophy Mr. Morley well remarks that,

--

The notion that earth taken from stone leaves mountains, that a Salisbury Plain would be Mount Salisbury, if all the soil were taken out of it, and only the stones left, was so far curious; but as it was the orthodox belief, it passed into Cardan's mind, with other science of the same kind, as learning that was not to be disturbed. He had no taste at all for revolutionary work, except in medicine. In mathematics, he was left with his face turned in the right direction, and he made a great and real advance; in the natural sciences he was placed by his learning commonly with his face turned in the wrong direction, and he went on into metoposcopy

and other nonsense.

We may add, that Cardan accounted for the earth being higher than the sea by stating that the former was lifted and held up by the stars!

One further idea of the complexion of Cardan's philosophy may here be cited from the same book. Our hero, when treating of the power of warmth as a principle of life, quotes Joannes Leo, who relates that in Egypt the executioner cuts criminals in half, and that the upper half being then placed upon a hearth, over which quicklime had been scattered, will understand and answer questions for a quarter of an hour! As Madame du Deffand said, when told that St. Denis walked with his own head under his arm, after decapitation, "Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute," so in the case of the speaking semi-trunks of Egyptian criminals we might say that, if the torso surmounted the difficulty of uttering the first word, we might readily believe that it talked for a quarter of an hour.

Cardan was a negligent dresser, but he admired our English wool, as it will be remembered Erasmus did, who has put an eulogium thereupon into the mouths of one of the speakers in his wonder that our wool is superior, see"Colloquies." He says that it is no ing that we have no poisonous animals, that even wolves are so scarce that sheep may pasture in safety; and that England is infested only by the fox-a term which will earn for him the contempt of all country squires. According to him, our sheep in his days were the truly proper sheep of pastoral poets, and slaked their thirst only upon the dews that fell from heaven, the waters of the land being too gross for their ovine appetites. These were just the sort of sheep for Amaryllis and Daphne to tend, for Acis to lead about in blue ribbands, for Watteau to paint at the feet of his shepherdesses, and for Dresden china bakers to fix in their immortal clay.

from hearsay. In 1552 he came among But here Cardan is only speaking us, looked scrutinisingly around him, and afterwards recounted his experience and impressions. The occasion of his coming was to attend Hamilton, the Archbishop of St. Andrew's, whom good living had reduced to a condition from which native therapeutics could not raise him. A golden lure brought the then renowned Cardan to Scotland, and his sensible treatment, not being marred by much attendant ridiculous

but harmless practice, renovated the prelate, and rescued him from dying quietly, in order that he might afterwards perish violently. Cardan travelled so slowly that he was almost as long in reaching England from Italy as the French fleet has been in slowly gliding from Brest to the Baltic. On his return from Scotland, he saw, conversed with, and learned to love, certainly the most loveable of England's sovereigns, our young sixth Edward. He sojourned some months here, and this is his testimony touching our fathers and their habits. "It is worth consideration," he says in his dialogue De Morte, "that the English care little or not at all for death. With kisses and salutations parents and children part; the dying say that they depart into immortal life, that they shall there await those left behind; and each exhorts the other to retain him in his memory. Cheerfully, without blenching, without tottering, they bear with constancy the final doom. They surely merit pity," he curiously adds, "who with such alacrity meet death, and have no pity on themselves." A speaker in the dialogue then inquires how the English look and dress. In figure," replies Cardan, "they are much like the Italians; they are white, whiter than we are, not so ruddy; and they are broad-chested. There are some among them of great stature, urbane, and friendly to the stranger, but they are quickly angered, and are, in that state, to be dreaded. They are strong in war, but they want caution; greedy enough after food and drink, but therein they do not equal the Germans. There are great intellects among them-witness Duns Scotus and Suiseth, who rank second to none. In dress they are like the Italians; for they are glad to boast themselves most nearly allied to them, and therefore study to imitate as much as possible their manner and their clothes; and yet, even in form, they are more like the Germans, the French, and the Spaniards. Certain it is that all the barbarians of Europe love the Italians more than any race among themselves." Cardan adds that the country as well as the people looked to him exactly as Italy did. He would have thought himself in his own land, especially when he "rode about on horseback in

the neighbourhood of London." Nor in this do we see any exaggeration, for few of the Italian suburbs with which he was acquainted could afford such sights as the view from Harrow-onthe-Hill, which only lacks water to render it perfect, Hampstead Heath, and the ride over the then open fields from Highbury to Hornsey. All the English whom he passed, in groups sitting together, appeared to him, “in figure, manners, dress, gesture, and colour," as so many Italians; "but when they opened their mouth," he says, "I could not understand so much as a word, and wondered at them, as though they were my countrymen gone mad and raving."

Cardan returned to Italy by a circuitous route, and enjoyed repeated ovations by the way from the hands of the learned. He took with him an English boy of respectable family, whom he had offered to bring up, but of whom he grew so tired ere many days had elapsed, that he had him brutally scourged, in order to induce the lad to run away. The young Briton however had no such idea of a breach of contract, but clung to his cruel protector, served him, gained his love, and met with strange recompense in being apprenticed to a tailor,-soon after which he died, as much perhaps out of indignation as from natural infirmity.

But what did Cardan care? His fame and fortunes had increased by his foreign expedition; his literary and professional pursuits were entered upon with renewed vigour, and he not only obtained profit from both, but triumph over some of the notabilities of the world who dared to assail him; and then he was among the children whom he loved as though they were still indeed children, and had not grown up to torture him with anxiety and their ingratitude. had indeed always loved them, but he had neglected the counsel of Solomon, and had not brought them up in the way they should go. There had been abundance of precept, but no good example-plenty of moral directionposts, but no smoothing of obstacles in the road nor facilities for travel. But Cardan philosophically took things as the gods sent them, and he was at the very high top-gallant of his joy

He

when down came terrible infamy upon him destructive as the thunderbolt.

Jerome's son, Gianbatista, was a wild youth, and had wild loves; among them was a certain Brandonia Seroni, fair and frail, whom he married, and by whom he was betrayed. Jerome's horror was extreme at this union-the wedding of a young physician with a girl of fierce passions and evil family. The sire forgave the son, but the forgiveness brought with it little felicity to the youthful couple. Their "violent delights" had, as the poet says, "violent ends;" and, though two children resulted from the union, hatred soon took place of love, as well it might, for the mother gloried in boasting that Gianbatista was not the father of these hapless children; and terrible was the wrath, incensed the words, and soon incensed the deeds, that followed. In brief, Gianbatista destroyed his gay and guilty wife by poison. It was a crime in which his superiors were wont to indulge, but he was hardly of the rank and eminence to authorise himself to slay his consort with impunity. Murder was the privilege of the nobility; these would have deemed that society was reduced to a condition of anarchy, or at least of a degrading equality, if the democracy were permitted to trench upon the privileges of their betters; and accordingly Gianbatista was arrested and put upon his trial. He was defended by his father, who must have been fully aware of his son's guilt, but who nevertheless struggled to save him with a mingled affection and ferocity of argument, a use and an abuse of logic, such as never had before, and never has since, been employed to make the worse appear the better cause. We know nothing in history more touching than this paternal attempt to tear a child from the grasp of the executioner. The defence is a monument of sublimity and folly. It advocates, justifies, disproves, admits, denies, excuses, beseeches, menaces, weeps, laughs, beguiles, and bewilders. It is at once titanic and dwarfish; grand as Demosthenes, and puerile as a parody. It presents to us the terrible wreck of intellect-madness strong, and affection stronger still. We see the profound lawyer on the very point of persuading the judges of the innocence of his client, but then some

damning evidence makes him stumble, and down goes intellect again, and up rises despair, and the hall resounds with the shrieks of the father screaming for mercy for his child, since justice would be too severe a lot for him. Mercy was not to be had; the criminal confessed his crime; the executioner did his office upon him privately within the prison; and from that day Cardan felt that he was infamous and unutterably wretched for ever.

The stricken man endured the usual further lot of being stoned, as it were, by the calumnies of the pitiless. He triumphed indeed over these, but the scars remained indelible, and not painless. He endeavoured to find some solace in books and in active employment at Bologna; but the heart of the man had withered within him, and with his old energy had departed the old power of self-consolation. Prosperity had never affected him beyond a feeling of honest, silent pride; "but in the bearing of adversity," he remarks, “my nature is not so firm, for I have been compelled to endure some things that are beyond my strength. I have overcome nature then by art; for in the greatest agonies of my mind I whipped my thighs with a switch, bit sharply my left arm, and fasted, because I was much relieved by weeping when the tears would come, but very frequently they would not."

With increase of sorrow came increase of superstition. The mind, depressed on one side, swung over to the other, and he who had been so severely tried by the realities of the material world courted slavery or solace in the world of spirits. The noblest of minds have yielded to the pressure of similar influences, and too often intellectual giants, overwhelmed by the real, have submitted to be bound by the irresistible dwarfs of the ideal.

But Cardan's struggle with the real was not yet over. At Bologna, if his nights and the portions of the day spent in solitude were crowded with ghostlike visitants and noisy with the voices of imaginary demons, his business hours were hours of unease-and even worse; for he was imprisoned on a charge, as it would seem, of impiety, but after a three months' detention he was delivered, and invited to Rome. Thither, at three score years and ten,

the philosopher repaired in 1571, to be, during a short period, the pensioner of the pope. After five years passed in that profitless pursuit of weeping over the irrevocable, Cardan died at Rome. His son Aldo he had disinherited, for good reason. His daughter was provided for by marriage. His heir was Fazio Cardan, the son of his own guilty but favourite Gianbatista, whose crimes never permanently overthrew the love built in the father's heart for the child of his hopes and his despair.

And now do we find ourselves very much in the condition of an architect who, having prepared his foundations, is debarred from raising thereon his structure. Our design was to build upon the biography of Cardan a sketch at least of his mingled philosophy and folly. Want of space, however, forbids the realization of such design. We must leave him, who was as a wingless bird, acute of sight but unable to find his way through the mists to the heaven beyond, to the consideration of Mr. Morley's readers. We would invite these, however, when they have studied the biography of the Romanist sage to peruse that of his contemporary Calvin. The reformer was, no doubt, quite as intolerant of freedom in others as the head of the church from which he separated, because it not only violated truth but disallowed liberty. But Calvin's philosophy shows, at least, what independence of mind may effect for him who exercises it. Cardan was childishly superstitious, because his intellect was bent beneath the yoke of Rome. Calvin believed in God alone, and not in omens, and signs, and noises, and such nonsense, because he dared to use the reason with which God had endowed him. Beza and Melancthon had inclinations akin to those of Cardan, and Zimmerman has shown how solitude engenders them; but Calvin mocked at the ideas of pre

sentiment and mysticism. He wrote against astrology, and Cardan for it, probably for the same reason—a desire to leave the solution of all mysteries to Heaven. Cardan read the future in the colour and aspect of the stars; Calvin more wisely averred that "the true astrology and astronomy is the knowledge of Heaven." He showed how astrologers drew wrong conclusions from correct premises, and in his peculiarly cutting style he lashed the folly of those who followed this science after the fashion of Cardan. But even Calvin was far behind the entire truth. He knew not of the opinions of Aristarchus of old, nor was even aware that Copernicus had so recently enunciated the truth upon the heavenly system. To Calvin the entire heavens still revolved around the earth, and his book thereon shows how much a man may write well upon a false idea. That veil has passed away, and among those who have explained the new grandeur and the eternal truth, none have rendered a more splendid explanation than Dr. Chalmers in his Astronomical Sermons. In those sermons the readers of Cardan and Calvin will discover how foolish was the wisdom of the first, how imperfect that of the second, and how unassailable that of Chalmers himself. We recommend to inquiring and earnest men a study of the works of the great Scotish divine, after they have digested those of the Italian and Frenchman. If the pages of Cardan, Calvin, and Chalmers do not lead them to perceive where true wisdom resides, and how true wisdom is to be attained, why then they may rest assured that they are not of the calibre of mind to work out to its ends a simple deductive process. Happily, they who have taste for the study enjoined are sure to possess the intellect necessary to arrive at the truthful conclusion; and they who have not the taste will assuredly acquire it by devoting themselves to the study.