p. 472) in June 1570; how a fellow, some tipstaff of the courts, jumped
into his carriage and frightened the mares Cardan was driving, jeering at
them likewise because they were rather bare of flesh.

[224] "Demum sub conductionis fine, voces sparserunt, et maxime apud
Moronum Cardinalem, me exiguo auditorio profiteri, quod quanquam non
omnino verum esset, quinimo ab initio Academiae multos, et usque ad dies
jejunii haberem auditores."--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xvii. p. 56.

[225] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xvii. p. 57.

[226] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xliii. p. 163.

[227] "Alii multis diebus abstinent cibo, alii igne uruntur, ac ferro
secantur, nullum doloris vestigium preferentes; multi sunt vocem e pectore
mittentes, qui olim engastrimuthi dicebantur; hoc autem maxime eis
contingit cum orgia quaedam exercent, atque circumferuntur in orbem. Quae
tria ut verissima sunt et naturali ratione mira tamen constant, cujus
superius mentionem fecimus, ita illud confictum nasci pueros e mulieribus
absque concubitu."--_De Subtilitate_, p. 353.

[228] Ranke, _History of the Popes_, vol. i. p. 246.

[229] Mr. Stephen Paget in his life of Ambroise Pare, the great
contemporary French surgeon, gives an interesting account of Pare's
beliefs on the divine cause of the plague, p. 269.

[230] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxii. p. 63.

[231] "Multa de daemonibus narrabat, quae quam vera essent nescio."--_De
Utilitate_, p. 348.

[232] _De Varietate_, p. 351.

[233] _Ibid.,_ p. 658.

[234] In his counsel to his children, he writes: "Do not believe that you
hear demons speak to you, or that you behold the dead. Seek not to learn
the truth of these things, for they are amongst the things which are
hidden from us."

[235] Cardan alludes to Niger in _De Varietate_, p. 641: "Referebat
aliquando Josephus Niger harum rerum maxime peritus, daemonem pueris se sub
forma Christi ostendisse, petiisseque ut adoraretur."

[236] _De Subtilitate_, p. 530.

[237] "Nolim ego ad trutinam haec sectari, velut Porphyrius, Psellus,
Plotinus, Proclus, Jamblicus, qui copiose de his quae non videre, velut
historiam natae rei scripserunt."--_De Subtilitate_, p. 540.

[238] _Opera_, tom. i. 672.

CHAPTER XIII

AFTER the accusation brought against him at Milan in 1562, Cardan had been
prohibited from teaching or lecturing in that city, and similar
disabilities had followed his recent imprisonment at Bologna. At Rome no
duties of this kind awaited him, so