st noteworthy is that which he addressed to
Gian Battista after his marriage. It shows Cardan to have been a loving
father and a master of sapient exhortation, while the son's fate gives
melancholy testimony of the futility of good counsel unaided by direction
and example. He tells of his grief at seeing the evil case into which his
son had fallen, vexed by poverty, disgrace, and loss of health, how he
would gladly even now receive the prodigal into his house (he says nothing
about the wife), did he not fear that such a step would lead to his own
ruin rather than to his son's restoration. After showing that any fresh
misfortune to himself must needs cut away the last hope for Gian Battista,
he sketches out a line of conduct for the ill-starred youth which he
declared, if rightly pursued, might re-establish his fortunes.

He begins by advising his son to read and lay to heart the contents of the
_De Consolatione_ and the _De Utilitate_, and then, somewhat more to the
purpose, promises him half his earnings of the present and the coming
year. Beyond this Gian Battista should have half the salary of any office
which his father might get for himself, and half of the piece of silk
which he had received from the Venetian Ambassador, supposing that the
young man should not be able to get a like piece for himself from the same
source.

He next cites the _De Consolatione_ to demonstrate the futility of
lamentation over misfortune past or present, or indeed over any decree of
fate. He bids Gian Battista reflect that he is human not a brute, a man
not a woman, a Christian not a Moslem or Jew, an Italian not a barbarian,
sprung from a worthy city and family, and from a father whose name by
itself will prove a title to fame. His only real troubles are a weak body
and infirm health--one a gift of heredity, the other aggravated by
dissolute habits. It may be a vain thing for men to congratulate
themselves over their happiness, but it is vainer for them to cry out for
solace over past calamity. Contempt of money is foolish, but contempt of
God is ten times worse. Cardan concludes this part of his letter by
reciting two maxims given him by his father--one, to have daily
remembrance of God and of His vast bounty, the other, to pursue with the
utmost diligence any task taken in hand.

Cardan then treats the scapegrace to a string of maxims from the _De
Utilitate_, maxims which a model son might have read, but which Gian
Battista would c