boy's
youthful training which helped to bring him to ruin, and the care which he
bestowed upon his grandson Fazio proved that his regret was not of that
sort which exhales itself in empty words. The zeal with which he threw
himself into the struggle for his son's life, and his readiness to strip
himself of his last coin as the fight went on, show that he was capable of
warm-hearted affection, and afraid of no sacrifice in the cause of duty.

The brutal candour which Cardan used in probing the weaknesses of his own
nature and in displaying them to the world, he used likewise in his
dealings with others. If he detected Branda Porro or Camutio in a blunder
he would inform them they were blockheads without hesitation, and plume
himself afterwards on the score of his blunt honesty. Veracity was not a
common virtue in those days, but Cardan laid claim to it with a display of
insistence which was not, perhaps, in the best taste. Over and over again
he writes that he never told a lie;[256] a contention which seems to have
roused especially the bile of Naude, and to have spurred him on to make
his somewhat clumsy assault on Cardan's veracity.[257] His citation of the
case of the stranger who came with the volume of Apuleius for sale, and of
the miraculous gift of classic tongues, has already been referred to; but
these may surely be attributed to an exaggerated activity of that
particular side of Cardan's imagination which was specially prone to
seize upon some figment of the brain, and some imperfectly apprehended
sensation of the optic nerve, and fashion from these materials a tale of
marvel. Delusions of this sort were common in reputed witches, as Reginald
Scot writes--"They learne strange toongs with small industrie (as
Aristotle and others affirme)."[258] The other charge preferred by Naude
as to the pretended cure of consumption, and the consequent quibbling and
tergiversation, is a more valid one. It has been noted how Cardan,
previous to his journey to Scotland, had posed as the discoverer of a cure
for this malady. In the list of his cures successfully treated he includes
several in which he restored patients suffering from blood-spitting,
fever, and extreme emaciation to sound health, the most noteworthy of
these being that of Girolamo Tiboldo, a sea-captain. When the sick man had
risen from his bed and had become fat and healthy, Cardan deemed that the
occasion justified a certain amount of self-gratulation, but the
p