ence, for his mind was wild and furious, unless it was compelled to fix part of its attention on the the body. Many people adopted madness as the safe and easy solution of these phenomena. Cardan's friends attributed many of his vagaries to a wild horror of mind, occasioned by domestic misfortunes. In addition to poverty, and various other common infelicities of literary men, he had frequently been obliged to imprison one of his sons on account of immorality, and his other son had been beheaded for poisoning his wife. This loss afflicted Cardan more deeply than any other of his calamities. In the violence of his passion he used to arraign the justice of the laws, and defend his son, because he said the marriage had been an imprudent one, and ought to be dissolved.

These particulars respecting Cardan being acquired, I turned my attention to the subject of them. As long as the conversation ran upon common topics, Cardan occasionally dropt a few sentences, and they were full of spleen and bitterness; which no one wondered at or regarded, for people kindly charged them upon that necessity for excitement, that urged him to the commis sion of so many absurdities. I still sat revolving in my mind, the circumstance that Scaliger had. written against Cardan, merely for the honor of

contending with such a man, and had expressed his opinion, that in some things Cardan appeared above human ability, and in many other things below the state of childhood. I became sceptical of his talents, at least as displayed in conversation; but at length a question of literature was started, and I was not much longer in doubt. He discoursed with surprising ability and eloquence; and displayed a perfect knowledge of the ancients; not the mere title of their books, like some people, who ought to be called booksellers, rather than doctors; and who do not, as Cardan says, write, but copy:-but he retained in his mind the opinions and the very expressions of his authors, and often corrected the false quotations of those with whom he was conversing.

Cardan was a physician of great eminence at Padua when I was there; but he often changes his abode. The basis of his medicine is the general sympathy between the celestial bodies and the parts of the human form. The motto which I have perused an hundred times over the door of his house, struck me as highly necessary to be read by those who think that there is no occupation save the acquiring of wealth: "Tempus mea possessio; tempus ager meus," are the words, Were I disposed to believe the description that Cardan has given of himself, I should say that all

VOL. II.

U

the vices and all the virtues form his mind; that no person is worse, none better than Cardan. It might seem that he has thrown off all responsibility to Heaven, by charging his offences upon the stars; but it should be remembered that he strenuously contends that the stars are regulated by the Providence of God. He is charged with atheism, but, in his philosophical works, I have been assured that he reasons so piously, that no philosopher ever appeared more thoroughly imbued with the spirit of religion. In his works which relate to morals, he places all happiness in a future life; and contends that felicity can only be reached through death. But the word atheist or deist, is a common term of reproach, applied without meaning; the expression of envy or hate, rather than of real opinion. On two great occasions he suffered religion to influence his conduct. He declined the favors of Edward VI., king of England, for he would not confess his title to those honors of which the Pope had deprived him. He refused the honorable and lucrative station of physician at the court of Denmark, for he disliked the religion of the country. His reputation has been injured by his publication of what he calls the Horoscope of Jesus Christ. I remember that at Rome, one Tiberius Russilianus Sextus, of Calabria, offended

the church, by undertaking to prove, in a public disputation, that Jesus Christ, in his corporeal character, had been subject to the influence of the stars; and that the circumstances of his birth, his prophetic character, and particularly his violent death, might have been predicted of him. Other schemes of Christ's nativity have been proposed at various times, but always rejected by the common sense of the world; for people, although they firmly believe their destiny depends upon the planets, yet, maintaining the divine nature of Christ, are shocked at the absurdity of the necessary dependance of his actions upon the state of the stars, at the time of his birth. Cardan might have justified his scheme by many examples, which have been passed unnoticed by the church; or have contended that his scheme was not inconsistent with heavenly wisdom. Unfortunately for his fame, his vanity has induced him to maintain the assertion that he is the inventor of the Horoscope of Jesus Christ.

Cardan's literary works are eagerly sought for by the learned. He has written upon astronomy, astrology, mathematics, morals, philosophy, medicine, natural history, music; and, indeed, there is scarcely a subject of human knowledge, upon which he has not written. There are so many

contradictions in his books that it is easy to see the author had not a very large stock of fixed principles. His digressions are extremely numerous, and have often no connexion at all with his main subject. In his book on arithmetic, for instance, the reader is astonished to meet with dissertations on the creation, the motions of the planets, and the tower of Babel. For his digressions, Cardan raised the excuse that his agreement with the bookseller was by the sheet, and that he worked no less for money than for fame. His poverty accounts, too, for the audacious plagiarisms that every where disgrace his pages. His reason is generally at the command of some phantasy of the imagination. He believes that he is influenced by an attendant spirit. He writes, because he is commanded in dreams to do so, and he boasts, like all other fanatics, of special communications with heaven. The reveries of his imagination are so distinctly present to his mind, that he often mentions them in his works, as if they were actual occurrences. His acquaintance with the learned languages was the gift of God to him in dreams. Notwithstanding these absurdities, persons who have read his works affirm that they display great acuteness of intellect, and unbounded fertility of fancy: that