picture of themselves in their written
words, and nowhere is Cardan, from the opening to the closing scene, so
plainly exhibited as in the _De Vita Propria_, almost the last work which
came from his pen. It has been asserted that this book, written in the
twilight of senility by an old man with his heart cankered by misfortune
and ill-usage, and his brain upset by the dread of real or fancied
assaults of foes who lay in wait for him at every turn, is no trustworthy
guide, even when bare facts are in question, and undoubtedly it would be
undesirable to trust this record without seeking confirmation elsewhere.
This confirmation is nearly always at hand, for there is hardly a
noteworthy event in his career which he does not refer to constantly in
the more autobiographic of his works. The _De Vita Propria_ is indeed ill
arranged and full of inconsistencies, but in spite of its imperfections,
it presents its subject as clearly and effectively as Benvenuto Cellini is
displayed in his own work. The rough sketch of a great master often
performs its task more thoroughly than the finished painting, and Cardan's
autobiography is a fragment of this sort. It lets pass in order of
procession the moody neglected boy in Fazio's ill-ordered house, the
student at Pavia, the youthful Rector of the Paduan Gymnasium, plunging
when just across the threshold of life into criminal excess of
Sardanapalean luxury, the country doctor at Sacco and afterwards at
Gallarate, starving amongst his penniless patients, the University
professor, the famous physician for whose services the most illustrious
monarchs in Europe came as suppliants in vain, the father broken by family
disgrace and calamity, and the old man, disgraced and suspected and
harassed by persecutors who shot their arrows in the dark, but at the same
time tremblingly anxious to set down the record of his days before the
night should descend.

Until he had completed his nineteenth year Jerome continued to dwell under
the roof which for the time being might give shelter to his parents. The
emoluments which Fazio drew from his profession were sufficient for the
family wants--he himself being a man of simple tastes; wherefore Jerome
was not forced, in addition to his other youthful troubles, to submit to
that _execrata paupertas_ and its concomitant miseries which vexed him in
later years. To judge from his conduct in the matter of Otto Cantone's
estate, Fazio seems to have been as great a d