espiser of wealth as his son
proved to be afterwards. His virtue, such as it was, must have been the
outcome of one of those hard cold natures, with wants few and trifling,
and none of those tastes which cry out daily for some new toy, only to be
procured by money. The fact that he made his son run after him through the
streets of Milan in place of a servant is not a conclusive proof of
avarice; it may just as likely mean that the old man was indifferent and
callous to whatever suffering he might inflict upon his young son, and
indisposed to trouble himself about searching for a hireling to carry his
bag. The one indication we gather of his worldly wisdom is his
dissatisfaction that his son was firmly set to follow medicine rather than
jurisprudence, a step which would involve the loss of the stipend of one
hundred crowns a year which he drew for his lectureship, an income which
he had hoped might be continued to a son of his after his death.[19]

Amidst the turmoil and discomfort of what must at the best have been a
most ill-regulated household, the boy's education was undertaken by his
father in such odds and ends of time as he might find to spare for the
task.[20] What with the hardness and irritability of the teacher, and the
peevishness inseparable from the pupil's physical feebleness and morbid
overwrought mental habit, these hours of lessons must have been irksome to
both, and of little benefit. "In the meantime my father taught me orally
the Latin tongue as well as the rudiments of Arithmetic, Geometry, and
Astrology. But he allowed me to sleep well into the day, and he himself
would always remain abed till nine o'clock. But one habit of his appeared
to me likely to lead to grave consequences, to wit the way he had of
lending to others anything which belonged to him. Part of these loans,
which were made to insolvents, he lost altogether; and the residue, lent
to divers persons in high places, could only be recovered with much
trouble and no little danger, and with loss of all interest on the same. I
know not whether he acted in this wise by the advice of that familiar
spirit[21] whose services he retained for eight-and-thirty years. What
afterwards came to pass showed that my father treated me, his son, rightly
in all things relating to education, seeing that I had a keen
intelligence. For with boys of this sort it is well to make use of the bit
as though you were dealing with mules. Beyond this he was witty and