CARDAN travelled southward by way of the Low Countries. He stayed some
days at Antwerp, and during his visit he was pressed urgently to remain in
the city and practise his art. A less pleasant experience was a fall into
a ditch when he was coming out of a goldsmith's shop. He was cut and
bruised about the left ear, but the damage was only skin-deep. He went on
by Brussels and Cologne to Basel, where he once more tarried several days.
He had a narrow escape here of falling into danger, for, had he not been
forewarned by Guglielmo Gratarolo, a friend, he would have taken up his
quarters in a house infected by the plague. He was received as a guest by
Carlo Affaidato, a learned astronomer and physicist, who, on the day of
departure, made him accept a valuable mule, worth a hundred crowns.
Another generous offer of a similar kind was made to him shortly
afterwards by a Genoese gentleman of the family of Ezzolino, who fell in
with him accidentally on the road. This was the gift of a very fine horse
(of the sort which the English call Obinum), but, greatly as Cardan
desired to have the horse, his sense of propriety kept him back from
accepting this gift.[162]
He went next to Besançon, where he was received by Franciscus Bonvalutus,
a scholar of some note, and then by Berne to Zurich. He must have crossed
the Alps by the Splugen Pass, as Chur is named in his itinerary, and he
also describes his voyage down the Lake of Como on the way to Milan, where
he arrived on January 3, 1553. Cardan was a famous physician when he set
out on his northward journey; but now on his return he stood firmly placed
by the events of the last few months at the head of his profession.
Writing of the material results of his mission to Scotland, he declares
that he is ashamed to set down the terms upon which he was paid, so
lavishly was he rewarded for his services. The offers made to him by so
many exalted personages to secure his permanent and exclusive attention
would indeed have turned the heads of most men. There was the offer from
the King of Denmark; another, in 1552, from the King of France at a salary
of thirteen hundred crowns a year; and yet another made by the agents of
Charles V., who was then engaged in his disastrous attack upon Metz. All
of them he refused: he had no inclination to share the perils of the
leaguer of Metz, and his sense of loyalty forbad him to join himself to
the power which was at that time warring against his sovereign. He speaks
also of another offer made to him by the Queen of Scotland of a generous
salary if he would settle in Scotland; but the country was too remote for
his taste. There is no authority for this offer except the _De Vita
Propria_, and it is there set down in terms which render it somewhat
difficult to identify the Queen aforesaid.[163]
As soon as he entered Milan, Ferrante Gonzaga, the Governor, desired to
secure his services as physician to the Duke of Mantua, his brother,
offering him thirty thousand gold crowns as honorarium; but, in spite of
the Governor's persuasions and threats, he would not accept the office.
When the news had come to Paris that Cardan was about to quit Britain,
forty of the most illustrious scientists of France repaired to Paris in
order to hear him expound the art of Medicine; but the disturbed state of
the country deterred him from setting foot in France. He refers to a
letter from his friend Ranconet as a testimony of the worship that was
paid to him, and goes on to say that, in his journeying through France and
Germany, he fared much as Plato fared at the Olympic games.
In a passage which Cardan wrote shortly after his return from Britain, he
lets it be seen that he was not ill-satisfied with the figure he then made
in the world. He writes--"Therefore, since all those with whom I am
intimate think well of me for my truth and probity, I can let my envious
rivals indulge themselves as they list in the shameful habit of
evil-speaking. With regard to folly, if I now utter, or ever have uttered,
foolish words, let those who accuse me show their evidence. I, who was
born poor, with a weakly body, in an age vexed almost incessantly by wars
and tumults, helped on by no family influence, but forced to contend
against the bitter opposition of the College at Milan, contrived to
overcome all the plots woven against me, and open violence as well. All
the honours which a physician can possess I either enjoy, or have refused
when they were offered to me. I have raised the fortunes of my family, and
have lived a blameless life. I am well known to all men of worship, and to
the whole of Europe. What I have written has been lauded; in sooth, I
have written of so many things and at such length, that a man could
scarcely read my works if he spent his life therewith. I have taken good
care of my domestic affairs, and by common consent I have come off victor
in every contest I have tried. I have refused always to flatter the great;
and over and beyond this I have often set myself in active opposition to
them. My name will be found scattered about the pages of many writers. I
shall deem my life long enough if I come in perfect health to the age of
fifty-six. I have been most fortunate as the discoverer of many and
important contributions to knowledge, as well as in the practice of my art
and in the results attained; so much so that if my fame in the first
instance has raised up envy against me, it has prevailed finally, and
extinguished all ill-feeling."[164]
These words were written before the publication of the _Geniturarum
Exempla_ in 1554. Cardan's life for the six years which followed was busy
and prosperous, but on the whole uneventful. The Archbishop of St. Andrews
wrote to him according to promise at the end of two years to give an
account of the results of his treatment. His letter is worthy of remark as
showing that he, the person most interested, was well satisfied with
Cardan's skill as a physician. Michael, the Archbishop's chief
chamberlain, was the bearer thereof, and as Hamilton speaks of him as
"epistolam vivam," it is probable that he bore likewise certain verbal
messages which could be more safely carried thus than in writing. A
sentence in the _De Vita Propria_,[165] mixed up with the account of
Hamilton's cure, seems to refer to this embassy, and to suggest that
Michael was authorized to promise Cardan a liberal salary if he would
accept permanent office in the Primate's household. Moreover, Hamilton
writes somewhat querulously about Cassanate's absence abroad on a visit to
his family, a fact which would make him all the more eager to secure
Cardan's services. His letter runs as follows--"Two of your most welcome
letters, written some months ago, I received by the hand of an English
merchant; others came by the care of the Lord Bishop of Dunkeld, together
with the Indian balsam. The last were from Scoto, who sent at the same
time your most scholarly comments on that difficult work of Ptolemy.[166]
To all that you have written to me I have replied fully in three or four
letters of my own, but I know not whether, out of all I have written, any
letter of mine has reached you. But now I have directed that a servant of
mine, who is known to you, and who is travelling to Rome, shall wait upon
you and salute you in my name, and bear to you my gratitude, not only for
the various gifts I have received from you, but likewise because my health
is well-nigh restored, the ailment which vexed me is driven away, my
strength increased, and my life renewed. Wherefore I rate myself debtor
for all these benefits, as well as this very body of mine. For, from the
time when I began to take these medicines of yours, selected and
compounded with so great skill, my complaint has afflicted me less
frequently and severely; indeed, now, as a rule, I am not troubled
therewith more than once a month; sometimes I escape for two months."[167]
In the following year (1555) Cardan's daughter Chiara, who seems to have
been a virtuous and well-conducted girl, was married to Bartolomeo Sacco,
a young Milanese gentleman of good family, a match which proved to be
fortunate. Cardan had now reached that summit of fame against which the
shafts of jealousy will always be directed. The literary manners of the
age certainly lacked urbanity, and of all living controversialists there
was none more truculent than Julius Cæsar Scaliger, who had begun his
career as a man of letters by a fierce assault upon Erasmus with regard to
his _Ciceronianus_, a leading case amongst the quarrels of authors.
Erasmus he had attacked for venturing to throw doubts upon the suitability
of Cicero's Latin as a vehicle of modern thought; this quarrel was over a
question of form; and now Scaliger went a step farther, and, albeit he
knew little of the subject in hand, published a book of _Esoteric
Exercitations_ to show that the _De Subtilitate_ of Cardan was nothing but
a tissue of nonsense.[168] The book was written with all the heavy-handed
brutality he was accustomed to use, but it did no hurt to Cardan's
reputation, and, irritable as he was by nature, it failed to provoke him
to make an immediate rejoinder, a delay which was the cause of one of the
most diverting incidents in the whole range of literary warfare.
Scaliger sat in his study, eagerly expecting a reply, but Cardan took no
notice of the attack. Then one day some tale-bearer, moved either by the
spirit of tittle-tattle or the love of mischief, brought to Julius Cæsar
the news that Jerome Cardan had sunk under his tremendous battery of
abuse, and was dead. It is but bare charity to assume that Scaliger was
touched by some stings of regret when he heard what had been the fatal
result of his onslaught; still there can be little doubt that his mind was
filled with a certain satisfaction when he reflected that he was in sooth
a terrible assailant, and that his fist was heavier than any other man's.
In any case, he felt that it behoved him to make some sign, wherefore he
sat down and penned a funeral oration over his supposed victim, which is
worth giving at length.[169]
"At this season, when fate has dealt with me in a fashion so wretched and
untoward that it has connected my name with a cruel public calamity, when
a literary essay of mine, well known to the world, and undertaken at the
call of duty, has ensued in dire misfortune, it seems to me that I am
bound to bequeath to posterity a testimony that, sharp as may have been
the vexation brought upon Jerome Cardan by my trifling censures, the grief
which now afflicts me on account of his death is ten times sharper. For,
even if Cardan living should have been a terror to me, I, who am but a
single unit in the republic of letters, ought to have postponed my own and
singular convenience to the common good, seeing how excellent were the
merits of this man, in every sort of learning. For now the republic is
bereft of a great and incomparable scholar, and must needs suffer a loss
which, peradventure, none of the centuries to come will repair. What
though I am a person of small account, I could count upon him as a
supporter, a judge, and (immortal gods) even a laudator of my
lucubrations; for he was so greatly impressed by their weighty merits,
that he deemed he would best defend himself by avoiding all comment on the
same, despairing of his own strength, and knowing not how great his powers
really were. In this respect he was so skilful a master, that he could
assuredly have fathomed the depths of every method and every device used
against him, and would thereby have made his castigation of myself to
serve as an augmentation of his own fame. He, in sooth, was a man of such
quality that, if he had deemed it a thing demanded of him by equity, he
would never have hesitated to point out to other students the truth of
those words which I had written against him as an accusation, while, on
the other hand, this same constancy of mind would have made him adhere to
the opinions he might have put forth in the first instance, so far as
these opinions were capable of proof. I, when I addressed my
_Exercitations_ to him during his life--to him whom I knew by common
report to be the most ingenious and learned of mortal men--was in good
hope that I might issue from this conflict a conqueror; and is there
living a man blind enough not to perceive that what I looked for was
hard-earned credit, which I should certainly have won by finding my views
confirmed by Cardan living, and not for inglorious peace brought about by
his death? And indeed I might have been suffered to have share in the
bounty and kindliness of this illustrious man, whom I have always heard
described as a shrewd antagonist and one full of confidence in his own
high position, for it was an easy task to win from him the ordinary rights
of friendship by any trifling letter, seeing that he was the most
courteous of mankind. It is scarcely likely that I, weary as I was, one
who in fighting had long been used to perils of all sorts, should thus
cast aside my courage; that I, worn out by incessant controversies and
consumed by the daily wear and tear of writing, should care for an
inglorious match with so distinguished an antagonist; or that I should
have set my heart upon winning a bare victory in the midst of all this
dust and tumult. For not only was the result which has ensued unlooked for
in the nature of things and in the opinion of all men qualified to judge
in such a case; it was also the last thing I could have desired to happen,
for the sake of my good name. My judgment has ever been that all men (for
in sooth all of us are, so to speak, little less than nothing) may so lose
their heads in controversy that they may actually fight against their own
interests. And if such a mischance as this may happen to any man of
eminence--as has been my case, and the case of divers others I could
recall--it shall not be written down in the list of his errors, unless in
aftertimes he shall seek to justify the same. It is necessary to advance
roughness in the place of refinement, and stubborn tenacity for
steadfastness. No man can be pronounced guilty of offence on the score of
some hasty word or other which may escape his lips; such a charge should
rather be made when he defends himself by unworthy methods. Therefore if
Cardan during his life, being well advised in the matter, should have kept
silent over my attempts to correct him, what could have brought me greater
credit than this? He would have bowed to my opinion in seemly fashion, and
would have taken my censures as those of a father or a preceptor. But
supposing that he had ventured to engage in a sharper controversy with me
over this question, is there any one living who would fail to see that he
might have gone near to lose his wits on account of the mental agitation
which had afflicted him in the past? But as soon as his superhuman
intellect had thoroughly grasped the question, it seemed to him that he
must needs be called upon to bear what was intolerable. He could not pluck
up courage enough to bear it by living, so he bore it by dying. Moreover,
what he might well have borne, he could not bring himself to bear, to wit
that he and I should come to an agreement and should formulate certain
well-balanced decisions for the common good. For this reason I lament
deeply my share in this affair, I who had most obvious reasons for
engaging in this conflict, and the clearest ones for inventing a story as
to the victory I hoped to gain; reasons which a man of sober temper could
never anticipate, which a brave man would never desire.
"Cardan's fame has its surest foundation in the praise of his adversaries.
I lament greatly this misfortune of our republic: the causes of which the
parliament of lettered men may estimate by its particular rules, but it
cannot rate this calamity in relation to the excellences of this
illustrious personality. For in a man of learning three properties ought
to stand out pre-eminently--a spotless and gentle rule of life; manifold
and varied learning; and consummate talent joined to the shrewdest
capacity for forming a judgment. These three points Cardan attained so
completely that he seemed to have been made entirely for himself, and at
the same time to have been the only mortal made for mankind at large. No
one could be more courteous to his inferiors or more ready to discuss the
scheme of the universe with any man of mark with whom he might chance to
foregather. He was a man of kingly courtesy, of sympathetic loftiness of
mind, one fitted for all places, for all occasions, for all men and for
all fortunes. In reference to learning itself, I beg you to look around
upon the accomplished circle of the learned now living on the earth, in
this most fortunate age of ours; here the combination of individual talent
shows us a crowd of illustrious men, but each one of these displays
himself as occupied with some special portion of Philosophy. But Cardan,
in addition to his profound knowledge of the secrets of God and Nature,
was a consummate master of the humaner letters, and was wont to expound
the same with such eloquence that those who listened to him would have
been justified in affirming that he could have studied nothing else all
his life. A great man indeed! Great if he could lay claim to no other
excellence than this; and forsooth, when we come to consider the quickness
of his wit, his fiery energy in everything he undertook, whether of the
least or the greatest moment, his laborious diligence and unconquerable
steadfastness, I affirm that the man who shall venture to compare himself
with Cardan may well be regarded as one lacking in all due modesty. I
forsooth feel no hostility towards one whose path never crossed mine, nor
envy of one whose shadow never touched mine; the numerous and weighty
questions dealt with in his monumental work urged me on to undertake the
task of gaining some knowledge of the same. After the completion of the
Commentaries on Subtlety, he published as a kind of appendix to these that
most learned work the _De Rerum Varietate_. And in this case, before news
was brought to me of his death, I followed my customary practice, and in
the course of three days compiled an Excursus in short chapters. When I
heard that he was dead I brought them together into one little book, in
order that I also might lend a hand in this great work of his, and this
thing I did after a fashion which he himself would have approved,
supposing that at some time or other he might have held discourse with me,
or with some other yet more learned man, concerning his affairs."[170]
It is a matter of regret that this cry of _peccavi_ was not published till
all the chief literary contemporaries of Scaliger were in their graves. As
it did not appear till 1621, the men of his own time were not able to
enjoy the shout of laughter over his discomfiture which would surely have
gone up from Paris and Strasburg and Basel and Zurich. Estienne and
Gessner would hardly have felt acute sorrow at a flout put upon Julius
Cæsar Scaliger. Crooked-tempered as he was, Cardan, compared with
Scaliger, was as a rose to a thistle, but there were reasons altogether
unconnected with the personalities of the disputants which swayed the
balance to Cardan's advantage. The greater part of Scaliger's criticism
was worthless, and the opinion of learned Europe weighed overwhelmingly on
Cardan's side. Thuanus,[171] who assuredly did not love him, and Naudé,
who positively disliked him, subsequently gave testimony in his favour. He
did not follow the example of Erasmus, and let Scaliger's abuse go by in
silence, but he took the next wisest course. He published a short and
dignified reply, _Actio prima in Calumniatorem_, in which, from
title-page to colophon, Scaliger's name never once occurs. The gist of
the book may best be understood by quoting an extract from the criticism
of Cardan by Naudé prefixed to the _De Vita Propria_. He writes: "This
proposition of mine will best be comprehended by the man who shall set to
work to compare Cardan with Julius Cæsar Scaliger, his rival, and a man
endowed with an intellect almost superhuman. For Scaliger, although he
came upon the stage with greater pomp and display, and brought with him a
mind filled with daring speculation, and adequate to the highest flights,
kept closely behind the lattices of the humaner letters and of medical
philosophy, leaving to Cardan full liberty to occupy whatever ground of
argument he might find most advantageous in any other of the fields of
learning. Moreover, if any one shall give daily study to these celebrated
_Exercitations_, he will find therein nothing to show that Cardan is
branded by any mark of shame which may not be removed with the slightest
trouble, if the task be undertaken in a spirit of justice. For, in the
first place, who can maintain that Scaliger was justified in publishing
his _Exercitations_ three years after the issue of the second edition of
the _Libri de Subtilitate_, without ever having taken the trouble to read
this edition, and without exempting from censure the errors which Cardan
had diligently expunged from his book in the course of his latest
revision, lest he (Scaliger) should find that all the mighty labour
expended over his criticisms had been spent in vain? Besides, who does not
know that Cardan, in his _Actio prima in Calumniatorem_, blunted the point
of all his assailant's weapons, swept away all his objections, and broke
in pieces all his accusations, in such wise that the very reason of their
existence ceased to be? Cardan, in sooth, was a true man, and held all
humanity as akin to him. There is small reason why we should marvel that
he erred now and again; it is a marvel much greater that he should only
have gone astray so seldom and in things of such trifling moment. Indeed I
will dare to affirm, and back my opinion with a pledge, that the errors
which Scaliger left behind him in these _Exercitations_ were more in
number than those which he so wantonly laid to Cardan's charge, having
sweated nine years over the task. And this he did not so much in the
interests of true erudition as with the desire of coming to blows with all
those whom he recognized as the chiefs of learning."
During the whole dispute Cardan kept his temper admirably. Scaliger was a
physician of repute; and it is not improbable that the spectacle of
Cardan's triumphal progress back to Milan from the North may have aroused
his jealousy and stimulated him to make his ill-judged attack. But even on
the ground of medical science he was no match for Cardan, while in
mathematics and philosophy he was immeasurably inferior. Cardan felt
probably that the attack was nothing more than the buzzing of a gadfly,
and that in any case it would make for his own advantage and credit,
wherefore he saw no reason why he should disquiet himself; indeed his
attitude of dignified indifference was admirably calculated to win for him
the approval of the learned world by the contrast it furnished to the
raging fury of his adversary.[172]
After the heavy labour of editing and issuing to the world the _De Rerum
Varietate_, and of re-editing the first issue of the _De Subtilitate_,
Cardan might well have given himself a term of rest, but to a man of his
temper, idleness, or even a relaxation of the strain, is usually irksome.
The _De Varietate_ was first printed at Basel in 1553, and, as soon as it
was out of the press, it brought a trouble--not indeed a very serious
one--upon the author. The printer, Petrus of Basel (who must not be
confused with Petreius of Nuremberg) took it upon him to add to Chapter
LXXX of the work some disparaging remarks about the Dominican
brotherhoods, making Cardan responsible for the assertion that they were
rapacious wolves who hunted down reputed witches and despisers of God, not
because of their offences, but because they chanced to be the possessors
of much wealth. Cardan remonstrated at once--he always made it his
practice to keep free from all theological wrangling,--but Petrus treated
the whole question with ridicule,[173] and it does not seem that Cardan
could have had any very strong feeling in the matter, for the obnoxious
passage is retained in the editions of 1556 and 1557. The religious
authorities were however fully justified in assuming that the presence of
such a passage in the pages of a book so widely popular as the _De
Varietate_ would necessarily prove a cause of scandal, and give cause to
the enemy to blaspheme. For Reginald Scot, in the eighth chapter of
_Discoverie of Witchcraft_, alludes to the passage in question in the
following terms: "Cardanus writeth that the cause of such credulitie
consisteth in three points: to wit in the imagination of the melancholike,
in the constancie of them that are corrupt therewith, and in the deceipt
of the Judges; who being inquisitors themselves against heretikes and
witches, did both accuse and condemne them, having for their labour the
spoile of their goods. So as these inquisitors added many fables hereunto,
least they should seeme to have doone injurie to the poore wretches, in
condemning and executing them for none offense. But sithens (said he) the
springing up of Luther's sect, these priests have tended more diligentlie
upon the execution of them; bicause more wealth is to be caught from them;
insomuch as now they deale so looselie with witches (through distrust of
gaines) that all is seene to be malice, follie, or avarice that hath beene
practised against them. And whosoever shall search into this cause, or
read the cheefe writers hereupon, shall find his words true."
In 1554 Cardan published also with Petrus of Basel the _Ptolemæi de
astrorum judiciis_ with the _Geniturarum Exempla_, bound in one volume,
but he seems to have written nothing but a book of fables for the young,
concerning which he subsequently remarks that, in his opinion, grown men
might read the same with advantage. It is a matter of regret that this
work should have disappeared, for it would have been interesting to note
how far Cardan's intellect, acute and many-sided as it was, was capable of
dealing with the literature of allegory and imagination. He has set down
one fact concerning it, to wit that it contained "multa de futuris
arcana." The next year he produced only a few medical trifles, but in 1557
he brought out two other scientific works which he characterizes as
admirable--one the _Ars parva curandi_, and the other a treatise _De
Urinis_. In the same year he published the book which, in forming a
judgment of him as a man and a writer, is perhaps as valuable as the _De
Vita Propria_ and the _De Utilitate_, to wit the _De Libriis Propriis_.
This work exists in three forms: the first, a short treatise, "cui titulus
est ephemerus," is dedicated to "Hieronymum Cardanum medicum, affinem
suum," and has the date of 1543. The second has the date of 1554, and,
according to Naudé, was first published "apud Gulielmum Rovillium sub
scuto Veneto, Lugduni, 1557." The third was begun in 1560,[174] and
contains comments written in subsequent years. The first is of slight
interest, the second is a sort of register of his works, amplified from
year to year, while the third has more the form of a treatise, and
presents with some degree of symmetry the crude materials contained in the
first. Having finished with his writings up to the year 1564, Cardan
lapses into a philosophizing strain, and opens his discourse with the
ominous words, "Sed jam ad institutum revertamur, déque ipso vitæ humanæ
genere aliquo dicamus." He begins with a disquisition on the worthlessness
of life, and repeats somewhat tediously the story of his visit to
Scotland. He gives a synopsis of all the sciences he had ever
studied--Theology, Dialectics, Arithmetic, Music, Optics, Astronomy,
Astrology, Geometry, Chiromancy, Agriculture, Medicine, passing on to
treat of Magic, portents and warnings, and of his own experience of the
same at the crucial moments of his life. He ends by a reference to an
incident already chronicled in the _De Vita Propria_,[175] how he escaped
death or injury from a falling mass of masonry by crossing the street in
obedience to an impulse he could not explain, and speculates why God, who
was able to save him on this occasion with so little trouble, should have
let him rush on and court the overwhelming stroke which ultimately laid
him low.
FOOTNOTES:
[162] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxxii. p. 100.
[163] _De Vita Propria_, ch. iv. p. 16: "cum Scotorum Regina cujus levirum
curaveram." Cardan had probably prescribed for a brother of the Duc de
Longueville, the first husband of Mary of Guise, during his sojourn in
Paris.
[164] _Geniturarum Exempla_, p. 459.
[165] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xl. p. 137.
[166] _Commentaria in Ptolemæi de Astrorum Judiciis_ (Basil, 1554). He
wrote these notes while going down the Loire in company with Cassanate on
his way from Lyons to Paris in 1552.--_De Vita Propria_, ch. xlv. p. 175.
He gives an interesting account (_Opera_, tom. i. p. 110) as to how the
book first came under his notice. The day before he quitted Lyons with
Cassanate, a school-master came to ask for advice, which Cardan gave
gratis. Then the patient, knowing perhaps the physician's taste for the
marvellous, related how there was a certain boy in the place who could see
spirits by looking into an earthen vessel, but Cardan was little impressed
by what he saw, and began to talk with the school-master about Archimedes.
The school-master brought out a work of the Greek philosopher with which
was bound up the _Ptolemæi Libri de Judiciis_. Cardan fastened upon it at
once, and wanted to buy it, but the school-master insisted that he should
take it as a gift. He declares that his Commentaries thereupon are the
most perfect of all his writings. The book contains his famous Nativity of
Christ. A remark in _De Libris Propriis_ (cf. _Opera_, tom. i. p. 67)
indicates that there was an earlier edition of Ptolemy, printed at Milan
at Cardan's own cost, because when he saw the numerous mistakes made by
Ottaviano Scoto in printing the _De Malo Medendi_ and the _De
Consolatione_, he determined to go to another printer.
[167] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 93.
[168] Cardan notices the attack in these words--"His diebus quidam
conscripserat adversus nostrum de Subtilitate librum, Opus ingens.
Adversus quem ego Apologiam scripsi."--_Opera_, tom. i. p. 117. Scaliger
absurdly calls his work the _fifteenth_ book of _Exercitations_, and
wished the world to believe that he had written, though not printed, the
fourteen others.
[169] It was not printed until many years after the deaths of both
disputants, and appeared for the first time in a volume of Scaliger's
letters and speeches published at Toulouse in 1621, and it was afterwards
affixed to the _De Vita Propria_.
[170] "Si Scaliger avoit eu un peu moins de démangeaison de contre dire,
il auroit acquis plus de gloire, qu'il n'a fait dans ce combat: mais, ce
que les Grecs ont apellé [Greek: ametria tês antholkês], une passion
excessive de prendre le contrepied des autres, a fait grand tort à
Scaliger. C'est par ce principe qu'il a soutenu que le perroquet est une
très laide bête. Si Cardan l'eût dit, Scaliger lui eût opposé ce qu'on
trouve dans les anciens Poètes touchant la beauté de cet oiseau. Vossius a
fait une Critique très judicieuse de cette humeur contrariante de
Scaliger, et a marqué en même temps en quoi ces deux Antagonistes étoient
supérieurs et inférieures, l'un à l'autre."--(Scaliger, in _Exercitat.,_
246.) "Quia Cardanus psittacum commendarat a colorum varietate ac præterea
fulgore, quod et Appuleius facit in secundo Floridorum, contra contendit
esse deformem, non modo ob foeditatem rostri, ac crurum, et linguæ, sed
etiam quia sit coloris fusci ac cinericii, qui tristis. Quid faciamus
summo Viro? Si Cardanus ea dixisset, provocasset ad judicia poëtarum,
atque adeo omnium hominum. Nunc quia pulchri dixit coloris, ille deformis
contendit. Hoc contradictionis studium, quod ubique in hisce
exercitationibus se prodit, sophista dignius est, quamque
philosopho."--Bayle: Article "Cardan." (Sir Thomas Browne, in one of his
Commonplace Books, observes--"If Cardan saith a parrot is a beautiful
bird, Scaliger will set his wits on work to prove it a deformed animal.")
Naudé (_Apologie_, ch. xiii.) says that of the great men of modern times
Scaliger and Cardan each claimed the possession of a guardian spirit, and
hints that Scaliger may have been moved to make this claim in order not to
be outdone by his great antagonist. It should, however, be remembered that
Cardan did not seriously assert this belief till long after his
controversy with Scaliger. Naudé sums up thus: "D'où l'on peut juger
asseurement, que lui et Scaliger n'ont point eu d'autre Genie que la
grande doctrine qu'ils s'étoient acquis par leurs veilles, par leurs
travaux, et par l'expérience qu'ils avoient des choses sur lesquelles
venant à élever leur jugement ils jugeoint pertinemment de toutes
matières, et ne laissoient rien échapper qui ne leur fust conneu et
manifeste."
[171] Thuanus, ad Annum MDLXXVI, part of the Appendix to the _De Vita
Propria_.
[172] Cardan does not seem to have harboured animosity against Scaliger.
In the _De Vita Propria_, ch. xlviii. p. 198, he writes: "Julius Cæsar
Scaliger plures mihi titulos ascribit, quam ego mihi concedi postulassem,
appellans _ingenium profundissimum, felicissimum, et incomparabile_."
[173] "Quid tua interest quod quatuor verba adjecerim? an hoc tantum
crimen est! quid facerem absens absenti?" Cardan writes on in meditative
strain: "Coeterum cum non ignorem maculatos fuisse codices B. Hieronimi,
atque aliorum patrum nostrorum, ab his qui aliter sentiebant, erroremque
suum auctoritate viri tegere voluerunt: ut ne quis in nostris operibus
hallucinetur vel ab aliis decipiatur, sciant omnes me nullibi Theologum
agere, nec velle in alienam messem falcem ponere."--_Opera_, tom. i. p.
112.
Johannes Wierus, one of the first rationalists on the subject of
witchcraft, has quoted largely from Chapter LXXX of _De Varietate_ in his
book _De Præstigiis Dæmonum_, in urging his case against the orthodox
view.
[174] _Opera_, tom. i. p. 96. "Annus hic est Salutis millesimus
quingentesimus ac sexagesimus."
[175] _De Vita Propria_, ch. xxx. p. 78.