AN AUSTERE POPE.

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CHAPTER XII.

THE END AT HOME.

“ He cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and hisname shall be covered with darkness .”—Ecclesiastes vi. 4.

This mournful story of the vanity of wisdom drawsnow to a close. Cardan’s imprisonment at Bologna hadtaken place under the pontificate of Pius V., a pope ofpure hut austere life, who had caused the strenuous en-forcement of laws against heresy and blasphemy, and whocombined with many noble qualities the character of amost stringent persecutor. He forbad physicians toattend patients who had passed three days without con-fession of their sins; he expressed disapprobation with hisofficials in any town that did not yield yearly a large cropof penal sentences. The imprisonment of Jerome atBologna was a result, I believe, of this activity, and yetit was from Pius V. that Cardan received a pension, andunder his wing that he spent his last years safely in Rome as a private person.