Nor were these the only horrors to which young Platter was inured. Talking one day with a fellow goat-herd, "of various childish things," a "frightfully large bird," swooping down upon them, set them screaming and crossing themselves. Another time" says he "I was in a very deep fissure looking for crystals, of which many were found in it. All at once I saw a stone as large as an oven starting from the side, and as I had no time to get out of the way, I stooped down upon my face. Then the stone fell several fathoms down to a spot above me, and from thence it made a spring away over me, so that I escaped with a whole skin."

Yet these were the mere discords in a life otherwise sufficiently harmonious. The simple child found ample solace in the pure air, the genial sunshine, and even the mystic sublimities and dangers of his mountain life. "I had plenty," says he, immediately after the recital of his last hair-breadth escape "I had plenty of such joy and happiness, on the mountains among the goats." Magnanimous little fellow! Let us now see how he battles with severer trials!

As the boy grows, his charge grows with him. He is promoted from goats to cows. The farmer under whom he now serves is a fiery, passionate man," beating him sometimes barbarously, and lifting him by the ears from the ground. From him Platter goes to a priest to "learn the writings," but soon leaves him, and under promise of being taken to school, he is entrusted to a relative named Paul Summermatter. Whilst under the old priest, he had scarcely learned to sing the salve a little, and go about the village with other scholars. This was the current idea of education in popish times. Chaucer's "little clergion," so beautifully introduced into the Prioresse's tale, was of this type.

A little school beyond the Jewry stood,
Down at the farther end in which there were
A band of children come of Christian blood,
Who learned in that school from year to year,
Such kind of knowledge as was needful there;
To sing and read as little children do,

And night and morn they passed this quarter through.

Amongst them was a lonely widow's son,
A little clergion of tender years,

Who day by day, with joyous step would run
To read and sing with these his young compeers,
And coming where the Virgin's image rears
Its hallowed form, would kneel adown and say
Ave Maria! as he went that way.

This little fellow-this poor widow's son,
Conning his infant lesson with delight,
Would hear the children sing their antiphon,
Till his young heart appeared transported quite,
While "Alma Redemptoris" filled his sprite,

And drawing nigh he caught the words and note,
Till he had learned the first verse all by rote.

Platter's new master, or "Bacchant as he is called, proves an arrant vagabond, making the poor child beg, borrow, or steal for him, wherever he goes. Sometimes he is more than halfstarved, and at others, sick with eating too much. At Breslau he seems to have picked up a little knowledge, but generally, his instructions extended no further than begging, telling lies, and sharp shooting, or pilfering, with some good practice in throwing stones at a mark. Yet our young fag has even at this period, an inkling for classical learning.

"In the school at St. Elizabeth, indeed," he says, "nine bachelors of arts read lectures at the same hour and in the same room! Still the Greek language had not yet made its way anywhere in the country; neither had any one printed books, except the preceptor, who had a printed Terence. What was read had first to be dictated, then pointed, then construed, and at last explained; so that the Bacchants or elder students had to carry away thick books of notes when they went home."

After this vagrant educational tour, Platter returns home and astonishes his friends, by the depth of his attainments. "Our Tommy," said they, "speaks so profoundly, that no one can understand him. For being young," he adds, "I had learned of the language of every place where I had been." Notwithstanding his rough treatment, Master Thomas is persuaded again to accompany Summermatter. This time, however, he has a companion of his own age. These two, in

company with a third, are commiserated at Munich by a kindhearted woman, who detains Thomas, in spite of the importunity of his Bacchant. He, however, so far succeeds in terrifying Platter, that he runs away to Freissing, where, and afterwards to Ulm, his old enemy follows him. But he has found a friend in another kind widow, and escapes his pur

suer.

66 Although," says he "it was nearly night, I ran out at the gate, the road to Constance, but lamented in my soul, for it was very grievous to me on account of the dear woman who had taken care of me like a mother. So I crossed the lake to Constance, and went over the bridge, and saw some little Swiss peasants in white jackets. Oh, how glad I was! I imagined I was in the kingdom of heaven. From there I came to Zurich."

Such, however, is his thirst for knowledge, that the poor boy again offers his services to other great Bacchants, if in return, they will only instruct him. He is, however, persuaded to accompany a townsmate on a tour to Strasburg. Here they find plenty of poor scholars, but no schools, and proceed to Schlestadt. "When we came into the town," says Platter, 66 we went to the preceptor, Mr. John Sapidus, and begged him to receive us. He asked us whence we came. When we said, 'from Switzerland, from St. Gall,' he said, 'There are wicked peasants there; they drive all their bishops away out of the country. If you intend to study properly you need not give me any thing; but if not, you must pay me, or I will pull your coat off your back.' That was the first school which seemed to me to go on well. At that time the study of languages and sciences came into fashion. Sapidus had at one time nine hundred scholars, amongst whom were several fine learned fellows, who afterwards became celebrated men. When I entered the school I could do nothing, not even read the Latin grammar of Donatus, and was nevertheless already eighteen years old. I seated myself among the little children, but was like the clucking hen among the chickens. When we had been there from autumn till Whitsuntide, and there was a continual influx of scholars from all quarters, I was no longer able to procure sustenance for us both; we therefore

went away to Solothurn, where there was a tolerably good school, and also a maintenance easier to be found; but as a set-off against that, we had to stay so much in church, and lose time and so we went again to our native place, where I remained awhile, and went to school to a priest who taught me a little writing and other things, I know not what."

Platter had now reached an important crisis. The same intrepid independence that had carried him in childhood through dangers sufficient to have shaken the resolution of many a man, now took a higher form of development. He was resolved, to quote his own words, "to study or die." Arrived at the school in Frauenmunster, he says, "I was quite in earnest in my desire to study, for I perceived that it was high time. They said, at that time, that a teacher would come from Einsiedeln, a learned and faithful man, but extremely old. So I made a seat for myself in a corner not far from the teacher's seat, and said to myself, "In this corner you will study or die." When he came for the first time into the school, he said, "This is a nice school, but methinks there are stupid boys; still we shall see; only be industrious." "This I know, that had my life depended on it I could not have declined a noun of the first declension, although I had learned Donatus off by heart to a nicety."

This "parrotizing discipline," however, served him a good turn with father Myconius, his new teacher, who supposing him to understand the language, began at once to read Terence with him. By dint of intense fagging, Platter managed to "decline and conjugate" very creditably, though at no little expense to his nervous system. "He used often to deal with me," says he, "until my shirt was wet with perspiration through fear, and my eyes grew dim; and yet he never gave me a blow, except on one single occasion with the left hand on my cheek. He also read lectures upon the Holy Scriptures, which were visited by many of the laity; for it was at that time that the light of the Gospel was just beginning to rise; although Mass and the idolatrous pictures in the churches were continued for a long time after."

The light of the Reformation was just breaking, and Myconius was already half a convert to the pure doctrine.

Anxious to escape the mummery of the Mass, he would sometimes prevail on young Platter to officiate for him. "With that," says our youth, "I was well content, for I was accustomed to that sort of thing, not only at Zurich, but also at Solothurn and elsewhere; for everything was still Popish. Many an one was to be found who could sing better than expound a Gospel, and it was daily to be seen in the schools that wild Bacchants went off and were ordained, if they could only sing a little, and understood nothing either of grammar or the Gospel."

To chant creditably was an attainment of much moment in popish times. The Pardoner so cleverly satirized by Chaucer, had little else to recommend him.

For, truth to tell, (and though not least, the last),

He was in church a nobl' ecclesiast,

Well could he read a lesson or a story,

But best of all he sang an offertory,

For well he knew whenever that was sung,

He preached for money and must file his tongue,
The welcome silver from his flock to drain,
Therefore he sang with all his might and main.

The preaching of the great Zuinglius, was made instrumental in clearing up the religious doubts of Platter. Before he came to Zurich, our youth had been a Pharisee of the Pharisees, as regarded the ritual observances of Romanism. “I had prayed much" says he, "and fasted rather more than was agreeable to me; had also my saints and patrons, to whom I prayed our Lady, the Virgin Mary, that she would be my intercessor with her Son; St. Catherine, that I might become learned; St. Barbara, that I might not die without the sacrament; St. Peter, that he would open heaven to me. What I neglected, I wrote in a little book, and when there was a holiday at school, as on Thursday and Saturday, I went to Frauenmünster into a school: began, wrote all my offences upon a chair, and paid one debt after the other with prayers, blotting them out one after the other, and thought then that I had done right. Six times I went with processions from Zurich to Einsiedeln; was diligent in confession, and have often fought with my companions for Popery. One day, however, Ulrich