widow. "I crossed the lake, and arrived at Constance; and as I went over the bridge I saw some of the Swiss peasant girls with their white petticoats. Oh my God, how glad I was! I thought I was in heaven. When I came to Zurich I saw there some people from the Valais, big Bacchanten, to whom I offered my services for getting food, if they in return would teach me; but I learned no more with them than with the others. After some months Paulus sent his Schuetz Hildebrand from Munich, to desire me to return to him, and said he would forgive me; but I would not go back, and remained at Zurich, where however I studied little. "One Antonius Venetz from Visp in the Valais persuaded me to go with him to Strasburg. When we arrived there we found many poor scholars, but no good school; there was however a very good one at Schlettstadt, so we went there. In the city we took a lodging with an old couple, one of whom was stone blind; then we went to my dear preceptor, the late Johannes Sapidus, and begged him to receive us. He asked from whence we came, and when we said out of Switzerland, from the Valais, he answered, 'The peasants there are bad, for they drive all their Bishops out of the country; if, however, you study industriously, I will take little from you, if not, you must pay me, or I will take the coat off your back.' That was the first school in which it appeared to me that things went on well. At that time learning, especially that of languages, was gaining ground--it was the year of the Diet at Worms. Sapidus had once nine hundred students, some of them fine scholars, who afterwards became doctors and men of renown. "When I came to this school I knew little, could not even read the Donat. Though I was eighteen years old, I was placed among the little children, and looked like a hen amidst her small chickens. One day when Sapidus called over the list of the scholars, he said, 'I find many barbarous names, I must try to Latinize them.' He then called over the new names: he had turned me into Thomas Platterus, and my fellow, Anthony Venetz into Antonius Venetus, and said, 'Which are the two?' We stood up and he exclaimed, 'Poof! what measly Schuetzen to have such fine names!' this was partly true, especially of my companion, for I was more accustomed to the change of air and food. "When we had stayed there from autumn to the following Whitsuntide, a great many fresh scholars arrived, so that there was not sufficient to support us all; and we went off to Solothurn, where there was a tolerably good school, and more food; but we were obliged to be so constantly in church that we lost all our time; therefore we returned home.