naticism and gin are remarkably good friends all over the world.

When stay-at-home people begin to read and compare the varying and contradictory accounts of travellers in America, we are not surprised that they should fancy themselves better informed and more capable judges of American character and manners, than those who have gallopped or steamed through the States, and lived a few weeks or months here and there in boarding and private houses. It is not in three months nor three years, nor three times three, that the character of a nation is learned. We should like to see any of those travellers dogmatizing upon that subject, with which, from infancy, they have been familiar-their own people and country, and its institutions. Let us mention a case in point, which, though Mrs Trollope's work alone was the cause, is applicable more or less to the books of all American travellers. When that clever and useful, but most uncandid and jaundiced work appeared, there happened to be in a British city, priding itself, with justice, upon its morals, intellectual superiority, and refinement, a young American physician passing the winter, who bore Mrs Trollope's attacks on his country with remarkable good-humour. There was also an American lady, the wife of a professional man, who, after many years of absence from her native country, was only the more patriotic, and who was naturally moved to warm indignation by Mrs Trollope's calumnies and misrepresentations of her beloved native land. It was suggested to her in sport, that an AntiTrollope should be got up, of which the young American should be the editor; herself and her friends furnishing illustrative sketches and anecdotes. Before the project was many hours old, the floods of contemporary scandal, of stories not to be rebutted "of women of station and education"-became quite appalling. The idea of an Anti-Trollope, begun in fun, was abandoned in earnest, as a scheme of vicious and unjustifiable retaliation. Indeed it had never been seriously entertained. Some of the failings and vices of home society were not of a kind likely to occur among the American ladies, who, with fewer uses for money for purposes of extravagant luxury, are better supplied. There were anecdotes of ladies, of good station, applying the money received from their husbands' to pay the baker's or the poulterer's bills, to discharge that of the urgent milliner. Contracting debts clandestinely, was a common offence; and another was purchasing goods on credit, and selling them at an under-value to raise money, to meet some pressing demand, which it was necessary to conceal. There was no want of tales of intemperance, and of every kind of vice and failing for the pages of the Anti-Trollope; and all were selected from high or respectable quarters. We have never since read the sweeping conclusions of English travellers in America, especially about the state of domestic morals and manners, drawn certainly from narrow and imperfect premises, without remember

ing the absurd work suggested to divert a lady's spleen, and which would have given nearly as fair a picture of British manners and morals. All the stories would have been positive facts, relating to well-known persons, and told by wellinformed and credible parties; yet how false a picture would the Anti-Trollope have exhibited of one of the best portions of British Society!

The patriotism of the Americans, but especially of the ladies, is not the less beautiful, as a national trait of republicans, for being somewhat ridiculous in its assumptions and displays. Captain Marryat's word, Patriotism, is not the true designation of the affection he describes, and which is not peculiar to America. We have no accurate term for this American egotism, which, from pride and rivalry of village, of city, and of county, expands to country; but it is near akin to the sentiment which teaches Liverpool to despise Manchester; Edinburgh to disdain Glasgow; Glasgow to be jealous of the "Modern Athens;" aristocratic Bath to turn up the nose at mercantile Bristol; as well as Boston to despise New York. The feeling is the same everywhere; and we only refer to Captain Marryat for its peculiar manifestations among the American ladies.

There is a great deal of patriotism of one sort or the other in the American women. I recollect once, when conversing with a highly cultivated and beautiful American woman, I inquired if she knew a lady who had been some time in England, and who was a great favourite of mine. She replied, "Yes." "Don't you like her ?" "To confess the truth, I do not," replied she; "she is too English for me." "That is to say, she likes England and the English." "That is what I mean." I replied that, "Had she been in England, she would probably have become too English also; for, with her cultivated and elegant ideas, she must naturally have been pleased with the refinement, luxury, and established grades in society, which it had taken eight hundred years to produce." "If that is to be the case, I hope I may never go to England."

Now, this was true patriotism, and there is much true patriotism among the higher classes of the American women; with them there is no alloy of egotism.

Among what may be termed the middling classes, I have been very much amused with the compound of Among

vanity and ignorance which I have met with.

this class they can read and write; but almost all their knowledge is confined to their own country, especially in geography, which I soon discovered. It was hard to beat them on American ground: but as soon as you got them off that, they were defeated. I wish the reader to understand particularly, that I am not speaking now of the well-bred Americans, but of that portion which would with us be considered as on a par with the middle class of shopkeepers; for I had a very extensive acquaintance. My amusement was-to make some comparison between the two countries, which I knew would immediately bring on the conflict I desired; and not without danger, for I sometimes expected, in the ardour of their patriotism, to meet with the fate of Orpheus.

I soon found that the more I granted, the more they demanded; and that the best way was never to grant anything. I was once in a room full of the softer sex, chiefly girls, of all ages; when the mamma of a portion of them, who was sitting on the sofa, as we mentioned steam, said, "Well now, Captain, you will allow that we are a-head of you there." "No," replied I, "quite the contrary; our steam-boats go all over the world your's are afraid to leave the rivers." "Well now, Captain, I suppose you'll allow America is a bit bigger country than England ?" "It's rather broader; but, if

I recollect right, it's not quite so long." "Why, Captain!" "Well, only look at the map." "Why, isn't the Mississippi a bigger river than you have in England?" "Bigger? Pooh! haven't we got the Thames ?" "The Thames? why, that's no river at all." "Isn't it? Just look at the map, and measure them." "Well, now, Captain, I tell you what, you call your Britain the Mistress of the Seas, yet we whipped you well, and you know that." "Oh! yes; you refer to the Shannon and Chesapeake, don't you?" "No, not that time, because Lawrence was drunk, they say; but did'nt we whip you well at New Orleans?" "No, you didn't." "No? O Captain!" "I say you did not. If your people had come out from behind their cotton bales and sugar casks, we'd have knocked you all into a cocked hat; but they wouldn't come out, so we walked away in disgust." "Now, Captain, that's romancing-that won't do." Here the little ones joined in the cry-" We did beat you, and you know it ;" and, hauling me into the centre of the room, they joined hands in a circle, and danced round me, singing

"Yankee doodle is a tune, Which is 'nation handy. All the British ran away At Yankee doodle dandy."

Captain Marryat does confess that the Americans are a remarkably well-tempered people; which, strange admission! he conceives, arises from democracy; and he has a sound and original theory to account for that gruffness of

manner which he believes concomitant with genuine obligingness and civility. He also agrees with Miss Martineau that the Americans are an eminently imaginative people; but this will depend upon what is held to be imagination. We should like to hear other opinions.

In noting the first three volumes of this work, we alluded to the many inconsistencies of opinion which they displayed. Inconsistency is even more palpable in the present series. How is the reader to reconcile the following grave statement with even the very little which has been seen of the American people in our slight account of Captain Marryat's work?—

I would not libel an individual, much less a whole nation; but I must speak the truth: and, upon due examination, and calling to my mind all that I have collected from observation and otherwise, I consider that,

at this present time, the standard of morality is lower in America than in any other portion of the civilized globe. I say at this present time, for it was not so even twenty years ago, and possibly may not be so twenty years

hence.

After this, it is needless to go farther. Captain Marryat lugs in Dr Channing to corroborate his opinion that the Americans are corrupted and debased by the inordinate pursuit of gain; and Cooper, who asserts that, in America, all the local affections-the domestic and household affections, we presume-are sacrificed to the spirit of gain. But if the authority of that very elever fictionist, and very splenetic and acrimonious individual, be received as conclusive of the degradation of the American national character, it must have also some force in the case of England, on which Cooper's judgments are quite as unjust and as severe; yet, as a judge of English manners, Captain Marryat disclaims the sour and envious Yankee. Without receiving for gospel all that Cooper has said of his countrymen, we imagine that they will not be a

whit the worse for hearing it; any more than the grave admonitions of Channing and the vituperations of British travellers. Captain Marryat, entirely to his own satisfaction, comes to the conclusion that the low morality of America is owing to the absence of an aristocracy; but, then, his idea of an aristocracy is not exactly that of " May Fair." They want great, good, and powerful leading men in America-exemplars to be looked up to and imitated; and these, it is inferred, never can be found in a country where the elective system is popular. But is such an aristocracy, one of virtue and intellect, found in England among a noblility who fix the standard of morality, and teach the other classes how to think and to live? It

is one of Captain Marryat's maxims that "trade demoralizes ;" and, therefore that, traders must have patterns and standards of virtue in an idle aristocracy, whose principal trade is on the turf or at the gaming-table, and whose countinghouse is the club-house and the saloons. It is

not by the educated and happily-circumstanced middle class that the high tone of English considers a fallacy into which foreigners are beThis Captain Marryat morality is maintained. trayed. No; "the nobility and gentry are the persons who uphold this high tone in morality," and the agricultural labourers are those who follow the bright example set by the nobility and squirearchy: in short, with a few grains of truth and sense, Captain Marryat has, on this vexed question, mingled a full bushel of nonsense and gratuitous assumption. His ultimate remedy for all the evils which exist, and which threaten American society, is the immediate establishment of an aristocracy, by means, we should imagine-for the plan is obscure—of a hereditary chamber of senators, and a more aristocratic constitution of Congress.

Great injury is done in America, Captain Marryat conceives, by the facility with which equivocal characters or downright scamps, upon their travels, and under the name of attachés, find introductions to the higher circles of England, and to the British Court. A New York editor named Bennet, whom Captain Marryat wants words to paint black enough, was admitted into Westminster Hall on the day of the Queen's Coronation, and was seated among the proudest of the "nobility." The case may be flagrant, but we venture to affirm that, black sheep as this New York journalist may be, he met that day, in Westminster Hall, plenty of persons of his own caste, and of inferior, if not of degrading, callings to keep him in countenance. We, however, sincerely pity the ambassador of Republican Ameririca for the boring and annoyance with which his fellow-citizens assail him for introductions to Court. If the Lord Chamberlain do not take the matter into his own hands, there ought-since every American must be presented-to be a separate bureau for managing this department, which the intercourse by steam vessels is rendering so onerous.

The concluding volume of the Diary is devoted

to Canada. It is, upon the whole, more moderate in tone than might have been expected.

One chapter in the second volume is headed "Society and the Mississippi ;" and, were Captain Marryat's strictures upon the morality of the United States limited to the banks of what he calls the great common sewer of Western America, more respect would be felt for his judgment. Our only object in citing the following brief passage is to give a specimen of the more elaborate and ambitious style of the Diary.

Never, perhaps, in the records of nations, was there an instance of a century of such unvarying and unmitigated crime as is to be collected from the history of the turbulent and blood-stained Mississippi. The stream itself appears as if appropriated for the deeds which have been committed. It is not like most rivers, beautiful to the sight, bestowing fertility in its course; not one that the eye loves to dwell upon as it sweeps along; nor can you wander on its banks, or trust yourself without danger to its stream. It is a furious, rapid, desolating torrent, loaded with alluvial soil; and few of those who are re ceived into its waters ever rise again, or can support themselves long on its surface without assistance from some friendly log. It contains the coarsest and most uneatable of fish-such as the cat-fish and such genus; and, as you descend it, its banks are occupied by the fœtid alligator; while the panther basks at its edge in the canebrakes, almost impervious to man. Pouring its impetuous waters through wild tracks, covered with trees of little value except for fire wood, it sweeps down whole forests in its course, which disappear in tumultuous confusion, whirled away by the stream, now loaded with the masses of soil which nourished their roots, often blocking up and changing for a time the channel of the river, which, as if in anger at its being opposed, inundates and devastates the whole country round; and, as soon as it forces its way through its former channel, plants in every direction the uprooted monarchs of the forest, (upon whose branches the bird will never again perch, or the racoon, the opossum, or the squirrel climb,) as traps for the adventurous navigators of its waters by steam, who, borne down upon these concealed dangers, which pierce through the planks, very often have not time to steer for and gain the shore before they sink to the bottom. There are no pleasing associations connected with this great common sewer of the western America, which pours out its mud into the Mexican Gulf, polluting the clear blue sea for many miles beyond its mouth. It is a river of desolation, and, instead of reminding you, like some beautiful river, of an angel which has descended for the benefit of man, you imagine it a devil, whose energies have been overcome only by the wonderful power of

steam.

The early history of the Mississippi is one of piracy and buccaneering; its mouths were frequented by these marauders, as in the bayous and creeks they found protection and concealment for themselves and their ill-gotten wealth. Even until after the war of 1814 these sea-robbers still to a certain extent flourished, and the name of Lafitte, the last of their leaders, is deservedly renowned for courage and for crime; his vessels were usually secreted in the land-locked Bay of Barataria, to the westward of the mouth of the river. They were, however, soon afterwards extirpated by the American government. The language of the adjacent States is still adulterated with the slang of those scoundrels; proving how short a period it is since they disappeared, and how they must have mixed up with the reckless population, whose

head quarters were then at the mouth of the river.

deed in employment, but in other respects little better than the buccaneers and pirates, in whose ranks they were probably first enlisted. These were the boatmen of the Mississippi, who with incredible fatigue forced their "keels" with poles against the current, working against the stream with the cargoes intrusted to their care by the merchants of New Orleans, labouring for many months before they arrived at their destination, and returning with the rapid stream in as many days as it required weeks for them to ascend. This was a service of great danger and difficulty, requiring men of iron frame and undaunted resolution. They had to contend, not only with the current, but, when they ascended the Ohio, with the Indians, who, taking up the most favourable positions, either poured down the contents of their rifles into the boat as she passed, or, taking advantage of the dense fog, boarded them in their canoes, indiscriminate slaughter being the invariable result of the boatmen hav. ing allowed themselves to be surprised. In these men was to be found, as there often is in the most unprincipled, one redeeming quality (independent of courage and perseverance) which was that they were, generally speaking, scrupulously honest to their employers, although they made little ceremony of appropriating to their own use the property, or, if necessary, of taking the life of any other parties. Wild, indeed, are the stories which are still remembered of the deeds of courage, and also of the fearful crimes committed by these men, on a river which never gives up its dead. I say still remembered, for in a new country they rapidly for. get the past, and only look forward to the future; whereas in an old country the case is nearly the reverse-we love to recur to tradition and luxuriate in the dim records of history.

Such is the swelling introduction to the history of the buccaneers of the Mississippi-a race of miscreants now nearly extirpated; though the state of society is, in many respects, not much better than before the rifle of the vulgar lawless ruffian had been exchanged for Lynch law and the Bowie-knife of the more respectable citizen. The Bowie-knife is quite a modern weapon. It takes

its name from that of the inventor, which, we are sorry to say, is purely Scottish, though Highland Scottish. The inventor asserts that the weapon-now carried in the breast, or somewhere about the person, of all the gentlemen of the Western States-was originally meant for a hunting-knife. Captain Marryat thus describes this savage weapon.

long in the blade, single-edged, very heavy, and with a The Bowie-knife is, generally speaking, about a foot sharp point. It is good either for cutting or stabbing; they are generally worn in the bosom under the waistcoat; but latterly they have made them so long that they cannot be carried there, and are now very frequently worn behind the back in a sheath between the coat and the waistcoat, the handle being on a level with the coat-collar. They are made in this country, I regret to say; the one I have in my possession is manufactured by W. and S. Butcher-no bad name for Bowie-knife makers, if it is not an assumed one.

Duels are now fought with the Bowie-knife, which are arranged with the punctilio of an old clan-fight, by picked champions.

The occupation of Texas has tended to purify Western society by drawing off the more daring miscreants; and the cities, with the necessary help of Lynch law, have set about purifying blished in New Orleans, and the example of exethemselves. An active police has been estacuting, after a fair trial and conviction, one ruffian in good station, who, in a drunken fit,

him to pieces with his Bowie-knife, has had a very salutary effect. Yet in New Orleans every young man still wears his Bowie-knife even at balls, though this is against the regulations of the police. They fight duels on the instant, and on the slightest provocation; and the use of the knife, is still too common in all the SouthWestern States. Captain Marryat concludes.

by pointing out to the ladies of the Southern States one noble object of womanly ambitionone glorious achievement for their country and their posterity. This is an association of which every member should declare that she will neither marry nor admit into her society any man who carries a Bowie-knife or any deadly weapon. We hope to hear of such an association.

Thomas Platter, the little orphan goatherd, suffered much in striving to obtain an education; and his life and adventures afford a good, and a very curious, picture of the social state of Switzerland in his time. Though born just as the people of the village were returning from mass on ShroveTuesday, and, therefore, believed to be intended for a priest, he lived to put away the errors of Popery, and to become a zealous heretic.

The travelling scholars of that age-which in Switzerland, was still that of the Reformationpresent a curious feature. They were generally the children of the very poorest people. Tommy Platter, while a shepherd with a relative, attended school with a priest, who beat him cruelly, and taught him nothing. He had a young cousin who had travelled or wandered from his native canton to the seminaries of Ulm and Munich, in Bavaria; and Tommy formed the desire of accompanying his cousin Paul. With the priest he had barely learned to sing the Salve, and he and the other boys, the priest's scholars, were obliged to sing before the houses of the villagers for eggs to their master. We copy out part of this curious picture of the wandering scholars of those primitive times. Platter relates:

When Paul wished to wander again, I was to come to him to Stalden. Behind Stalden is a house that is called "Zum Mullibach;" there, my mother's brother, Simon Summermatter, lived; he was to be my guardian, and gave me a golden florin, which I carried in my hand to Stalden, and on the way often looked at it to see whether I had it, and then gave it to Paul. Thus we left the country. Then I was obliged on the road to beg for the necessary money, and also to share it with Paul my Bacchant. At that time schools were not yet established in all places; and young persons who wished to learn anything, or to prepare themselves for any religious office, which at that time required little knowledge, went, either singly or in greater numbers, after renowned

did not make any scruple about stealing, which was called sharp-shooting. They were, however, usually called Scholastics, or Travelling Scholars. So bad were the school-arrangements, until the Reformation made improvements in this department also. On account of my simplicity and provincial dialect, people gave me very liberally. When I passed over the Grimsel, and came at night into an inn, I saw, for the first time, a stove made of tiles of white delft, and the moon shone on the tiles, Then I thought it was a large calf, for I saw only two tiles shining, and thought those were the eyes. In the morning I saw geese, of which I had never seen any be

fore. When, therefore, they set on me hissing, as geese are accustomed to do, I ran away from them with a loud cry, for I thought it was the devil who wanted to devour me. In Lucerne I saw the first tiled roofs, and wondered very much at the red colour. Hereupon we came to Zurich: there Paul waited for several comrades who wished to go with us to Meissen. In the meantime I went for alms, with which I was obliged almost entirely to support Paul; for when I came into an inn the people liked to hear me speak the St Gall dialect, and gave me liberally. After we had waited for company about eight or nine weeks, we set out for Meissen-for me a very long journey, because I was not accustomed to travel so far, and besides that I was obliged to provide

my provisions on the way. We travelled eight or nine together-three little fags, and the rest great Bacchants, as they were called, and I was the smallest and youngest of the fags. When I could not get on vigorously, then my relation Paul walked behind me with a rod or stick, and beat me on the bare legs; for I had no hose on, but bad shoes. I cannot now remember all that befell us on the road; but some adventures I have not yet forgotten. When we were upon the journey, and were speaking of all sorts of things, the Bacchants narrated to one another how it was the custom in Meissen and Silesia for the fags to be allowed to steal geese and ducks, and other articles of provision, and that nothing was done to them on that account if they could only escape from the owner. In my simplicity I believed everything, for I knew nothing of the commandments of God, and had had no experience of the world. One day we were not far from a village; there was a great flock of geese there, and the herdsman was not at hand, but pretty far off with the cowherds. Then I asked my comrades, the fags, "When shall we be in Meissen, that I may throw at the geese and kill them?" They said, "We are there already." Then I took a stone, threw it, and hit one on the foot. The others fled away, but the lame one could not follow. I took another stone, threw it, and hit it on the head, so that it fell down; for when with the goats, I had learned to throw well, so that no shepherd of my age was superior to me: could also blow the shepherd's horn, and leap with the pole; for in such arts I exercised myself with my fellow-shepherds. Then I ran to it, and caught the goose by the neck, and put it under my little coat, and went along the road through the village. Then the goose-herd came run

ning after, and cried in the village, "The urchin has robbed me of a goose." I and my fellow fags ran off, and the feet of the goose hung out from under my little coat. The peasants came out of their houses with halberds, and followed us. When I now saw that I could not escape with the goose, I let it fall. Before the village I jumped aside into a thicket; but my two comrades ran along the road and were overtaken by two peasants. Then they fell down on their knees and begged for mercy, for that they had done them no harm. When, therefore, the peasants saw that he was not there who had let the goose fall, they went back into the village and took the goose along with them. When I saw how they ran after my companions, I was in a great fright, and said to my. self, "O God! I believe that I have not blessed myself to-day," as I had been taught that I should bless myself every morning. When the peasants came into the village they found our Bacchants in the public-house; for they had gone before, and we came after. Then the peasants thought that they ought to pay for the goose, which would have made about two bats (fourpence), but I do not know whether they paid for it or not. When they came to us again they laughed, and asked how it had happened. I excused myself with saying, that I thought such was the custom of the country; but they said that it was not yet time. When, however, some of the Bacchants behaved

themselves towards us very rudely, some of us, with Paul, determined to run away from the Bacchants, and go by way of Dresden to Breslau. On the way we had to suffer much from hunger, so that several days we ate nothing but raw onions with salt; some days roasted acorns, crabapples, and wild pears. Many a night we lay in the open air, because no one would suffer us in the houses, no matter how early we might ask for lodging. Now and then the dogs were set at us. When, however, we came to Breslau there was an abundance of everything; yes, everything was so cheap that the poor fags used to eat too much, and often made themselves sick. At first we went to school in the cathedral of the Holy Cross; when, however, we heard that in the principal parish of St Elizabeth there were several Swiss, we went thither. There were there two from Bremgarten, two from Mellingen, and others, besides a number of Suabians. There was no difference made between the Suabians and the Swiss; they addressed one another as countrymen, and protected one another. The city of Breslau has seven parishes, each a separate school; and no scholar was allowed to go singing into another parish; else they immediately shouted, "Ad idem! ad idem !" Then the fags ran together, and beat one another very sorely. There were, as was said at that time, at once several thousand Bacchants and fags in the city, who all lived upon alms. It was said also that there were some that had been there twenty, thirty, or more years, who had had their fags who were obliged to wait upon them. I have often in one evening carried my Bacchants five or six loads of provisions home to the school where they lived. People gave to me very willingly, because I was little, and a Swiss; for they were uncommonly found of the Swiss. They also felt great compassion with the Swiss, because just at that time they had suffered sorely in the great battle at Milan; so that the common people said, "The Swiss have now lost their Pater-Noster." For, before that, they imagined that the Swiss were quite invincible.

The travelling scholars had an hospital in this town for themselves.

Through the winter, the fags lay upon the floor in the school; but the Bacchants in small chambers, of which there were at St Elizabeth's severa hundreds. But in

summer, when it was hot, we lay in the church-yard; collected together grass, such as is spread in summer on Sunday in the gentlemen's streets before the doors, and lay in it, like pigs in the straw. When however it thunder we sang the whole night, with the Subcantor,

rained we ran into the school; and when there was

responsories and other sacred music. Now and then after

It is still not unusal in Poland, on certain festival days or public occasions, to strew a sort of rced or coarse grass in the streets,

supper, in summer, we went into the beer-houses to beg for beer. Then the drunken Polish peasants used to give us so much beer, that I often could not find my way to the school again, though only a stone's throw from it: in short, here there was plenty to eat, but there was not much of study; and of true piety no one had an idea. In the school at St Elizabeth, indeed, 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 had to carry away thick books of notes when they went home.

From Breslau eight of us migrated again to Dresden; we had, however, on the way to suffer much from hunger. Then we determined to separate for one day; some went to see after geese; some after turnips, and carrots, and onions; some about a pot: we little ones however were to procure bread and salt in the neighbouring town of Neumark. In the evening we intended to assemble again outside the city, and there take up our lodging, and cook what we might have.

In this way the scholars lived exactly like gipsies, or the predatory trampers of our age, begging and stealing. Our scholar relates—

We came to Munich, where Paul and I found lodging with a soap-boiler of the name of Hans Schräll, who was a Master of Arts of Vienna, but an enemy to the clerical state. Him I helped to make soap, rather more than I went to school; and travelled about with him to the villages to buy in ashes. At last Paul determined to pay a visit to our home, for we had not been at home during five years. Accordingly, we went home to St Gall. Then my friends were not able to understand me, and said, "Our Tommy speaks so profoundly, that no one can understand him." For being young, I had learned something of the language of every place where I had

been.

When they returned to Ulm, Paul found an additional fag The wretched fags had little time for study, their principal trade being to beg for the Bacchants. Poor little Tommy Platter often suffered severe hunger among his other hardships.

All that I got, I had to bring to the Bacchants, and did not dare, for fear of stripes, to eat even a morsel. Paul had taken another Bacchant to live with him, of the name of Achatius, a native of Mayence; and I, with my companion Hildebrand, had to wait on them both. But my companion ate almost all himself that was given him in the houses. On that account the Bacchants went after him into the street, and found him eating: thereupon they threw him on a bed, covered his head with a pillow, so that he could not cry, and beat him with all their might. That made me afraid, so that I brought home all that I got. They had often so much bread that it became mouldy; then they cut out the mouldy outside, and gave it to us to eat. I was often very hun. gry, and frost-bitten too, because I had to go about in the dark till midnight, to sing for bread. Now there was, at that time at Ulm, a pious widow, who had a son, Paul Reling, and two daughters. This widow often in winter wrapt my feet in a warm fur, which she laid behind the oven, to warm my feet when I came; gave me then also a basin full of vegetables, and then allowed me to go home. The tyranny of the Bacchants seems to have been a regular system recognised by everybody; and humane people attempted to screen, but they could not protect, the fags from their cruelty. Tommy ran away from his Bacchant, who vainly attempted to recover his slave or chattel. He went with another boy to Strasburg, and afterwards to Schlestadt, where there was a good school, by which he first profited, and he had now some hopes of yet being a priest.