Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/120

xcii man, and sprung from a German race, spoke the Sclavonic language; and that he only overcame their unkind treatment by patient endurance.

In the year 1495, in the ninth year of his age, his father sent him to Gurk, in the circle of Klagenfurt, and placed him under the care of Wilhelm Weltzer, a relative by his mother’s side, who was provost of the cathedral of that place. He often speaks with the greatest gratitude and satisfaction of his two years’ residence with this relation; and describes him “as a true nobleman, who loved nobility, and brought up many noble children in learning and every other needful branch of education.” He names also ten young noblemen, who were the companions of his studies and his games, and who shortly after by a remarkable accident were his companions in arms in his first campaign.

In 1497, Sigismund was sent to the public school at Vienna, under the care of Master George Ratzenperger, of whose integrity, goodness, and friendship, he frequently speaks, in his autobiography, in the highest terms.

Two years after, viz. in 1499, Herberstein had the misfortune to lose his mother; shortly after which he went to the University at Vienna, where he became a student under the rector Oswald Ludwig von Weickerstorff. That he made good use of his time at Vienna under the tuition of Christoph Kalber, Paul Rockner, and also his paternal friend George Ratzenperger, is shown by the judgment of his cotemporaries, his con-