Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/121

Rh stant love of his masters, and, more than all, by the subsequent events of his brilliant and laborious life. In the year 1502, when he was sixteen years old, after a most honourable and protracted examination, he was created by the rector Kaltenmarkter, bachelor of arts, or, as he himself calls it, half-master (Halb-Meister), a degree which brought down upon him from his frivolous companions many sneers and sarcastic appellations, such as doctor, student, scribe, etc.; “yet with all this,” says the excellent Herberstein, “Latin and the arts have not been suffered to escape me, but I have loved them, persevered in, and profited by them,—thanks to God and my father, and especially my masters, who urged me on to these studies, and have remained faithful to me, and imparted them to me, whilst I remained at school.” And in another place he says: “In the year 1502, I became bachelor of arts, a degree of which many are ashamed, but upon which I congratulate myself. How faithful have my masters and instructors been to me. God give them all eternal peace for their reward. Amen.”

Herberstein appears soon afterwards to have left Vienna, and to have returned to his father’s roof; and it was not long before an opportunity occurred by which to turn his various attainments to advantage, and at the same time not only to employ but to expand his intellect by his having committed to him the charge of very important business. His father sent him to the court of the Emperor Maximilian, that he might advance the interests of certain