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They amicably laid it down, that there was a just and geometrical arrangement and proportion of the several parts of the human frame to its several destinations, offices, and functions, which could not be transgressed but within certain limits -- that nature, though she sported -- she sported within a certain circle ; -- and they could not agree about the diameter of it. The logicians stuck much closer to the point before them than any of the classes of the literati ; -- they began and ended with the word nose ; and had it not been for a petitio principii, which one of the ablest of them ran his head against in the beginning of the combat, the whole con- troversy had been settled at once. A nose, argued the logician, cannot bleed without blood -- and not only blood -- but |
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-- but blood circulating in it to supply the phænomenon with a succession of drops -- (a stream being but a quicker succession of drops, that is included, said he) -- Now death, continued the logician, being nothing but the stagnation of the blood -- I deny the definition -- Death is the separation of the soul from the body, said his antagonist -- Then we don't agree about our weapon, said the logician -- Then there is an end of the dispute, re- plied the antagonist. The civilians were still more concise ; what they offered being more in the na- ture of a decree -- than a dispute. -- Such a monstrous nose, said they, had it been a true nose, could not possibly have been suffered in civil society -- and if 1 false |
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false -- to impose upon society with such false signs and tokens, was a still greater violation of its rights, and must have had still less mercy shewn it. The only objection to this was, that if it proved any thing, it proved the stranger's nose was neither true nor false. This left room for the controversy to go on. It was maintained by the advo- cates of the ecclesiastic court, that there was nothing to inhibit a decree, since the stranger ex mero motu had confessed he had been at the Promontory of Noses, and had got one of the goodliest, &c. &c. -- To this it was answered, it was impossi- ble there should be such a place as the Promontory of Noses, and the learned be ignorant where it lay. The commissary of the bishop of Strasburg undertook the advocates, |
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advocates, explained this matter in a treatise upon proverbial phrases, shewing them, that the Promontory of Noses was a mere allegoric expression, importing no more than that nature had given him a long nose : in proof of which, with great learning, he cited the underwritten au- thorities *, which had decided the point incon- * Nonnulli ex nostratibus eadem loquendi for- mulâ utun. Quinimo et Legistæ & Canonistæ -- Vid. Parce Bar & Jas in d. L. Provincial. Constitut. de conjec. vid. Vol. Lib. 4. Titul. l. N. 7. quà etiam in re conspir. Om. de Promontorio Nas. Tichmak. ff. d. tit. 3. fol. 189. passim. Vid. Glos. de contrahend. empt.&c. nec non J. Scrudr. in cap. §. refut. ff. per totum. cum his cons. Rever. J. Tubal, Sentent. & Prov. cap. 9. ff. 11, 12. obiter. V. et. Librum, cui Tit. de Terris & Phras. Belg. ad finem, cum Comment. N. Bardy Belg. Vid. Scrip. Argentoratens. de Antiq. Ecc. in Episc. Ar- chiv. fid. coll. per Von Jacobum Koinshoven Fo- lio Argent. 1583, præcip. ad finem. Quibus add. Rebuff in L. obvenire de Signif. Nom. ff. fol. & de Jure, Gent. & Civil. de prohib. aliena feud. per federa, test. Joha. Luxius in prolegom. quem velim videas, de Analy. Cap. 1, 2, 3. Vid. Idea. 4 |
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incontestably, had it not appeared that a dispute about some franchises of dean and chapter-lands had been determined by it nineteen years before. It happened -- I must not say unluckily for Truth, because they were giving her a lift another way in so doing ; that the two universities of Strasburg -- the Luthe- ran, founded in the year 1538 by Jacobus Sturmius, counsellor of the senate, -- and the Popish, founded by Leopold, arch-duke of Austria, were, during all this time, employing the whole depth of their knowledge (except just what the affair of the abbess of Quedlinburg's placket- holes required) -- in determining the point of Martin Luther's damnation. The Popish doctors had undertaken to demonstrate a priori ; that from the ne- cessary |
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cessary influence of the planets on the twenty-second day of October 1483 ---- when the moon was in the twelfth house -- Jupiter, Mars, and Venus in the third, the Sun, Saturn, and Mercury all got together in the fourth -- that he must in course, and unavoidably be a damn'd man -- and that his doctrines, by a direct corollary, must be damn'd doctrines too. By inspection into his horoscope, where five planets were in coition all at once with scorpio * (in reading this my father would * Hæc mira, satisque horrenda. 5 Planetarum coitio sub Scorpio Asterismo in nonâ coeli statione, quam Arabes religioni deputabant effecit Martinum Lutherum sacrilegum hereticum, christianæ reli- gionis hostem acerrimum atque prophanum, ex horoscopi directione ad Martis coitum, religiosis- simus obiit, ejus Anima scelestissima ad infernos navigavit -- ab Alecto, Tisiphone, et Megera fla- gellis igneis cruciata perenniter. -- Lucas Gauricus in Tractatu astrologico de præteritis multorum hominum accidentibus per genituras examinatis. |
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would always shake his head) in the ninth house which the Arabians allotted to religion -- it appeared that Martin Lu- ther did not care one stiver about the matter -- and that from the horoscope directed to the conjunction of Mars -- they made it plain likewise he must die cursing and blaspheming -- with the blast of which his soul (being steep'd in guilt) sailed before the wind, into the lake of hell fire. The little objection of the Lutheran doctors to this, was, that it must certainly be the soul of another man, born Oct. 22, 1483, which was forced to sail down before the wind in that manner -- inasmuch as it appeared from the register of Islaben, in the county of Mansfelt, that Luther was not born in the year 1483, but in 84 ; and not on the 22d day of October , but |
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but on the 10th of November, the eve of Martinmas-day, from whence he had the name of Martin. [-- I must break off my translation for a moment ; for if I did not, I know I should no more be able to shut my eyes in bed, than the abbess of Quedlinburg -- It is to tell the reader, that my father never read this passage of Slawkenbergius to my uncle Toby but with triumph -- not over my uncle Toby, for he never opposed him in it -- but over the whole world. -- Now you see, brother Toby, he would say, looking up, `` that christian names `` are not such indifferent things ;'' -- had Luther here been called by any other name but Martin, he would have been damned to all eternity -- Not that I look upon Martin, he would add, as a good name |
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name -- far from it -- 'tis something better than a neutral, and but a little -- yet little as it is, you see it was of some service to him. My father knew the weakness of this prop to his hypothesis, as well as the best logician could shew him -- yet so strange is the weakness of man at the same time, as it fell in his way, he could not for his life but make use of it ; and it was cer- tainly for this reason, that though there are many stories in Hafen Slawkenbergius's Decads full as entertaining as this I am translating, yet there is not one amongst them which my father read over with half the delight -- it flattered two of his strangest hypotheses together -- his NAMES and his NOSES -- I will be bold to say, he might have read all the books in the Alexandrian library, had not fate taken other |
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other care of them, and not have met with a book or a passage in one, which hit two such nails as these upon the head at one stroke.] The two universities of Strasburg were hard tugging at this affair of Luther's navigation. The Protestant doctors had demonstrated, that he had not sailed right before the wind, as the Popish doctors had pretended ; and as every one knew there was no sailing full in the teeth of it, -- they were going to settle, in case he had sailed, how many points he was off ; whether Martin had doubled the cape, or had fallen upon a lee-shore ; and no doubt, as it was an enquiry of much edi- fication, at least to those who understood this sort of NAVIGATION, they had gone on with it in spite of the size of the stranger's nose, had not the size of the stranger's VOL. IV. E nose |
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nose drawn off the attention of the world from what they were about -- it was their business to follow. ---- The abbess of Quedlinburg and her four dignitaries was no stop ; for the enormity of the stranger's nose running full as much in their fancies as their case of conscience -- The affair of their placket-holes kept cold -- In a word, the printers were or- dered to distribute their types -- all con- troversies dropp'd. 'Twas a square cap with a silk tassel upon the crown of it -- to a nut shell -- to have guessed on which side of the nose the two universities would split. 'Tis above reason, cried the doctors on one side. 'Tis below reason, cried the others. 'Tis faith, cried the one. 'Tis |
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'Tis a fiddle-stick, said the other. 'Tis possible, cried the one. 'Tis impossible, said the other. God's power is infinite, cried the No- sarians, he can do any thing. He can do nothing, replied the Anti- nosarians, which implies contradictions. He can make matter think, said the Nosarians. As certainly as you can make a velvet cap out of a sow's ear, replied the Antinosarians. He can make two and two five, replied the Popish doctors. -- 'Tis false, said their opponents. -- Infinite power is infinite power, said the doctors who maintained the reality E 2 of |
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of the nose. ---- It extends only to all possible things, replied the Lutherans. By God in heaven, cried the Popish doctors, he can make a nose, if he thinks fit, as big as the steeple of Strasburg. Now the steeple of Strasburg being the biggest and the tallest church-steeple to be seen in the whole world, the Antino- sarians denied that a nose of 575 geome- trical feet in length could be worn, at least by a middle-siz'd man -- The Popish doctors swore it could -- The Lutheran doctors said No ; -- it could not. This at once started a new dispute, which they pursued a great way upon the extent and limitation of the moral and natural attributes of God -- That contro- versy led them naturally into Thomas Aquinas |
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Aquinas, and Thomas Aquinas to the devil. The stranger's nose was no more heard of in the dispute -- it just served as a frigate to launch them into the gulph of school- divinity, -- and then they all sailed before the wind. Heat is in proportion to the want of true knowledge. The controversy about the attributes, &c. instead of cooling, on the contrary had inflamed the Strasburgers imagina- tions to a most inordinate degree -- The less they understood of the matter, the greater was their wonder about it -- they were left in all the distresses of desire unsatisfied -- saw their doctors, the Parch- mentarians, the Brassarians, the Turpen- tarians, on one side -- the Popish doctors E 3 on |
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on the other, like Pantagruel and his companions in quest of the oracle of the bottle, all embarked and out of sight. ---- The poor Strasburgers left upon the beach ! -- What was to be done ? -- No delay -- the uproar increased -- every one in dis- order -- the city gates set open. -- Unfortunate Strasburgers ! was there in the store-house of nature -- was there in the lumber-rooms of learning -- was there in the great arsenal of chance, one single engine left undrawn forth to torture your curiosities, and stretch your desires, which was not pointed by the hand of fate to play upon your hearts ? -- I dip not my pen into my ink to excuse the surrender of yourselves -- 'tis to write your panegyrick. |
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panegyrick. Shew me a city so macera- ted with expectation -- who neither eat, or drank, or slept, or prayed, or heark- ened to the calls either of religion or na- ture for seven and twenty days together, who could have held out one day longer. On the twenty-eighth the courteous stranger had promised to return to Stras- burg. Seven thousand coaches (Slawkenber- gius must certainly have made some mis- take in his numerical characters) 7000 coaches -- 15000 single horse chairs ---- 20000 waggons, crouded as full as they could all hold with senators, counsellors, syndicks -- beguines, widows, wives, vir- gins, canons, concubines, all in their coaches -- The abbess of Quedlinburg, with the prioress, the deaness and sub-chantress E 4 leading |
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leading the procession in one coach, and the dean of Strasburg, with the four great dignitaries of his chapter on her left- hand -- the rest following higglety-pigglety as they could ; some on horseback ---- some on foot -- some led -- some driven -- some down the Rhine -- some this way -- some that -- all set out at sun-rise to meet the courteous stranger on the road. Haste we now towards the catastrophe of my tale -- I say Catastrophe (cries Slaw- kenbergius) inasmuch as a tale, with parts rightly disposed, not only rejoiceth (gau- det) in the Catastrophe and Peripeitia of a DRAMA, but rejoiceth moreover in all the essential and integrant parts of it -- it has its Protasis, Epitasis, Catastasis, its Catastrophe or Peripeitia growing one out of the other in it, in the order Aristotle] first planted them -- without which a tale had |
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had better never be told at all, says Slawkenbergius, but be kept to a man's self. In all my ten tales, in all my ten de- cads, have I, Slawkenbergius, tied down every tale of them as tightly to this rule, as I have done this of the stranger and his nose. -- From his first parley with the centi- nel, to his leaving the city of Strasburg, after pulling off his crimson-sattin pair of breeches, is the Protasis or first entrance ---- where the characters of the Personæ Dramatis are just touched in, and the subject slightly begun. The Epitasis, wherein the action is more fully entered upon and heightened, till it arrives at its state or height called 1 the |
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the Catastasis, and which usually takes up the 2d and 3d act, is included within that busy period of my tale, betwixt the first night's uproar about the nose, to the conclusion of the trumpeter's wife's lectures upon it in the middle of the grand parade ; and from the first em- barking of the learned in the dispute -- to the doctors finally sailing away, and leaving the Strasburgers upon the beach in distress, is the Catastasis or the ripen- ing of the incidents and passions for their bursting forth in the fifth act. This commences with the setting out of the Strasburgers in the Frankfort road, and terminates in unwinding the laby- rinth and bringing the hero out of a state of agitation (as Aristotle calls it) to a state of rest and quietness. 4 This, |
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This, says Hafen Slawkenbergius, con- stitutes the catastrophe or peripeitia of my tale -- and that is the part of it I am going to relate. We left the stranger behind the curtain asleep -- he enters now upon the stage. -- What dost thou prick up thy ears at ? -- 'tis nothing but a man upon a horse -- was the last word the stranger uttered to his mule. It was not proper then to tell the reader, that the mule took his master's word for it ; and without any more ifs or ands, let the traveller and his horse pass by. The traveller was hastening with all diligence to get to Strasburg that night --- What a fool am I, said the traveller to himself, when he had rode about a league |