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By Root 1901 0

that the riot and disorder it occasioned in the Strasburgers fantacies was so general—such an overpowering mastership had it got of all the faculties of the Strasburgers minds—so many strange things, with equal confidence on all sides, and with equal eloquence in all places, were spoken and sworn to concerning it, that turned the whole stream of all discourse and wonder towards it—every soul, good and bad—rich and poor—learned and unlearned—doctor and student—mistress and maid—gentle and simple—nun’s flesh and woman’s flesh in Strasburg spent their time in hearing tidings about it—every eye in Strasburg languished to see it——every finger—every thumb in Strasburg burned to touch it.

Now what might add, if any thing may be thought necessary to add to so vehement a desire—was this, that the centinel, the bandy-legg’d drummer, the trumpeter, the trumpeter’s wife, the burgo-master’s widow, the master of the inn, and the master of the inn’s wife, how widely soever they all differed every one from another in their testimonies and descriptions of the stranger’s nose—they all agreed together in two points—namely, that he was gone to Frankfort, and would not return to Strasburg till that day month; and secondly, whether his nose was true or false, that the stranger himself was one of the most perfect paragons of beauty–the finest made man!—the most genteel!—the most generous of his purse—the most courteous in his carriage that had ever entered the gates of Strasburg—that as he rode, with his scymetar slung loosely to his wrist, thro’ the streets—and walked with his crimson-sattin breeches across the parade—’twas with so sweet an air of careless modesty, and so manly withal—as would have put the heart in jeopardy (had his nose not stood in his way) of every virgin who had cast her eyes upon him.

I call not upon that heart which is a stranger to the throbs and yearnings of curiosity, so excited, to justify the abbess of Quedlingberg, the prioress, the deaness and subchantress for sending at noon-day for the trumpeter’s wife: she went through the streets of Strasburg with her husband’s trumpet in her hand;—the best apparatus the straitness of the time would allow her, for the illustration of her theory—she staid no longer than three days.

The centinel and the bandy-legg’d drummer!—nothing on this side of old Athens could equal them! they read their lectures under the city gates to comers and goers, with all the pomp of a Chrysippus and a Crantor in their porticos.24

The master of the inn, with his ostler on his left-hand, read his also in the same stile,—under the portico or gateway of his stable-yard—his wife, hers more privately in a back room: all flocked to their lectures; not promiscuously—but to this or that, as is ever the way, as faith and credulity marshal’d them—in a word, each Strasburger came crouding for intelligence—and every Strasburger had the intelligence he wanted.

’Tis worth remarking, for the benefit of all demonstrators in natural philosophy, &c. that as soon as the trumpeter’s wife had finished the abbess of Quedlingberg’s private lecture, and had begun to read in public, which she did upon a stool in the middle of the great parade—she incommoded the other demonstrators mainly, by gaining incontinently the most fashionable part of the city of Strasburg for her auditory—But when a demonstrator in philosophy (cries Slawkenbergius) has a trumpet for an apparatus, pray what rival in science can pretend to be heard besides him?

Whilst the unlearned, thro’ these conduits of intelligence, were all busied in getting down to the bottom of the well, where TRUTH keeps her little court—were the learned in their way as busy in pumping her up thro’ the conduits of dialect induction—they concerned themselves not with facts—they reasoned—

Not one profession had thrown more light upon this subject than the faculty25—had not all their disputes about it run into the affair of Wens and œdematous26 swellings, they could not keep clear of them for their bloods and souls—the stranger’s nose had nothing to do either with wens or