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28. throwing it plump … time: This reversal was widely thought to happen in the late eighth month or early ninth. Florida, quoting Chambers’s entry “Fœtus,” suggests that Sterne drew on Chambers for knowledge in this and the following paragraphs.

29. stamina: Defining “stamina” as “the rudiments or germs from which living beings or their organs are developed,” the OED quotes Sentimental Journey on dwarves as “from the first rudiments and stamina of their existence, never meant to grow higher” (6:79).

30. chyle … sanguification: “a white liquor” (Chambers, “Stomach”) produced by digestion, which in turn leads to sanguification, the production of blood. Sterne may have obtained the idea of the disputation from Chambers’s article “Digestion,” which emphasizes the long and tedious quarrels on this topic.

31. petitio principii: begging the question, a logical fallacy: the conclusion assumes the premise used to prove it is true (Latin).

32. Now death … soul from the body: The opposition of the two definitions appears, as Florida notes, in Chambers, “Death.”

33. civilians: professors or practitioners of civil law.

34. ex mero motu: literally, from a mere motion: of one’s own will (Latin).

35. commissary: the representative of a bishop in an ecclesiastical court. Sterne himself held several commissaryships.

36. authorities*: The Latin footnote parodies legal pedantry. As Florida notes (3:852, “Appendix One”), Rabelais’s Judge Bridlegoose speaks in such references in 3.39–42. These provide a model, but not a source. “Several of our countrymen use the same phraseology.” Vid. Parce: “see cautiously,” a good admonition for the whole note. “J. Scrudr.” recalls “Scroderus” of III, xxxv. “Tubal” may come from Rabelais, as Florida suggests, or from a Jewish character in The Merchant of Venice. “Jacobum [a correct Latin form] Koinshoven” appears to be another bawdy pun. Jerôme Bardi (IV, x) may be the basis for “N. Bardy.” Several of the Latin forms of citation appear in Henry Swinburne’s A Briefe Treatise of Testaments (1640), mentioned in IV, xxix, n. 4 below.

37. Jacobus Sturmius: Sterne could have found this correct information about Sturmius in Moreri’s entry.

38. Popish … Austria: Archduke Leopold William (1586–1632), Bishop of Passau and Strasbourg, established several universities near Strasbourg, but the first Catholic university was established in the city in the early years of the eighteenth century. Perhaps Sterne, whose source is unknown, was thinking of the University of Mosheim, about fifteen miles away, which was moved by Louis XIV to Strasbourg. Florida has a substantial account.

39. Luther’s damnation: Work notes that Bayle, the source for this satiric treatment of the Catholic Church, accuses Luther’s opponents of changing his birth date to validate their horoscope for him.

40. a priori: deductive (Latin).

41. Hæc mira … examinatis: Latin; this note is taken from Bayle, who correctly wrote “irreligiosissimus” in the French edition, but Sterne followed the English. The English translation in Bayle of those parts not translated in the text by Sterne follows: “This is strange, indeed terrible … [the astrological conditions of his birth made Martin Luther] a sacrilegious heretic, a most bitter and profane enemy to the Christian faith. It appears from the horoscope directed to the conjunction of Mars, that he died without any sense of religion, his soul steeped in guilt and sailed to hell, there to be lashed with the fiery whips of Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megera [the Erinyes or Furies, who guided revenge] through endless ages.” Lucas Gauricus (1475–1558), bishop, mathematician, and astrologer, published Astrological Treatise on the Past Misfortunes of Many Men by Means of an Examination of their Nativities in 1552.

42. stiver: a coin worth a penny or so; “not a stiver” means “nothing.”

43. Alexandrian library: The most famous library of the ancient world was completely destroyed in 640, though it had burned, supposedly at the command of Julius