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 certainly for this reason, that though there are many stories in Hafen Slawkenbergius's Decades 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 care of them, and not have met with a book or 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 edification, 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 nose drawn off the attention of the world from what they were about--it was their business to follow.
The abbess of Quedlingberg 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 ordered to distribute their types--all controversies dropp'd.
'Twas a square cap with a silver 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 one.
'Tis a fiddle-stick, said the other.
'Tis possible, cried the one.
'Tis impossible, said the other.
God's power is infinite, cried the Nosarians, 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 Anti-nosarians.
He cannot make two and two five, replied the Popish doctors.--'Tis false, said their other opponents.--Infinite power is infinite power, said the doctors who maintained the reality 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 Anti-nosarians denied that a nose of 575 geometrical 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 controversy led them naturally into Thomas 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 imaginations 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 Parchmentarians, the Brasssarians, the Turpentarians, on one side--the Popish doctors on the other, like Pantagruel and his companions in quest of the oracle of the bottle, all embarked out of sight.
--The poor Strasburgers left upon the beach!
--What was to be done?--No delay--the uproar increased--every one in disorder--the city gates set open.--Unfortunate Strasbergers! 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. Shew me a city so macerated with expectation--who neither eat, or drank, or slept, or prayed, or hearkened to the calls either of religion or nature, 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 Strasburg.
Seven thousand coaches (Slawkenbergius must certainly have made some mistake in his numeral characters) 7000 coaches--15000 single-horse chairs--20000 waggons, crowded as full as they could all hold with senators, counsellors, syndicks--beguines, widows, wives, virgins, canons, concubines, all in their coaches--The abbess of Quedlingberg, with the prioress, the deaness and sub-chantress, 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.