The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman
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
Faculty—had not all their disputes about it run into the affair of
_Wens_ and œdematous 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 œdematous swellings.
It was demonstrated however very satisfactorily, that such a ponderous
mass of heterogenous matter could not be congested and conglomerated to
the nose, whilst the infant was _in Utera_, without destroying the
statical balance of the fœtus, and throwing it plump upon its head nine
months before the time.——
——The opponents granted the theory——they denied the consequences.
And if a suitable provision of veins, arteries, &c. said they, was not
laid in, for the due nourishment of such a nose, in the very first
stamina and rudiments of its formation, before it came into the world
(bating the case of Wens) it could not regularly grow and be sustained
afterwards.
This was all answered by a dissertation upon nutriment, and the effect
which nutriment had in extending the vessels, and in the increase and
prolongation of the muscular parts to the greatest growth and expansion
imaginable—In the triumph of which theory, they went so far as to
affirm, that there was no cause in nature, why a nose might not grow to
the size of the man himself.
The respondents satisfied the world this event could never happen to
them so long as a man had but one stomach and one pair of lungs——For
the stomach, said they, being the only organ destined for the reception
of food, and turning it into chyle—and the lungs the only engine of
sanguification—it could possibly work off no more, than what the
appetite brought it: or admitting the possibility of a man’s
overloading his stomach, nature had set bounds however to his lungs—the
engine was of a determined size and strength, and could elaborate but a
certain quantity in a given time——that is, it could produce just as
much blood as was sufficient for one single man, and no more; so that,
if there was as much nose as man——they proved a mortification must
necessarily ensue; and forasmuch as there could not be a support for
both, that the nose must either fall off from the man, or the man
inevitably fall off from his nose.
Nature accommodates herself to these emergencies, cried the
opponents—else what do you say to the case of a whole stomach—a whole
pair of lungs, and but half a man, when both his legs have been
unfortunately shot off?
He dies of a plethora, said they—or must spit blood, and in a fortnight
or three weeks go off in a consumption.——
——It happens otherwise—replied the opponents.——
It ought not, said they.
The more curious and intimate inquirers after nature and her doings,
though they went hand in hand a good way together, yet they all divided
about the nose at last, almost as much as the Faculty itself.
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
controversy had been settled at once.
A nose, argued the logician, cannot bleed without blood—and not only
blood—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 weapons, said
the logician—Then there is an end of the dispute, replied the
antagonist.
The civilians were still more concise: what they offered being more in
the nature 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 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
advocates 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 impossible 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, explained this matter in a treatise upon proverbial phrases,
shewing them, that the Promontory of Noses was a mere allegorick
expression, importing no more than that nature had given him a long
nose: in proof of which, with great learning, he cited the underwritten
authorities,[11] which had decided the point 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 say unluckily for Truth, because they were giving
her a lift another way in so doing; that the two universities of
_Strasburg_——the _Lutheran_, founded in the year 1538 by _Jacobus
Surmis_, 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 _Quedlingberg_’s placket-holes required)——in
determining the point of _Martin Luther_’s damnation.
The _Popish_ doctors had undertaken to demonstrate _à priori_, that
from the necessary 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[12] (in reading this my father would always
shake his head) in the ninth house, with the _Arabians_ allotted to
religion—it appeared that _Martin Luther_ 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, in 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, 83. 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 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 _Quedlingberg_——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 damn’d to all
eternity——Not that I look upon _Martin_, he would add, as a good
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 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._