The penitentiaries of the third order of saint Francis--the nuns of mount Calvary--the Praemonstratenses--the Clunienses (Hafen Slawkenbergius means the Benedictine nuns of Cluny, founded in the year 940, by Odo, abbe de Cluny.)--the Carthusians, and all the severer orders of nuns, who lay that night in blankets or hair-cloth, were still in a worse condition than the abbess of Quedlingberg--by tumbling and tossing, and tossing and tumbling from one side of their beds to the other the whole night long--the several sisterhoods had scratch'd and maul'd themselves all to death--they got out of their beds almost flay'd alive--every body thought saint Antony had visited them for probation with his fire--they had never once, in short, shut their eyes the whole night long from vespers to matins.
The nuns of saint Ursula acted the wisest--they never attempted to go to bed at all.
The dean of Strasburg, the prebendaries, the capitulars and domiciliars (capitularly assembled in the morning to consider the case of butter'd buns) all wished they had followed the nuns of saint Ursula's example.--In the hurry and confusion every thing had been in the night before, the bakers had all forgot to lay their leaven--there were no butter'd buns to be had for breakfast in all Strasburg--the whole close of the cathedral was in one eternal commotion--such a cause of restlessness and disquietude, and such a zealous inquiry into that cause of the restlessness, had never happened in Strasburg, since Martin Luther, with his doctrines, had turned the city upside down.
If the stranger's nose took this liberty of thrusting himself thus into the dishes (Mr. Shandy's compliments to orators--is very sensible that Slawkenbergius has here changed his metaphor--which he is very guilty of:--that as a translator, Mr. Shandy has all along done what he could to make him stick to it--but that here 'twas impossible.) of religious orders, &c. what a carnival did his nose make of it, in those of the laity!--'tis more than my pen, worn to the stump as it is, has power to describe; tho', Iacknowledge, (cries Slawkenbergius with more gaiety of thought than I could have expected from him) that there is many a good simile now subsisting in the world which might give my countrymen some idea of it; but at the close of such a folio as this, wrote for their sakes, and in which I have spent the greatest part of my life--tho' I own to them the simile is in being, yet would it not be unreasonable in them to expect I should have either time or inclination to search for it? Let it suffice to say, that the riot and disorder it occasioned in the Strasburgers fantasies 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 burgomaster'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 description 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 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 sub-chantress, 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 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.
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.
