e 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, (Nonnulli
ex nostratibus eadem loquendi formula utun. Quinimo & Logistae &
Canonistae--Vid. Parce Barne Jas in d. L. Provincial. Constitut. de
conjec. vid. Vol. Lib. 4. Titul. I. n. 7 qua etiam in re conspir. Om de
Promontorio Nas. Tichmak. ff. d. tit. 3. fol. 189. passim. Vid. Glos. de
contrahend. empt. &c. necnon J. Scrudr. in cap. para refut. per totum.
Cum his cons. Rever. J. Tubal, Sentent. & Prov. cap. 9. ff. 11, 12.
obiter. V. & Librum, cui Tit. de Terris & Phras. Belg. ad finem, cum
comment. N. Bardy Belg. Vid. Scrip. Argentotarens. de Antiq. Ecc. in
Episc Archiv. fid coll. per Von Jacobum Koinshoven Folio Argent. 1583.
praecip. ad finem. Quibus add. Rebuff in L. obvenire de Signif. Nom. ff.
fol. & de jure Gent. & Civil. de protib. aliena feud. per federa, test.
Joha. Luxius in prolegom. quem velim videas, de Analy. Cap. 1, 2,
3. Vid. Idea.) 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; t