bess 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