ouched in, and the subject slightly begun.

The Epitasis, wherein the action is more fully entered upon and
heightened, till it arrives at its state or height called the
Catastasis, and which usually takes up the 2d and 3d act, is included
within that busy period of my tale, betwixt the first night's uproar
about the nose, to the conclusion of the trumpeter's wife's lectures
upon it in the middle of the grand parade: and from the first embarking
of the learned in the dispute--to the doctors finally sailing away, and
leaving the Strasburgers upon the beach in distress, is the Catastasis
or the ripening of the incidents and passions for their bursting forth
in the fifth act.

This commences with the setting out of the Strasburgers in the Frankfort
road, and terminates in unwinding the labyrinth and bringing the hero
out of a state of agitation (as Aristotle calls it) to a state of rest
and quietness.

This, says Hafen Slawkenbergius, constitutes the Catastrophe or
Peripeitia of my tale--and that is the part of it I am going to relate.

We left the stranger behind the curtain asleep--he enters now upon the
stage.

--What dost thou prick up thy ears at?--'tis nothing but a man upon a
horse--was the last word the stranger uttered to his mule. It was not
proper then to tell the reader, that the mule took his master's word for
it; and without any more ifs or ands, let the traveller and his horse
pass by.

The traveller was hastening with all diligence to get to Strasburg that
night. What a fool am I, said the traveller to himself, when he had
rode about a league farther, to think of getting into Strasburg this
night.--Strasburg!--the great Strasburg!--Strasburg, the capital of
all Alsatia! Strasburg, an imperial city! Strasburg, a sovereign state!
Strasburg, garrisoned with five thousand of the best troops in all the
world!--Alas! if I was at the gates of Strasburg this moment, I could
not gain admittance into it for a ducat--nay a ducat and half--'tis too
much--better go back to the last inn I have passed--than lie I know
not where--or give I know not what. The traveller, as he made these
reflections in his mind, turned his horse's head about, and three
minutes after the stranger had been conducted into his chamber, he
arrived at the same inn.

--We have bacon in the house, said the host, and bread--and till eleven
o'clock this night had three eggs in it--but a stranger, who arrived an
hour ago, has had them dressed