are ever upon the catch, when
they saw the Strasburgers, men, women and children, all marched out to
follow the stranger's nose--each man followed his own, and marched in.

Trade and manufactures have decayed and gradually grown down ever
since--but not from any cause which commercial heads have assigned; for
it is owing to this only, that Noses have ever so run in their heads,
that the Strasburgers could not follow their business.

Alas! alas! cries Slawkenbergius, making an exclamation--it is not the
first--and I fear will not be the last fortress that has been either
won--or lost by Noses.

The End of Slawkenbergius's Tale.

Chapter 2.XXXVI.

With all this learning upon Noses running perpetually in my father's
fancy--with so many family prejudices--and ten decades of such tales
running on for ever along with them--how was it possible with such
exquisite--was it a true nose?--That a man with such exquisite feelings
as my father had, could bear the shock at all below stairs--or indeed
above stairs, in any other posture, but the very posture I have
described?

--Throw yourself down upon the bed, a dozen times--taking care only to
place a looking-glass first in a chair on one side of it, before you do
it--But was the stranger's nose a true nose, or was it a false one?

To tell that before-hand, madam, would be to do injury to one of the
best tales in the Christian-world; and that is the tenth of the tenth
decade, which immediately follows this.

This tale, cried Slawkenbergius, somewhat exultingly, has been reserved
by me for the concluding tale of my whole work; knowing right well,
that when I shall have told it, and my reader shall have read it
thro'--'twould be even high time for both of us to shut up the book;
inasmuch, continues Slawkenbergius, as I know of no tale which could
possibly ever go down after it.

'Tis a tale indeed!

This sets out with the first interview in the inn at Lyons, when
Fernandez left the courteous stranger and his sister Julia alone in her
chamber, and is over-written.

The Intricacies of Diego and Julia.

Heavens! thou art a strange creature, Slawkenbergius! what a whimsical
view of the involutions of the heart of woman hast thou opened! how this
can ever be translated, and yet if this specimen of Slawkenbergius's
tales, and the exquisitiveness of his moral, should please the
world--translated shall a couple of volumes be.--Else, how this can ever
be translated into go