Part 35

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, 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; that the two universities of Strasburg——the Lutheran, founded in the year 1538 by Jacobus Surmis, counsellor of the senate,——and the Popish, founded by Leopold, arch-duke of Austria, were, during all this time, employing the whole depth of their knowledge (except just what the affair of the abbess of Quedlingberg’s placket-holes required)——in determining the point of Martin Luther’s damnation.

The Popish doctors had undertaken to demonstrate à priori, that from the necessary influence of the planets on the twenty-second day of October 1483——when the moon was in the twelfth house, Jupiter, Mars, and Venus in the third, the Sun, Saturn, and Mercury, all got together in the fourth—that he must in course, and unavoidably, be a damn’d man—and that his doctrines, by a direct corollary, must be damn’d doctrines too.

By inspection into his horoscope, where five planets were in coition all at once with Scorpio (in reading this my father would always shake his head) in the ninth house, with the Arabians allotted to religion—it appeared that Martin Luther did not care one stiver about the matter——and that from the horoscope directed to the conjunction of Mars—they made it plain likewise he must die cursing and blaspheming——with the blast of which his soul (being steep’d in guilt) sailed before the wind, in the lake of hell-fire.

The little objection of the Lutheran doctors to this, was, that it must certainly be the soul of another man, born Oct. 22, 83. which was forced to sail down before the wind in that manner—inasmuch as it appeared from the register of Islaben in the county of Mansfelt, that Luther was not born in the year 1483, but in 84; and not on the 22d day of October, but on the 10th of November, the eve of Martinmas day, from whence he had the name of Martin.

—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 dropp’d.

’Twas a square cap with a silver tassel upon the crown of it—to a nut-shell—to have guessed on which side of the nose the two universities would split.

’Tis above reason, cried the doctors on one side.

’Tis below reason, cried the others.

’Tis faith, cried one.

’Tis a fiddle-stick, said the other.

’Tis possible, cried the one.

’Tis impossible, said the other.

God’s power is infinite, cried the Nosarians, he can do any thing.

He can do nothing, replied the Anti-nosarians, which implies contradictions.

He can make matter think, said the Nosarians.

As certainly as you can make a velvet cap out of a sow’s ear, replied the Anti-nosarians.

He cannot make two and two five, replied the Popish doctors.——’Tis false, said their other opponents.——

Infinite power is infinite power, said the doctors who maintained the reality of the nose.—It extends only to all possible things, replied the Lutherans.

By God in heaven, cried the Popish doctors, he can make a nose, if he thinks fit, as big as the steeple of Strasburg.

Now the steeple of Strasburg being the biggest and the tallest church-steeple to be seen in the whole world, the Anti-nosarians denied that a nose of 575 geometrical feet in length could be worn, at least by a middle-siz’d man——The Popish doctors swore it could—The Lutheran doctors said No;—it could not.

This at once started a new dispute, which they pursued a great way, upon the extent and limitation of the moral and natural attributes of God—That controversy led them naturally into Thomas Aquinas, and Thomas Aquinas to the devil.

The stranger’s nose was no more heard of in the dispute—it just served as a frigate to launch them into the gulph of school-divinity——and then they all sailed before the wind.