I don’t acquaint the learned reader—in saying it, I mention it only to
shew the learned, I know the fact myself——
That this _Ambrose Paræus_ was chief surgeon and nose-mender to
_Francis_ the ninth of _France_, and in high credit with him and the
two preceding, or succeeding kings (I know not which)—and that, except
in the slip he made in his story of _Taliacotius_’s noses, and his
manner of setting them on—he was esteemed by the whole college of
physicians at that time, as more knowing in matters of noses, than any
one who had ever taken them in hand.
Now _Ambrose Paræus_ convinced my father, that the true and efficient
cause of what had engaged so much the attention of the world, and upon
which _Prignitz_ and _Scroderus_ had wasted so much learning and fine
parts——was neither this nor that——but that the length and goodness of
the nose was owing simply to the softness and flaccidity in the nurse’s
breast——as the flatness and shortness of _puisne_ noses was to the
firmness and elastic repulsion of the same organ of nutrition in the
hale and lively—which, tho’ happy for the woman, was the undoing of the
child, inasmuch as his nose was so snubb’d, so rebuff’d, so rebated,
and so refrigerated thereby, as never to arrive _ad mensuram suam
legitimam_;——but that in case of the flaccidity and softness of the
nurse or mother’s breast—by sinking into it, quoth _Paraeus_, as into
so much butter, the nose was comforted, nourish’d, plump’d up,
refresh’d, refocillated, and set a growing for ever.
I have but two things to observe of _Paraeus_; first, That he proves
and explains all this with the utmost chastity and decorum of
expression:—for which may his soul for ever rest in peace!
And, secondly, that besides the systems of _Prignitz_ and _Scroderus_,
which _Ambrose Paræus_ his hypothesis effectually overthrew—it
overthrew at the same time the system of peace and harmony of our
family; and for three days together, not only embroiled matters between
my father and my mother, but turn’d likewise the whole house and every
thing in it, except my uncle _Toby_, quite upside down.
Such a ridiculous tale of a dispute between a man and his wife, never
surely in any age or country got vent through the key-hole of a
street-door.
My mother, you must know———but I have fifty things more necessary to
let you know first—I have a hundred difficulties which I have promised
to clear up, and a thousand distresses and domestick misadventures
crowding in upon me thick and threefold, one upon the neck of another.
A cow broke in (tomorrow morning) to my uncle _Toby_’s fortifications,
and eat up two rations and a half of dried grass, tearing up the sods
with it, which faced his horn-work and covered way.——_Trim_ insists
upon being tried by a court-martial—the cow to be shot—_Slop_ to be
_crucifix’d_—myself to be _tristram’d_ and at my very baptism made a
martyr of;——poor unhappy devils that we all are!——I want swaddling——but
there is no time to be lost in exclamations——I have left my father
lying across his bed, and my uncle _Toby_ in his old fringed chair,
sitting beside him, and promised I would go back to them in half an
hour; and five-and-thirty minutes are laps’d already.——Of all the
perplexities a mortal author was ever seen in—this certainly is the
greatest, for I have _Hafen Slawkenbergius_’s folio, Sir, to finish——a
dialogue between my father and my uncle _Toby_, upon the solution of
_Prignitz, Scroderus, Ambrose Paræus, Panocrates_, and _Grangousier_ to
relate—a tale out of _Slawkenbergius_ to translate, and all this in
five minutes less than no time at all;——such a head!—would to Heaven my
enemies only saw the inside of it!