rs was Hafen Slawkenbergius his
recreation and delight: 'twas for ever in his hands--you would have
sworn, Sir, it had been a canon's prayer-book--so worn, so glazed, so
contrited and attrited was it with fingers and with thumbs in all its
parts, from one end even unto the other.

I am not such a bigot to Slawkenbergius as my father;--there is a fund
in him, no doubt: but in my opinion, the best, I don't say the most
profitable, but the most amusing part of Hafen Slawkenbergius, is his
tales--and, considering he was a German, many of them told not without
fancy:--these take up his second book, containing nearly one half of
his folio, and are comprehended in ten decads, each decad containing ten
tales--Philosophy is not built upon tales; and therefore 'twas certainly
wrong in Slawkenbergius to send them into the world by that name!--there
are a few of them in his eighth, ninth, and tenth decads, which I own
seem rather playful and sportive, than speculative--but in general they
are to be looked upon by the learned as a detail of so many independent
facts, all of them turning round somehow or other upon the main hinges
of his subject, and added to his work as so many illustrations upon the
doctrines of noses.

As we have leisure enough upon our hands--if you give me leave, madam,
I'll tell you the ninth tale of his tenth decad.

Slawkenbergii Fabella (As Hafen Slawkenbergius de Nasis is extremely
scarce, it may not be unacceptable to the learned reader to see the
specimen of a few pages of his original; I will make no reflection
upon it, but that his story-telling Latin is much more concise than his
philosophic--and, I think, has more of Latinity in it.)

Vespera quadam frigidula, posteriori in parte mensis Augusti,
peregrinus, mulo fusco colore incidens, mantica a tergo, paucis
indusiis, binis calceis, braccisque sericis coccineis repleta,
Argentoratum ingressus est.

Militi eum percontanti, quum portus intraret dixit, se apud Nasorum
promontorium fuisse, Francofurtum proficisci, et Argentoratum, transitu
ad fines Sarmatiae mensis intervallo, reversurum.

Miles peregrini in faciem suspexit--Di boni, nova forma nasi!

At multum mihi profuit, inquit peregrinus, carpum amento extrahens, e
quo pependit acinaces: Loculo manum inseruit; et magna cum urbanitate,
pilei parte anteriore tacta manu sinistra, ut extendit dextram, militi
florinum dedit et processit.

Dolet mihi, ait miles, tympanistam nanum et valgum all