 my father's collecting, wrote either, plump upon
noses, - or collaterally touching them; -- such for instance as Prignitz, now
lying upon the table before me, who with infinite learning, and from the most
candid and scholarlike examination of above four thousand different skulls, in
upwards of twenty charnel houses in Silesia, which he had rummaged, - has
informed us, that the mensuration and configuration of the osseous or boney
parts of human noses, in any given tract of country, except Crim Tartary, where
they are all crush'd down by the thumb, so that no judgment can be formed upon
them, -- are much nearer alike, than the world imagines; -- the difference
amongst them, being, he says, a mere trifle, not worth taking notice of, -- but
that the size and jollity of every individual nose, and by which one nose ranks
above another, and bears a higher price, is owing to the cartilagenous and
muscular parts of it, into whose ducts and sinuses the blood and animal spirits
being impell'd, and driven by the warmth and force of the imagination, which is
but a step from it, (bating the case of ideots, whom Prignitz, who had lived
many years in Turky, supposes under the more immediate tutelage of heaven) -- it
so happens, and ever must, says Prignitz, that the excellency of the nose is in
a direct arithmetical proportion to the excellency of the wearer's fancy.
    It is for the same reason, that is, because 'tis all comprehended in
Slawkenbergius, that I say nothing likewise of Scroderus (Andrea) who all the
world knows, set himself to oppugn Prignitz with great violence, -- proving it
in his own way, first logically, and then by a series of stubborn facts, »That
so far was Prignitz from the truth, in affirming that the fancy begat the nose,
that on the contrary, - the nose begat the fancy.«
    - The learned suspected Scroderus, of an indecent sophism in this, - and
Prignitz cried out aloud in the dispute, that Scroderus had shifted the idea
upon him, - but Scroderus went on, maintaining his thesis. --
    My father was just balancing within himself, which of the two sides he
should take in this affair; when Ambrose Paræus decided it in a moment, and by
over-throwing the systems, both of Prignitz and Scroderus, drove my father out
of both sides of the controversy at once.
    Be witness --
    I don't acquaint the learned reader,
