1. In the middle stood, as a basket of garden-flowers might, a pile of cress-salad. 2. Then the four corners were occupied by the four syllogistic figures, or the four faculties. In the first corner of the table was, as first syllogistic figure and faculty, a hare, who, as antipode of a barefooted friar, had kept on his natural fur boots in the pan, and who, as Leibgeber justly remarked, had come from the field with his legs safe and sound in spite of the enemy's fire, more fortunate, in this respect, than many a soldier. The second syllogistic figure consisted of a calf's tongue, which was black, not from arguing, but from being smoked. The third, crisped colewort, but without the stalks: this, ordinarily the food of the two preceding faculties, was on this occasion eaten along with them; thus is it that in this world one goes up and another down. The concluding figure was made up of the three figures of the bridal pair and an eventual baby baked in butter; these three glorified bodies, which, like "the three children," had come forth unscathed from the fiery furnace, and had raisins for souls, were eaten up bodily, skin and bones, by those cannibals the guests, with the exception of an arm or so of the infant, which, like the bird Phœnix, was personified ere it existed. This picture draws me on. But it ought to be coloured, and as regards the luxury of the feast, it would not be passing it over too lightly were I to compare it to a Saxon electoral banquet, by reference to which I might illustrate it. It is true, the electors of that country require a good deal (and on that account they used to be weighed every year); and I am quite aware that at the beginning of the 16th century, a Saxon treasurer made the following entry in his accounts:--"This day was our gracious sovereign at the wine, with his court, for which I have had to disburse the sum of fifteen gulden (25_s_.). That's what I _call_ banquetting!" But what would the Saxon treasurer have written? how he would have lifted his hands up with amazement if he had read in my very first chapter that a poor's advocate had gone and spent three gulden and seven groschen more than his royal master!