[109] _Apprehendens ipsum, revolvit super ejus genua; erat enim valdè fortis. Elevatis itaque pannis, quia ille Minister contrà sanctum Dei tabernaculum locutus fuerat, cœpit cum palmis percutere super quadrata tabernacula, quæ erant nuda, non enim habebat femoralia vel antiphonam; & quia ipse infamare voluerat beatam Virginem, allegando forsitan Aristotelem in Libro Priorum, iste Prædicator illum confutavit legendo in libro ejus Posteriorum: de hoc autem omnes qui aderant, gaudebant. Tunc exclamavit quædam devota mulier, dicens, Domine Prædicator, detis ei alias quatuor palmatas pro me; & alia postmodum dixit, detis ei etiam quatuor; sicque multæ aliæ rogabant; ità quòd si illarum petitionibus satisfacere voluisset, per totum diem aliud facere non potuisset._----In Opere Mariali, _Serm. viii._ de Conceptione Beatæ Virginis, _circ. fin._ [110] There prevails, as may have been perceived, a kind of competition between the Abbé Boileau and me, who shall find out the best story, which is extremely for the benefit of the Reader. However, the story above quoted from Bernardinus _de Bustis_, with which we are supplied by the Abbé’s book, is so good in itself, so full of Attic salt, so well in the true Monkish style, that I despair of producing any thing that can match it. I will try, therefore, to make up in number what I may want in point of intrinsic merit; and, instead of one story, I will relate two; which, that I may keep as near to my model as may be (for here it inspires me with uncommon emulation) will both have Friars for their object, and be of the same turn with the above. The first is contained in the book of the _Apologie pour Hérodote_, the Author of which says he heard it from a Gentlewoman of Lorrain, who had been an eye-witness to it. A Monk, one day, preached in a Country Church, upon the subject of Hell. He took much pains to inspire his Congregation with a great aversion for the place, and made as frightful a description of it as he could; but now and then, pretending that proper expressions failed him, he stopped suddenly, and then exclaimed,--In short, Hell is as horrid as the breech of the Bell-ringer of the Parish; which saying, he uncovered the posteriors of the latter, who had placed himself there for that purpose, and had agreed with the Friar to act that farce with him.