companion the Burgermeister justly expostulated with me, in a low voice, as we walked round behind the altar: "In Heaven's name, are you an ordained Preacher of the Gospel, or a Merry-Andrew? Is it Satan that is laughing out of you?" ------------------------ 198. The Populace and Cattle grow giddy on the edge of no abyss; with the Man it is otherwise. 11. The Golden Calf of Self-love soon waxes to be a burning Phalaris's Bull, which reduces its father and adorer to ashes. 103. The male Beau-crop, which surrounds the female Roses and Lilies, must (if I rightly comprehend its flatteries) most probably presuppose in the fair the manners of the Spaniards and Italians, who offer any valuable, by way of present, to the man who praises it excessively. ------------------------ "Ah, Heaven! who else?" said I; and this being over, I finished my devotions in a more becoming fashion. From the church (I now return to the Flätz one) I proceeded to the Tiger Inn, and dined at the _table-d'hôte_, being at no time shy of encountering men. Previous to the second course, a waiter handed me an empty plate, on which, to my astonishment, I noticed a French verse scratched in with a fork, containing nothing less than a lampoon on the Commandant of Flätz. Without ceremony, I held out the plate to the company; saying, I had just, as they saw, got this lampooning cover presented to me, and must request them to bear witness that I had nothing to do with the matter. An officer directly changed plates with me. During the fifth course, I could not but admire the chemico-medical ignorance of the company; for a hare, out of which a gentleman extracted and exhibited several grains of shot, that is to say, therefore, of lead alloyed with arsenic, and then cleaned by hot vinegar, did, nevertheless, by the spectators (I expected) continue to be pleasantly eaten. ------------------------ 199. But not many existing Governments, I believe, do behead under pretext of trepanning; or sew (in a more choice allegory) the people's lips together, under pretence of sewing the harelips in them. ------------------------ In the course of our table-talk, one topic seized me keenly by my weak side, I mean by my honor. The law custom of the city happened to be mentioned, as it affects natural children; and I learned that here a loose girl may convert any man she pleases to select into the father of her brat, simply by her oath. "Horrible!" said I, and my hair stood on end. "In this way may the worthiest head of a family, with a wife and children, or a clergyman lodging in the Tiger, be stript of honor and innocence, by any wicked chambermaid whom he may have seen, or who may have seen him, in the course of her employment!" An elderly officer observed: "But will the girl swear herself to the Devil so readily?"