The dean of _Strasburg_, the prebendaries, the capitulars and
domiciliars (capitularly assembled in the morning to consider the case
of butter’d buns) all wished they had followed the nuns of saint
_Ursula’s_ example.------
In the hurry and confusion everything had been in the night before, the
bakers had all forgot to lay their leaven--there were no butter’d buns
to be had for breakfast in all _Strasburg_--the whole close of the
cathedral was in one eternal commotion----such a cause of restlessness
and disquietude, and such a zealous inquiry into the cause of that
restlessness, had never happened in _Strasburg_, since _Martin Luther_,
with his doctrines, had turned the city upside down.
If the stranger’s nose took this liberty of thrusting himself thus into
the dishes[4.3] of religious orders, &c., what a carnival did his nose
make of it, in those of the laity! --’tis more than my pen, worn to the
stump as it is, has power to describe; tho’ I acknowledge, (_cries
_Slawkenbergius_, with more gaiety of thought than I could have expected
from him_) that there is many a good simile now subsisting in the world
which might give my countrymen some idea of it; but at the close of such
a folio as this, wrote for their sakes, and in which I have spent the
greatest part of my life----tho’ I own to them the simile is in being,
yet would it not be unreasonable in them to expect I should have either
time or inclination to search for it? Let it suffice to say, that the
riot and disorder it occasioned in the _Strasburgers’_ fantasies was so
general--such an overpowering mastership had it got of all the faculties
of the _Strasburgers’_ minds--so many strange things, with equal
confidence on all sides, and with equal eloquence in all places, were
spoken and sworn to concerning it, that turned the whole stream of all
discourse and wonder towards it--every soul, good and bad--rich and
poor--learned and unlearned----doctor and student----mistress and
maid----gentle and simple----nun’s flesh and woman’s flesh, in
_Strasburg_ spent their time in hearing tidings about it--every eye in
_Strasburg_ languished to see it----every finger----every thumb in
_Strasburg_ burned to touch it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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