[----I must break off my translation for a moment; for if I did not, I know I should no more be able to shut my eyes in bed, than the abbess of _Quedlingberg_ ----It is to tell the reader, that my father never read this passage of _Slawkenbergius_ to my uncle _Toby_, but with triumph------not over my uncle _Toby_, for he never opposed him in it----but over the whole world. --Now you see, brother _Toby_, he would say, looking up, “that christian names are not such indifferent things;” ------had _Luther_ here been called by any other name but Martin, he would have been damn’d to all eternity ------Not that I look upon _Martin_, he would add, as a good name----far from it----’tis something better than a neutral, and but a little----yet little as it is, you see it was of some service to him. My father knew the weakness of this prop to his hypothesis, as well as the best logician could shew him----yet so strange is the weakness of man at the same time, as it fell in his way, he could not for his life but make use of it; and it was certainly for this reason, that though there are many stories in _Hafen Slawkenbergius’s_ Decads full as entertaining as this I am translating, yet there is not one amongst them which my father read over with half the delight------it flattered two of his strangest hypotheses together----his NAMES and his NOSES. ----I will be bold to say, he might have read all the books in the _Alexandrian_ Library, had not fate taken other care of them, and not have met with a book or passage in one, which hit two such nails as these upon the head at one stroke.] The two universities of _Strasburg_ were hard tugging at this affair of _Luther’s_ navigation. The Protestant doctors had demonstrated, that he had not sailed right before the wind, as the Popish doctors had pretended; and as every one knew there was no sailing full in the teeth of it--they were going to settle, in case he had sailed, how many points he was off; whether _Martin_ had doubled the cape, or had fallen upon a lee-shore; and no doubt, as it was an enquiry of much edification, at least to those who understood this sort of NAVIGATION, they had gone on with it in spite of the size of the stranger’s nose, had not the size of the stranger’s nose drawn off the attention of the world from what they were about----it was their business to follow. The abbess of _Quedlingberg_ and her four dignitaries was no stop; for the enormity of the stranger’s nose running full as much in their fancies as their case of conscience----the affair of their placket-holes kept cold--in a word, the printers were ordered to distribute their types----all controversies dropp’d. ’Twas a square cap with a silver tassel upon the crown of it--to a nut-shell--to have guessed on which side of the nose the two universities would split. ’Tis above reason, cried the doctors on one side. ’Tis below reason, cried the others. ’Tis faith, cried one. ’Tis a fiddle-stick, said the other.