[55]: A Love-poem from a Physician.
[56]: The Progress of Beauty.
[57]: The Problem. Lire surtout Examination of certain abuses.
[58]: La vérité chrétienne.
[59]: Persécutions et combats de l'Église primitive.
[60]: They held the universe to be a large suit of clothes, which invests every thing: that the earth is invested by the air; the air is invested by the stars, and the stars are invested by the primum mobile.... What is that which some call land, but a fine coat laced with green? Or the sea but a waistcoat of water-tabby?... You will find how curious journeyman nature has been to trim up vegetable beans. Observe how sparkish a periwig adorns the head of the beech, and what a fine doublet of white satin is worn by the birch.... Is not religion a cloak, honesty a pair of shoes worn out in the dirt, self-love a surtout, vanity a shirt, and conscience a pair of breeches, which, though a cover for lewdness as well as nastiness, is easily slipt down for the service of both?... If certain ermines and furs be placed in a certain position, we style them a judge; and so an apt conjunction of lawn and black satin, we entitle a bishop.
[61]: In this unhappy case they went immediately to consult their father's will, read it over and over, but not a word of a Shoulder-Knot.... After much thought, one of the brothers who happened to be more book-learned than the other two, said he had found an expedient. «It is true, said he, there is nothing in this will, totidem verbis, making mention of Shoulder-Knot; but I dare conjecture we may find them inclusive, or totidem syllabis.—This distinction was immediately approved by all; and so they fell again to examine; but their evil star had so directed the matter that the first syllable was not to be found in the whole writings. Upon which disappointment, he, who found the former evasion, took heart and said: Brothers, there is yet hopes, for though we cannot find them totidem verbis, nor totidem syllabis, I dare engage we shall make them out tertio modo, or totidem litteris. This discovery was also highly commended; upon which they fell once more to the scrutiny, and picked out SHOULDER; when the same planet, enemy to their repose, had wonderfully contrived that a K was not to be found. Here was a weighty difficulty; but the distinguishing brother, now his hand was in, proved by a very good argument that K was a modern illegitimate letter; unknown to the learned ages, nor any where to be found in ancient manuscripts.... Upon which all difficulty vanished; shoulder-knots were made clearly out to be jure paterno, and our three gentlemen swaggered with as large and flaunting ones as the best.
[62]: Next winter a player hired for the purpose by the corporation of fringe-makers, acted his part in a new comedy all covered with silver fringe, and according to the laudable custom gave rise to that fashion. Upon which the brothers consulting their father's will, to their great astonishment found these words. «Item, I charge and command my said three sons to wear no sort of silver fringe upon or about their said coat.» However, after some pause the brother so often mentioned for his erudition, who was well skilled in criticisms, had found in a certain author, which he said would be nameless, that the same word which in the will is called fringe does also signify a broomstick and doubtless ought to have the same interpretation in this paragraph. This another of the brothers disliked, because of that epithet silver which could not, he humbly conceived, in propriety of speech, be reasonably applied to a broom-stick; but it was replied upon him that this epithet was understood in a mythological and allegorical sense. However, he objected again why their father should forbid them to wear a broom-stick on their coats, a caution that seemed unnatural and impertinent; upon which, he was taken up short, as one that spoke irreverently of a mystery, which doubtless was very useful and significant, but ought not to be over-curiously pried into, or nicely reasoned upon.
[63]: Allusions aux assemblées des puritains, à leur prononciation nasale, etc.
First, it is generally affirmed or confessed that learning puffeth men up; and secondly they proved it by the following syllogism: words are but wind; and learning is nothing but words; ergo learning is nothing but wind.—.... This, when blown up to its perfection, ought not to be covetously hoarded up, stifled, or hid under a bushel, but freely communicated to mankind. Upon these reasons and others of equal weight, the wise æolists affirm the gift of belching to be the noblest act of a rational.... creature.... At certain seasons of the year you might behold the priests among them in vast number.... linked together in a circular chain, with every man a pair of bellows applied to his neighbour's breech, by which they blew each other to the shape and size of a tun; and for that reason with great propriety of speech did usually call their bodies their vessels.... and to render these yet more compleat, because the breath of man's life is in his nostrils, therefore the choicest, most edifying, and most enlivening belches were very wisely conveyed through that vehicle, to give them a tincture as they passed.