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hearing of several persons there présent, "that he was extremely obliged to the widow Dainty, and that he should never be able sufficiently to express his gratitude." The prosecutor urged, that this might blast her reputation, and that it was in effect a boasting of favours which he had never received. The prisoner seemed to be much astonished at the construction which was put upon his words,and said, "that he meant nothing by them, but that the widow had befriended him in a lease, and was very kind to his younger sister." The jury finding him a little weak in his understanding, without going out of the court, brought in their verdict ignoramus.

Ursula Goodenough was accused by the lady Betty Wou'dbe, for having said, that she, the lady Betty Wou'dbe, was painted. The prisoner brought seve ral persons of good credit to witness to her reputa. tion, and proved by undeniable evidences, that she was never at the place where the words were said to have been uttered. The Censor, observing the behaviour of the prosecutor, found reason to believe, that she had indicted the prisoner for no other reason but to make her complexion be taken notice of, which indeed was very fresh and beautiful: he there. fore, asked the offender with a very stern voice, how she could presume to spread so groundless a report? and whether she saw any colours in the lady Wou'dbe's face that could procure credit to such a falsehood? Do you see," says he, 66 any lilies or roses in her cheeks, any bloom, any probability?" The prosecutor, not able to bear such language auy longer, told him, "that he talked like a blind old fool, and that she was ashamed to have entertained any opinion of his wisdom :" but she was put to si. lence, and sentenced to wear her mask for five months, and not to presume to shew her face until the town should be empty."

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Benjamin Buzzard, esquire, was indicted for having told the lady Everbloom at a public ball, that she looked very well for a woman of her years. The prisoner not denying the fact, and persisting before the court that he looked upon it as a compliment, the jury brought him in non compos mentis.

"The court then adjourned to Monday the eleventh instant." CHARLES LILLIE,

Copia vera.

N° 260. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1710.

Non cuicunque datum est habere nasum.

MARTIAL

The nose, 'tis said, shows both our scorn and pride:
And yet that feature is to some deny'd.

R. WYNNE.

From my own Apartment, December 6.

We have a very learned and elaborate dissertation upon thumbs in Montaigne's Essays, and another upon ears in the "Tale of a Tub." I am here going to write one upon Noses, having chosen for my text the following verses out of Hudibras:

So learned Taliacotius from

The brawny part of porter's bum
Cut supplemental noses, which
Lasted as long as parent breech;
But when the date of nock was out,
Uff dropp'd the sympathetic snout.

Notwithstanding that there is nothing obscene in natural knowledge, and that I intend to give as little offence as may be to readers of a well-bred imagi nation; I must, for my own quiet, desire the critics, who in all things have been famous for good noses, to refrain from the lecture of this curious Tract, These gentlemen were formerly marked out and distinguished by the little rhinocerical nose, which was always looked upon as an instrument of derision; and which they were used to cock, toss, or draw up in a contemptuous manner, upon reading the works of their ingenious contemporaries. It is not, there-t fore, for this generation of men that I write the present transaction,

-Minus aptus acutis

Naribus horum hominum

Unfit

For the brisk petulance of modern wit.

FRANCIS.

but for the sake of some of my philosophical friends in the Royal Society, who peruse discourses of this nature with a becoming gravity, and a desire of improving by them.

Many are the opinions of learned men concerning the rise of that fatal distemper, which has always taken a particular pleasure in venting its spight upon the nose. I have seen a little burlesque poem in Italian, that gives a very pleasant account of this matter. The fable of it runs thus: Mars, the god of war, having served during the siege of Naples in the shape of a French colonel, received a visit one night from Venus, the goddess of love, who had been always his professed mistress and admirer. The poem says, she came to him in the disguise of a suta

Militat omnis amans, habet et sua castra Cupido ;
Pontice, crede mihi, milital omnis umans.

OVID Amor. El. ix. 1.

The toils of love require a warrior's art;
And every lover plays the soldier's part,

It is reported that Taliacotius had at one time in his house, twelve German counts, nineteen French marquisses, and a hundred Spanish caviliers, he sides one solitary English esquire, of whom more hereafter. Though the doctor had the monopoly of noses in his own hands, he is said not to have been unreasonable. Indeed, if a man had occasion for a high Roman nose, he must go to the price of it. A carbuncle nose likewise bore an excessive rate; but for your ordinary short turned-up noses, of which there was the greatest consumption, they cost little or nothing; at least the purchasers thought so, who would have been content to have paid much dearer for them rather than to have gone without them.

The sympathy betwixt the nose and its parent was very extraordinary. Hudibras has told us, that when the porter died, the nose dropped of course, in which case it was always usual to return the nose, in order to have it interred with its first owner. The nose was likewise affected by the pain, as well as death of the original proprietor. An eminent instance of this nature happened to three Spaniards, whose noses were all made out of the same piece of brawn. They found them one day shoot and swell extremely; upon which they sent to know how the porter did and heard, upon enquiry,that the parent of the noses had been severely kicked the day be

fore, and that the porter kept his bed on account of the bruises which it had received. This was highly resented by the Spaniards, who found out the per. son that had used the porter so unmercifully, and treated him in the same manner, as if the indignity had been done to their own noses. In this and se, veral other cases it might be said, that the porters led the gentlemen by the nose.

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On the other hand if any thing went amiss with the nose, the porter felt the effects of it; insomuch, that it was generally articled with the patient, that he should not only abstain from all his old courses, but should,on no pretence whatsoever,smell pepper, or eat mustard; on which occasion, the part where the incision had been made, was seized with unspeakable twinges and prickings.

The Englishman I before mentioned was so very irregular, and relapsed so frequently into the distemper which at first brought him to the learned Taliacotius, that in the space of two years he wore out five noses; and by that means so tormented the porters, that if he would have given five hundred pounds for a nose, there was not one of them that would accommodate him. This young gentleman was born of honest parents, and passed his first years in fox-hunting; but accidentally quitting the woods, and coming up to London, he was so charmed with the beauties of the playhouse, that he had not been in town two days before he got the misfortune which carried off this part of his face. He used to be called in Germany "the Englishman of five nosos," and "the gentleman that had thrice as many noses as he had ears." Such was the raillery of those times.

I shall close this Paper with an admonition to the

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