Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 3).pdf/188

 ing kings (I know not which)—and that except in the slip he made in his story of Taliacotius's noses, and his manner of setting them on,—was esteemed by the whole college of physicians at that time, as more knowing in matters of noses, than any one who had ever taken them in hand.

Now Ambrose Paræus convinced my father, that the true and efficient cause of what had engaged so much the attention of the world, and upon which Prignitz and Scroderus had wasted so much learning and fine parts,—was neither this nor that,—but that the length and goodness of the nose was owing simply to the softness and flaccidity in the nurse's breast,—as the flatness and shortness of puisne noses was, to the firmness and elastic repulsion of the same organ of nutri-