Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 3).pdf/181

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

[175]

How the communication was conveyed into Slawkenbergius's sensorium,—so that Slawkenbergius should know whose finger touch'd the key,—and whose hand it was that blew the bellows,—as Hafen Slawkenbergius has been dead and laid in his grave above fourscore and ten years,—we can only raise conjectures.

Slawkenbergius was play'd upon, for aught I know, like one of Whitfield's disciples,—that is, with such a distinct intelligence, Sir, of which of the two masters it was, that had been practising upon his instrument,—as to make all reasoning upon it needless.

—For in the account which Hafen Slawkenbergius gives the world of his motives and occasions for writing, and spending so many years of his life uponthis