28/44 They hang like peas! Another has a pair of bellows and is blowing a fire. A third is tending a plant. He leans his right arm upon four thick volumes, probably 'The Principia,' and he points his left hand to a globe above his head on which the goddess Urania sits; she leans upon another large book. The left hand, which is raised, has lost two fingers. I thought at first that this had been the work of some 'undevout astronomer,' but when I came to 'read up' I found that at one time soldiers were quartered in the abbey, and probably one of them wanted a finger with which to crowd the tobacco into his pipe, and so broke off one. |