Panurge, was "subject de nature a une maladie quon appeloyt en ce temps la

Faulte dargent, cest douleur sans pareille,"

though it would be unjust and unwarrantable to suppose that he resembled the same hero, in having sixty-three modes of supplying himself with the needful, "the most honorable of which, and the most common withal, was by way of petty larceny." The similarity would be more apparent, we conceive, in their both having "two hundred and fourteen methods of getting rid of it, over and above what was required to satisfy the necessities of that small orifice which lies below the nose." Yet, if we believe himself, his poverty arose from no contempt for the riches of this world, for he says of himself, that, "never was seen a man who had more anxiety to be a rich man and a king; that he might be enabled to abstain from labour, to make good cheer, to be free from care, to enrich his friends, and all persons of worth and wit." But, says he, "I console myself with the thought, that all this I shall be in the next world, even beyond what I would dare to wish in the present." +

But it is time we should turn from Rabelais to his works. Of the numerous writings, which he left behind him, the greater part were composed between the year 1531 and his death. A catalogue of these we subjoin in a note ;§ with

* Liv. ii., chap. xvi., p. 93.

+ Fin de compte, il anoyt, comme ay dict dessus, soixante et troys manieres de recouurer argent: mais il en anoyt deux cens quatorze de le despendre, hors miz la reparation de dessoubz le nez. Liv. ii., chap. xvii., p. 97. + Liv. i., chap, i., p. 3.

§ We extract our catalogue from the bibliographical notice of the various editions of Rabelais, appended to the edition under review. pp. 395-6. 1. Hippocratis ac Galeni libri aliquot, etc. Lugduni. Gryph. 1532. in-16, 2. Joannis Manardi Ferrariensis epistolarum medicinalium tomus secundus. Lugduni. Gryph. 1532. in-80.

3. Ex reliquiis venerandæ Antiquitatis, Lucii Cuspidii Testamentum: item Contractus Venditionis, antiquis Romanorum temporibus initus. Lugduni. Gryph. 1532. in-80.

4. Almanach pour launce 1533, calculé sus le meridional de la noble cité de Lyon, et sus le climat du royaulme de France; composé par François Rabelais, docteur en medecine, et professeur en astrologie.

5. Joannis Bartholomæi Marliani Mediolanensis topographia antiquæ Romæ. Lyon. Seb. Gryph. 1534. in-80. only edited by Rabelais.

6. Almanah pour lau 1535, calculé sus la noble cité de Lyon, a l'elevation du pole par 45 degrez 15 minutes en latitude, et 26 en longitude. Par M. François Rabelais, docteur en medecine, et medicin du grand hospital. dudict Lyon. ibid. François Juste.

the exception of the Gargantua and Pantagruel, they are of little importance in themselves, and of still less interest in the present day. They never would have given immortality to the name of their author;-his reputation rests entirely upon the DICTZ ET FAICTZ HEROICQUES DE GARGANTUA ET PANTAGRUEL; parts of which appear to have been published previous to the issue of any of his other works. This is indicated by the fact that a passage was quoted from the second book,* in the Champ Fleury of Geoffroy Tory, printed in 1529. All traces of the first editions of the "Sayings and Doings," etc., are lost the earliest known to us is one of the second book, printed in 1533. The remaining books appeared at different times, the third and fourth during the life-time of the author,—the fifth, though perhaps written in 1552, not until 1562, nine years after his death. The work is still left evidently incomplete; and a great part of the last book bears, in our estimation, all the indicia of a spurious production.†

The "Lives of Gargantua and Pantagruel," were probably conceived, and, in great part, composed-at any rate, the first two books were published during the sojourn of Rabe

7. Stratagemes, cest a dire proesses et ruses de guerre du preux et trescelebre cheualier Langey, ou commencement de la tierce guerre Cesarienne; trad; du latin de Fr. Rabelais, par Claude Massuau. Lyon. Seb. Gryph. 1542. The original Latin has never been printed.

8. Almanach pour lau 1546, etc. Item la declaration que signifie le soleil parmy les signes de la natifueté des enfans. Lyon, devant Nostre Dame de Confort.

9. Almanach, ou prognostication pour lau 1548. Lyon, etc.

10. La Sciomachie et festins faictz a Romme ou palays du R. cardinal du Bellay, pour lheureuse naissance de M. d'Orleans. Lyon. Seb. Gryph. 1549. in-80.

11. Almanach et ephemerides pour lau de N. S. I. C. 1550, composé et calculé sus toute l'Europe, par M. Fr. Rabelais, medicin ordinaire de M. C. reuerend cardinal du Bellay. Lyon, etc.

12. Epistres de Mr. François Rabelais, docteur en medecine, escriptes pendent son voyage d'Italie: avec des observations et la vie de l'auteur. Paris. 1651. in-8o.

The passage cited by Tory is this: "A quoy passez vous le temps, vous aultres, messieurs estudians, ondiet Paris? Respondist lescholier: Nous transfretons la sequane on dilucule et crepuscule; nous deambulous par les compites et quadrinyes de lurbe; nous despumous la verbocination latiale; et comme verisimiles amorabondz, captons la beniuolence de lomnijuge, ourniforme, et omnigene sexe feminin." Liv. ii., c. vi., p. 74. See p. 396. The whole passage is a burlesque of the excoriation of the Latin language, then current as a form of euphinism.

+ Consider liv. v., chap. 14, 15, 16, for example. There were only sixteen chapters in the first impression of the fifth book, printed in 1562. There are now forty-seven.

lais at Montpelier. He has himself stated that they were written, by fits and starts, at such leisure moments only as are in general exclusively devoted to the refection of the body. To this mode of composition-in daily scraps and fragments-may, perhaps, be attributed the peculiar looseness of the various parts of the fiction :-one book, or one chapter, following its predecessors in obedience to the requisitions of no preconceived harmony, or compact artistic plan, but each thought and incident having its place assigned to it, just in the same connection in which it first dawned upon the fancy of the author. There is thus no lucid order, no real progression, no development of plot,-neither epic narrative nor dramatic action; but merely a long, though lively tissue of disconnected humours, and unarranged whimsicalities. So far as the proprieties of art are concerned, the first chapter might have been the last, or the last might have been first, without rendering the whole a whit less intelligible, less sprightly, or less welcome. It is not the casket which attracts our attention, but the precious essences within it,we use the illustration of Rabelais himself.t

It will be seen from the dates already mentioned, that Rabelais lived and wrote in the era of the Great Reformation. He was the contemporary of Martin Luther, having been born in the same year with him, 1483, and having survived him only a few years. The influences of that stirring and stormy period, and the circumstances under which he wrote, naturally impressed their characteristics upon his genius. His lot was not cast in the green and shady places,-the pleasant oases of this world's vast history, but in an age of hot and fierce contention, of intellectual struggle, and religious revolution. It was a time when the serious and the sincere were thrown into violently antagonistic positions among themselves; while the weak, the timid, the irresolute, and the negligent, sought refuge with Montaigne in the cool recesses of scepticism, or with Erasmus in an hypocritical assent to old established usages and dominant principles. In the temperament of Rabelais, there was not sufficient earnestness, and, perhaps, not sufficient resolution, to induce him to trust his frail bark to the turbulent tides of religious oppo

* A la composition de ce liure seigneurial je ne, perdy, employui oncques plus ny aultre temps que celluy qui estoyt estably a prendre ma refection corporelle, scauoir est, beuuant et mangeant. Liv. i., Prologe, p. 2.

+ Liv. i. Prologe de l'Autheur, p. 1.

sition, and espouse deliberately and openly the cause of the Reformers, particularly in the state in which France then was; while his natural sagacity, his practical good sense, his profound insight into man and the world, and his intuitive perception of the ridiculous and the absurd, influenced him strongly in their favor, and precluded the possibility of any cordial adherence on his part to the ranks of their timehonoured opponents. He was, indeed, a strenuous enemy of the Romanists, of all papal assumptions, and all monkish devices; and this his writings continually evince. It is a significant fact, that while he mercilessly assails the Romish schemes, he never once holds up to ridicule the Protestants, though they must have presented many salient points open to attack. But he rendered his opposition to the Catholic party the more dangerous, by abiding within the fortifications of their camp;t and, like Lucian, he did much to undermine, by his contemptuous sarcasm, what he would not venture professedly to assault. Martin Luther and Rabelais may perhaps be said-by what Carlyle would term a pretty bold figure of speech-to have been the two opposite poles of the revolutionary movement on the Protestant side:they were both engaged in the mighty work of the Reformation; both, it may be, with equal skill, though unequal zeal, and in very different ways. With the former, all was open, candid, plain, fearless, straight-forward, earnest and energetic; with the latter were the cunning of the fox, and the wisdom of the serpent; -we cannot add the innocence of the dove, for, if we exonerate him from the blame of deliberate hypocrisy, we are compelled to acknowledge that his most efficient instrument was dissimulation. The direct contrary, in many respects, of both these great men, was their common contemporary, the Roman Catholic Reformer, Ignatius Loyola.

The wars of the Guises are well known. Francis I., in the latter years of his reign, persecuted the Protestants at home, though allied with those abroad. Thuani Hist. lib. i. The religious persecutions were much more bitter in France than elsewhere. Mosheim. prol. iii., p. 171, and see Dr. Murdock's valuable notes.

+ Rabelais was suspected and accused of heresy, p. 201, but it was not till 1st March, 1552, that an injunction was issued to restrain the uttering of the fourth book; p. 410.

The counter Reformation in the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church, has been well set forth by Ranke. Besides Loyola, we need only allude to the Theatines and the Pontificate of Caraffa.

$ Luther, b. 10 Nov. 1483, d. 18 Feb. 1546; Rabelais, b. 1483, d. 9 April, 1553; Loyola, b. 1491, d. 31 July, 1556.

There may appear but slight contrasts, and still slighter analogies between these remarkable individuals; and we may appear to be doing outrage to all probability, when we bring into so close a juxta-position three persons marked by such notable dissimilarities of character. The levity and heedlessness of Rabelais, are apparently at utter variance with the tumultuous and impassioned energy of Luther, and the steady, but still more ardent impetuosity of the Spanish enthusiast. Yet, under the mirth of Rabelais, there is much deep significance,—latet anguis in herba, as Lord Thurlow might have said,—(for here the blundering quotation would have been expressive.*) There is usually a healthy seriousness of thought on important subjects, notwithstanding it be tricked out in most quaint guise, and suffered to break forth in such anomalous forms. Moreover, it is to be remembered, that we ought never to limit the meaning of Rabelais to that slight modicum of significance, which is addressed to the ear. He speaks fully, indeed, only to those already initiated into the Pantagruelistic Mysteries, but for them he has other tones, and his words are designed to bear an esoteric interpretation. He has been called, and very happily, we think, "the great French Aristophanes ;"† but if he was Aristophanic in the character of his genius,—in his humour, his wit, his sarcasm, his coarse buffoonery, his low and indecent slang, his mountebank antics, his perfect mastery of all the uses and abuses of his own tongue, and his riotous employment of both, he was no less Aristophanic in the deep import of his whimsical vagaries, in the elevation of his aims, and the steady perseverance with which he strove to effect them by all the powers of his good-humoured, but withering, ridicule. To him we may apply the expression of Goëthe, "Mad but wise." But the true motto of the Gargantua and Pantagruel is to be sought in the words of the sententious Pindar:

The singularly inappropriate use of this quotation, was made by Thurlow when Lord Chancellor. "The fact," said he, "is as plain as the nose upon your face, latet anquis in herba."

+ Thomas Mitchell, apud Not. ad Aristoph. Ran. Ed. suæ.