Under these circumstances, our own time will not be altogether thrown away, nor the patience of our readers unprofitably tired, while we sketch the life of Rabelais, and examine cursorily his Gargantua and Pantagruel, the two parts of an unfinished whole. To a large majority, the subject will have all the interest of entire novelty to recommend it, and the old lovers of Rabelais will not be displeased to be reminded of those passages of rich and exuberant humour, over which they have often lingered and laughed before.

As we have no disposition to enter into a critical investigation of the state of the French language, at the period when Rabelais wrote, nor to determine between the various readings of the text, nor yet to confirm or confute the farfetched and conjectural explications of incomprehensible allusions, we can dispense, for the present, with the century of different editions, which have been devoted to the promulgation and elucidation of Alcofribas Nasier, Abstracteur de Quinte Essence, etc., etc., etc.* Le Duchat and D'Alibon will not, therefore, inconvenience us by their absence, though we may regret the want of the able and elegant edition of 'Le Bibliophile Jacob: yet the one, (by De L'Aulnay?) whose title forms our text, will be amply sufficient for a hurried and desultory examination of an author, always enthusiastically admired by those familiar with his racy productions.

François Rabelais was born in 1483, at Chinon, a little village of Touraine, the garden of France,t-(now in the department of Indre-et-Loire,)-almost in the heart of the kingdom. He was the son of Thomas Rabelays, Sieur de la Devinière, according to some accounts a publican, accord-' ing to others an apothecary. But whatever the origin of Francis may have been, his education was not neglected; and in the convent of La Bâmette, at Angers, where he was sent to school, he was thrown into close contact and intimacy with many persons, afterwards eminent in the Church, the State, and in Letters. Among these were the brothers Du Bellay, well known to the curious reader of history, one of whom, honored in time with the Cardinal's hat, remained to the end his firm friend and generous protector, and fre

* This is the nom-de-guerre, in which Rabelais delighted, and under which he wrote. Alcofribas Nasier is the anagram of François Rabelais; the 'Abstracteur de Quinte Essence, etc.' is his own addition.

Rabelais somewhere applies this epithet to Touraine. De Vigny, in his Cinq Mars, does the same. It is a recognized distinction in France.

quently shielded him from that spiritual vengeance, which his erratic genius and wild humour at times so recklessly tempted. It seems probable, that, on more than one occasion, if he had not been sheltered beneath the wings of his friends in the hierarchy, he would have forfeited his life to ecclesiastical wrath, and expiated the sallies of his wit at the stake, and we cannot say that the provocation, which he gave, was slight.

Towards the commencement of the sixteenth century, Rabelais entered, at an early age, into the Order of the Cordeliers; and, at this time, he was no less remarkable for his industry and erudition, than for his buffoonery and humour. A characteristic anecdote is related of this period of his life: Rabelais indulged in one of those practical jokes, to which he was always much inclined, but on this occasion his freak was nearly attended with the most serious consequences, which might have silenced that full tide of overflowing humour, which afterwards delighted the world with the inimitable Hysteryes of Gargantua and Pantagruel.

Rabelais had taken the cowl in the monastery of Fontenay-le-Comte: and on a certain festival day, in honour of St. Francis, the patron of the Cordeliers, when the peasants of the surrounding country were flocking in to prostrate themselves before the shrine of the saint, he conceived the hardy design of removing from its place the image which was to be the object of their pious adoration, substituting himself as a living impersonation instead of the dead stone, and thus, in his borrowed character, appropriating to himself their reverential addresses. The conception and the execution went, with him, hand in hand. The sacrilegious jest at first succeeded; but his gravity, never superabundant, was soon so overpowered by his sense of the comic situation in which he had placed himself, that he could not sustain the mute character he had assumed. His half-smothered laughter betrayed him: the indignant friars tore him from the consecrated niche, and made him bitterly expiate, under the lashes of their cords, this profanely practical joke upon their pious mummeries. Nor did the punishment end here: the delinquent was put in pace, and condemned for the rest of his days to the unsavoury diet of bread and water, that he might be brought, by such lean fare, to a sincere repentance for his improper and ill-timed pleasantry. He was rescued, however, from this 'durance vile,' by the kindly

interposition of some influential friends; and, being heartily tired of the Brothers of St. Francis, from his painful experience of their tender mercies, he even obtained permission of the crafty, and not too pious Clement VII., to abandon the Order of the Cordeliers, though he had been admitted to the priesthood among them; whereupon, he joined the Fraternity of St. Benedict, whose formulary he professed in the Abbey of Maillezais.

But, to quote his own favourite adage, cucullus non facit monachum. The disposition of Rabelais was little calculated for the restraints of a monastic life; he had received the tonsure, but his heart remained still uncircumcised; he had worn the cowl, but he made a very indifferent monk notwithstanding. He did not remain long with his new brethren; but, after wandering up and down the world for several years, at length came to Montpelier to study the profession of medicine in its celebrated school. The only benefit which he appears to have derived from his sojourn at Maillezais, was the acquaintance and friendship of Godfrey D'Estissac, Bishop of the Diocese, to whom he addressed his Letters from Rome, and dedicated his edition of the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, published at Lyons in 1532.* Rabelais seems to have passed through his course of medical study with considerable distinction; for he became a lecturer in the college of Montpelier, to a crowded auditory,† upon subjects connected with his new vocation; his portrait was publicly preserved, and honours are said to be still paid to his memory in that academy. He also reflected credit on his profession by the learning and ability exhibited in the edition of Hippocrates just referred to.

The roving Friar, now a Doctor of Medicine, did not apparently remain any length of time at Montpelier, for in 1532, we find him at Lyons, which city he left two years after, to accompany John De Bellay on his embassy from Francis I. to the Papal Court. To this period belong most of the anecdotes related of him. They are, indeed, merely

The family of D'Estissac were great patrons of literature in that day. Montaigne addressed to Madame D'Estissac the eighth chapter of the second book of his Essays,-a singular disquisition, by the way, to be dedicated to a lady, as any one will see who will take the trouble to read it.

+ Quum anno superiore Monspessuli Aphorismos Hippocratis, et deinceps Galeni artem medicam frequenti auditorio publice enarrarem, etc. Epist. Nuncup. Aph. Hippocr. Sugduni. Gryph. 1532. 16mo. Ed. Hujus. p. 384.

loose traditions, perhaps without any real foundation, but they accord so well with the character of him, to whom they have been attributed, that, if they are not true, they might have been. Amongst others, there is one, which illustrates at once the wildness of his humour, the keenness of his sarcasm, his inclination towards the principles of the Reformation, and, at the same time, contains an allusion to his intimate relations with the Protestants of France. The story runs thus the Pope, having one day told him to demand some favour, Rabelais requested excommunication. The pontifical court stood aghast with amazement at this singular and blasphemous petition. He was required to give the reasons for his strange and novel request. "Holy Father," said he, "I am a poor Frenchman, from the little village of Chinon, which has been frequently visited of late with the faggot many of my relations, and other worthy people, have already been burnt there. Now, be it known to you, that, as I came towards Rome, we were detained by the cold at a wretched hut in the Tarentaise, where a poor woman, after a vain attempt to kindle a fire for us, exclaimed: 'Since the wood won't burn, it must, in good sooth, have been excommunicated by the Pope's own tongue.' Therefore, if your Holiness will only excommunicate me, I shall be in no danger henceforward of stake and faggot."* The rudeness and temerity of this reply naturally gave offence: Rabelais was compelled to leave Rome, and return with all possible speed to France. Not long after, however, he paid a second visit to the Holy See, on which occasion he succeeded in pacifying the Pope, and obtained from him the remission of his sins, and absolution for the unceremonious manner in which he had deserted the Benedictines of Maillezais. The pardon, however, seems to have been conditional, and accompanied with a requirement that he should again assume the duties of his clerical vocation; for, upon his final return to France, probably about 1536, he entered into the Monastery of St. Maur-des-Fossés. Here he abode until 1545, when Cardinal Du Bellay appointed him to the Curacy of Meudon, which he held till his death, and immortalized by his name, after having, no doubt, enacted to admiration therein, the part of his own Friar Jean des Entom

There is another story of like audacity in the Notice sur Rabelais, p. vi. which we will not insert here.

*

meures. He died in the 70th year of his age, on the 9th of April, 1553, in the Rue-des-Jardins-St.-Paul, at Paris, which was only two leagues distant from his usual and official residence. If any credit is to be attached to the traditionary account of his death, his native character flashed forth, in his last moments, with the same recklessness and wild humour, which had distinguished his career through life. Shortly before he expired, he had himself carefully wrapped up in his cloak or domino, while he repeated the text, "Beati qui moriuntur in Domino," making a profane équivoque upon the words of Scripture. While he was lying in articulo mortis, a page came from the Cardinal Du Bellay to be informed of his state. "Tell my lord," said the dying wit, "the condition in which you see me: I depart to seek a great may-be. He has scaled the breach,-tell him to hold on where he is;-for yourself, you will always be a fool. Drop the curtain-the farce is over." So died Rabelais, full of years and of fame, but hardened in scepticism, which may have been, nevertheless, the comparatively harmless incredulity of the lips, engendered by the force of circumstances, in a mind oscillating between conflicting systems of theology, and fostered into the habit of regarding only the ridiculous side of every thing,-rather than that confirmed infidelity of the heart, which is at once the parent and the offspring of atheism. Rabelais was buried in the cemetery of St. Paul, close by the spot where he died: his body was laid at the foot of a tree, long preserved with jealous care out of respect to his memory: but it is little to the credit of the French people, that, while a thousand monuments to mere vain-glory, or undeserved reputation, crowd their capital, no sufficient honours have ever yet been paid to the grave, in which repose the ashes of the most remarkable, and certainly the most original of all the authors of France.

Any attempt to form a precise estimate of the character

* Brother John des Entommeures has been supposed by some of the commentators, without much reason, to represent the Cardinal de Lorraine ; by others, the Cardinal Du Bellay; by Le Molteux, the Cardinal de Châtillon; and by Ménage, Buinard, Prior of Sermaise in Anjou. pp. 430—1, 623.

+ Un grand peut-être, an expression which it is hazardous to translate. Hallam, who is by no means partial to Rabelais, remarks of his principal work, that, "few (books) have more the stamp of originality, and show a more redundant fertility, always of language, and sometimes of imagination," etc. Hallam, Hist. Lit. etc., vol. i., p. 230. Am. Ed.