"Italy being taken, behold Naples, Calabria, Apulia, and Sicily all at your mercy, and Malta into the bargain. I should like to see those funny knights, formerly of Rhodes, resist you! if it were only to examine their water." "I should like," said Picrochole, "to go to Loretto." "No, no," said they, "that will be on the way back. Thence we shall take Candia, Cyprus, Rhodes, and the Cyclades, and make a set at Morea. We shall get it at once. By St. Treignan, God keep Jerusalem! for the soldan is nothing in power to you." "Shall I," said he, "then rebuild the Temple of Solomon?" "Not yet," said they, "wait a little. Be not so hasty in your enterprises."
And so with the most meticulous exactness (Rabelais' geography isirreproachable, and he carefully avoids the cheap expedient of makingSpadassin and Merdaille blunder) and the sagest citations of _Festinalente_, they take him through Asia Minor to the Euphrates and Arabia,while the other army (that which has annihilated Grandgousier) comesround by the northern route, sweeping all Europe from Brittany and theBritish Isles to Constantinople, where the great rendezvous is made andthe universal empire established, Picrochole graciously giving hisadvisers Syria and Palestine as their fiefs.
"Pretty much like our own days," said Mr. Rigmarole. Have we not heardsomething very like this lately, as "Berlin to Baghdad," if not "Calaisto Calcutta"? And even if we had not, would not the sense and the satireof it be delectable? A great deal has been left out: the chapter is, forRabelais, rather a long one. The momentary doubt of the usuallyundoubting Picrochole as to what they shall drink in the desert, allayedat once by a beautiful scheme of commissariat camels and elephants,[99]which would have done credit to the most modern A.S.C., is very capital.There is, indeed, an unpleasant Echephron[100] who points the old moralof Cineas to Pyrrhus himself. But Picrochole rebuffs him with theinvaluable _Passons oultre_, and closes the discussion by anticipatingHenri Quatre (who, no doubt, learnt the phrase from him), crying, "_Quim'aime, si me suive!_" and ordering all haste in the war.
It is possible that, here or earlier, thenot-quite-so-gentle-as-he-is-traditionally-called reader may ejaculate,"This is all true enough; but it is all very well known, and does notneed recapitulation." Is this quite so certain? No doubt at one timeEnglishmen did know their Rabelais well. Southey did, for instance, andso, according to the historian of Barsetshire, did, in the nextgeneration, Archdeacon Grantly. More recently my late friend Sir WalterBesant spent a great deal of pains on Master Francis, and mainly owingto his efforts there existed for some years a Rabelais Club (alreadyreferred to), which left some pleasant memories. But _is_ it quite socertain that the average educated Englishman can at once distinguishEudemon from Epistemon, give a correct list of the various answers toPanurge's enquiries as to the probable results of his marriage, relatewhat happened when (as glanced at above and returned to later) _nouspassasmes oultre_, and say what the adorable Quintessence admitted toher dainty lips besides second intentions? I doubt it very much. Evenspecial students of the Great Book, as in other cases, have too oftenallowed themselves to be distracted from the pure enjoyment of it byidle questions of the kinds above mentioned and others--questions ofdates and names and places, of origins and borrowings andimitations--questions the sole justification of which, from the genuinePantagruelian point of view, is that their utter dryness inevitablysuggests the cries--the Morning Hymn and the Evening Voluntary of thebook itself--_A boire!_ and _Trinq_.
But, even were this not so, a person who has undertaken, wisely orunwisely, to write the history of the French Novel is surely entitled tolay some stress on what seems to him the importance of this its firsteminent example. At any rate he proposes _not_ to _passer oultre_, butto stick to the line struck out, and exhibit, in reasonable detail, thevarieties of novel-matter and manner contained in the book.
[Sidenote: The peace and the Abbey of Thelema.]
The conclusion of _Gargantua_--after the victor has addressed a _concio_to the vanquished, has mildly punished the originators of the trouble orthose he could catch (Spadassin and Merdaille having run away "six hoursbefore the battle") by setting them to work at his newly establishedprinting-press, and has distributed gifts and estates to hisfollowers--may be one of the best known parts of the whole book, but isnot of the most strictly novel character, though it has suggested atleast one whole novel and parts or passages of others. The "Abbey ofThelema"--the home of the order of _Fay ce que vouldras_--is, if not adevout, a grandiose imagination, and it gives occasion for someadmirable writing. But it is one of the purest exercises of "purpose,"and one of the least furnished with incident or character, to be foundin Rabelais. In order to introduce it, he may even be thought guilty ofwhat is extremely rare with him, a fault of "keeping." He avoids thisfault surprisingly in the contrasted burlesque and serious chronicles ofGrandgousier and Gargantua himself, as well as in the expanded contrastof Pantagruel and Panurge. Yet the heartiest admirer of "Friar John ofthe Funnels" (or "Collops," for there is a schism on this point) mayfail to see in him a suitable or even a possible Head for an assemblageof gallant gentlemen and stately ladies (both groups being alsoaccomplished scholars) like the Thelemites. But Rabelais, likeShakespeare, had small care for small objections. He wanted to sketch aParadise of Anti-Monkery, and for this he wanted an Anti-Abbot. FriarJohn was the handiest person, and he took him. But it is worth notingthat the Abbot of Thelema never afterwards appears as such, or in theslightest relation to this miniature but most curious and interestingexample of the Renaissance fancy for imaginary countries, cities,institutions, with its splendours of architecture and decoration, itsluxurious but not loose living, its gallantry and its learning, itsgorgeous dress, its polished manners (the Abbot must have had sometrouble to learn them), and its "inscriptions and enigmas" in versewhich is not quite so happy as the prose. One would not cut it out ofthe book for anything, and parallels to it (not merely of the kind abovereferred to) have found and may find place in other books of fiction.But it is only a sort of chantry, in the Court of the Gentiles too, ofthe mighty Temple of the Novel.
[Sidenote: _Pantagruel_ I. The contrasted youth.]
What it was exactly that made Rabelais "double," as it were, on_Gargantua_ in the early books of _Pantagruel_[101] it would probably beidle to enquire. His deliberate mention in the Prologue of some of themost famous romances (with certain others vainly to be sought now or atany time) might of course most easily be a mere red herring. It may be,that as _Gargantua_ was not entirely of his own creation, he determinedto "begin at the beginning" in his original composition. But it matterslittle or nothing. We have, once more, a burlesque genealogy with knownpersons--Nimrod, Goliath, Polyphemus, etc. etc.--entangled in a chain ofimaginaries, one of the latter, Hurtaly, forming the subject of a solemndiscussion of the question why he is not received among the crew of theArk. The unfortunate concomitants of the birth of Pantagruel--which isfatal to his mother Badebec--contrast with the less chequered history ofGargantua and Gargamelle, while the mixed sorrow and joy of Gargantua athis wife's death and his son's birth completes this contrast.Pantagruel, though quite as amiable as his father, if not more so, hasin infancy the natural awkwardnesses of a giant, and a hairy gianttoo--devouring cows whole instead of merely milking them, and tearing topieces an unfortunate bear who only licked his infant chops. As was saidabove, he has no wild-oats period of education like his father's, buthis company is less carefully chosen than that of Gargantua in the daysof his reformation, and gives his biographer opportunities for hissharpest satire.
First we have (taken, as everybody is supposed now to know, fromGeoffrey Tory, but improved) the episode of the Limousin scholar withhis "pedantesque"[102] deformation of French and Latin at once, till thegiant takes him by the throat and he cries for mercy in the strongestmeridional brogue.[103] Then comes the famous catalogue of the Libraryof Saint Victor, a fresh attack on scholastic and monastic degeneracy,and a kind of joining hands (Ortuinus figures) with the German guerrillaagainst the _Obscuri_, and then a long and admirabl
e letter fromGargantua, whence we learn that Grandgousier is dead, and that his sonis now the sagest of monarchs, who has taken to read Greek, and shows nomemory of his governesses or his earlier student days. And then againcomes Panurge.
[Sidenote: Panurge.]
Many doubtful things have been said about this most remarkablepersonage. He has been fathered upon the Cingar of Folengo, which is toomuch of a compliment to that creation of the great Macaronic, andFalstaff has been fathered upon him, which is distinctly unfair toFalstaff. Sir John has absolutely nothing of the ill-nature whichcharacterises both Cingar and Panurge; and Panurge is an actual andcontemptible coward, while many good wits have doubted whether Falstaffis, in the true sense, a coward at all. But Panurge is certainly onething--the first distinct and striking _character_ in prose fiction.Morally, of course, there is little to be said for him, except that,when he has no temptations to the contrary, he is a "good fellow"enough. As a human example of _mimesis_ in the true Greek sense, not of"imitation" but of "fictitious creation," he is, once more, the firstreal character in prose fiction--the ancestor, in the literary sense, ofthe mighty company in which he has been followed by the similarcreations of the masters from Cervantes to Thackeray. The fantasticcolouring, and more than colouring, of the whole book affects him, ofcourse, more than superficially. One could probably give some not quiteabsurd guesses why Rabelais shaped him as he did--presented him as avery naughty but intensely clever child, with the monkey element inhumanity thrown into utmost prominence. But it is better not to do so.Panurge has some Yahooish characteristics, but he is not a Yahoo--infact, there is no misanthropy in Rabelais.[104] He is not merely impish(as in his vengeance on the lady of Paris), but something worse thanimpish (as in that on Dindenault); and yet one cannot call him diabolic,because he is so intensely human. It is customary, and fairly correct,to describe his ethos as that of understanding and wit wholly divorcedfrom morality, chivalry, or religion; yet he is never Mephistophelian.If one of the hundred touches which make him a masterpiece is to besingled out, it might perhaps be the series of rapturous invitations tohis wedding which he gives to his advisers while he thinks their advicefavourable, and the limitations of enforced politeness which he appendswhen the unpleasant side of their opinions turns up. And it may perhapsbe added that one of the chief reasons for believing heartily in thelast Book is the delectable and unimprovable contrast which La Quinteand her court of intellectual fantastry present to this picture ofintellectual materialism.
[Sidenote: Short view of the sequels in Book II.]
It was impossible that such a figure should not to a certain extentdwarf others; but Rabelais, unlike some modern character-mongers, neverlets his psychology interfere with his story. After a few episodes, thechief of which is the great sign-duel of Thaumast and Panurge himself,the campaign against the Dipsodes at once enables Pantagruel to displayhimself as a war-like hero of romance, permits him fantastic exploitsparallel to his father's, and, by installing Panurge in a lordship ofthe conquered country and determining him, after "eating his corn inthe blade," to "marry and settle," introduces the larger and mostoriginal part of the whole work--the debates and counsellings on themarriage in the Third Book, and, after the failure of this, the voyageto settle the matter at the Oracle of the Bottle in the Fourth andFifth. This "plot," if it may be called so, is fairly central andcontinuous throughout, but it gives occasion for the most surprising"alarums and excursions," variations and divagations, of the author'sinexhaustible humour, learning, inventive fertility, and never-failingfaculty of telling a tale. If the book does sometimes in a fashion "hopforty paces in the public street," and at others gambade in a lessdecorous fashion even than hopping, it is also Cleopatresque in itsabsolute freedom from staleness and from tedium.
[Sidenote: _Pantagruel_ II. (Book III.)
The marriage of Panurge and the consultations on it.]
The Third Book has less of apparent variety in it, and less of whatmight be called striking incident, than any of the others, being all butwholly occupied by the enquiries respecting the marriage of Panurge. Butthis gives it a "unity" which is of itself attractive to some tastes,while the delightful sonnet to the spirit Of Marguerite,
Esprit abstraict, ravy et ecstatique,
(perhaps the best example of _rhetoriqueur_ poetry), at the beginning,and the last sight (except in letters) of Gargantua at the end, with thecurious _coda_ on the "herb Pantagruelion" (the ancestor of Joseph deMaistre's famous eulogy of the Executioner), give, as it were, handleand top to it in unique fashion. But the body of it is the thing. Thepreliminary outrunning of the constable--had there been constables inSalmigondin, but they probably knew the story of the Seigneur of Baschetoo well--and the remarkable difference between the feudatory and hissuperior on the subject of debt, serve but as a whet to the project ofmatrimony which the debtor conceives. Of course, Panurge is the verylast man whom a superficial observer of humanity--the very first whom asomewhat profounder student thereof--would take as a marrying one. He is"a little failed"; he thinks to rest himself while not foregoing hisformer delights, and he shuts eyes and ears to the proverb, as old asGreek in words and as old as the world in fact, that "the doer shallsuffer." That he should consult Pantagruel is in the circumstancesalmost a necessity, and Pantagruel's conduct is exactly what one wouldexpect from that good-natured, learned, admirable, but rather enigmaticpersonage. Merely "aleatory" decision--by actual use of dice--he rejectsas illicit, though towards the close of the book one of its mostdelectable episodes ends in his excusing Mr. Justice Bridoye forsettling law cases in that way. But he recommends the _sortesVirgilianae_, and he, others, and Panurge himself add the experiment ofdreams, and the successive consultation of the Sibyl of Panzoust, thedumb Nazdecabre, the poet Raminagrobis, Epistemon, "Her Trippa," FriarJohn himself, the theologian Hippothadee, the doctor Rondibilis, thephilosopher Trouillogan, and the professional fool Triboulet. No readerof the most moderate intelligence can need to be told that thecounsellors opine all in the same sense (unfavourable), though with moreor less ambiguity, and that Panurge, with equal obstinacy and ingenuity,invariably twists the oracles according to his own wishes. But what noreader, who came fresh to Rabelais and fasting from criticism on him,could anticipate, is the astonishing spontaneity of the various dealingswith the same problem, the zest and vividness of the whole thing, andthe unceasing shower of satire on everything human--general,professional, and individual--which is kept up throughout. There is lesspure extravagance, less mere farce, and (despite the subject) even less"sculduddery" than in any other Book; but also in no other does Rabelais"keep up with humanity" (somewhat, indeed, in the fashion in which acarter keeps up with his animal, running and lashing at the same time)so triumphantly.
In no book, moreover, are the curious intervals--or, as it were, prosechoric odes--of interruption more remarkable. Pantagruel's own seriouswisdom supplies not a few of them, and the long and very characteristicepisode of Judge Bridoye and his decision by throw of dice is veryloosely connected with the main subject. But the most noteworthy ofthese excursions comes, as has been said, at the end--the last personalappearance of the good Gargantua, and the famous discourse, severalchapters long, on the Herb Pantagruelion, otherwise Hemp.
[Sidenote: _Pantagruel_ III. (IV.) The first part of the voyage.]
The Fourth Book (Third of _Pantagruel_) starts the voyage, and begins tolead the commentator who insists on fixing and interpreting theinnumerable real or apparent double, treble, and almost centuplemeanings, into a series of dances almost illimitable. As has beensuggested more than once, the most reasonable way is probably to regardthe whole as an intentional mixture of covert satire, pure fooling, nota little deliberate leading astray, and (serving as vehicle andimpelling force at once) the irresistible narrative impulse animatingthe writer and carrying the reader on to the end--any end, if it be onlythe Other End of Nowhere. The "curios," living and other, of Medamothi(Nowhere to begin with!), and the mysterious appearance of a shipful oftravellers c
oming back from the Land of Lanterns, whither thePantagruelian party is itself bound; the rather too severely punishedill-manners of the sheep-dealer Dindenault; the strange isles of variousnature--such, especially, as the abode of the bailiffs andprocess-servers, which gives occasion to the admirably told story ofFrancois Villon and the Seigneur of Basche; the great storm--another ofthe most famous passages of the book--with the cowardice of Panurge andthe safe landing in the curious country of the Macreons (long-livers);the evil island where reigns Quaresmeprenant, and the elaborate analysisof that personage by the learned Xenomanes; the alarming Physeter(blowing whale) and his defeat by Pantagruel; the land of theChitterlings, the battle with them, and the interview and peace-makingwith their Queen Niphleseth (a passage at which the sculduddery-huntershave worked their hardest), and then the islands of the Papefigues andthe Papimanes, where Rabelais begins his most obvious and boldestmeddling with the great ecclesiastical-political questions of theday--all these things and others flit past the reader as if in an actualvoyage. Even here, however, he rather skirts than actually invades themost dangerous ground. It is the Decretals, not the doctrines, that aresatirised, and Homenas, bishop of Papimania, despite his adoration ofthese forgeries, and the slightly suspicious number and prettiness ofthe damsels who wait upon him, is a very good fellow and an excellenthost. There is something very soothing in his metaphorical way ofdemanding wine from his Hebes, "_Clerice_, esclaire icy," the necessaryillumination being provided by a charming girl with a hanap of"extravagant" wine. These agreeable if satiric experiences--for theDecretals do no harm beyond exciting the bile of Master Epistemon (who,it is to be feared, was a little of a pedant)--are followed by the oncemore almost universally known passage of the "Frozen Words" and thevisit to "Messer Gaster, the world's first Master of Arts"; by theislands (once more mysterious) of Chaneph (hypocrisy) and Ganabin(thieves); the book concluding abruptly with an ultra-farcical_cochonnerie_ of the lower kind, relieved partially by a libellous butimpossible story about our Edward the _Fifth_ and the poet Villon again,as well as by the appearance of an interesting but not previouslymentioned member of the crew of the _Thalamege_ (Pantagruel's flagship),the great cat Rodilardus.
[Sidenote: _Pantagruel_ IV. (Book V.) The second part of the voyage. The"Isle Sonnante."]
[Sidenote: The "Chats Fourres."]
One of the peculiarities of the Fifth Book, and perhaps one of thosewhich have aroused that suspicion about it which, after what has beensaid above, it is not necessary further to discuss, is that it is more"in blocks" than the others.[105] The eight chapters of the _IsleSonnante_ take up the satire of the Fourth Book on Papimania and on the"Papegaut," who is here introduced in a much fiercer tone--a tone which,if one cared for hypothetical criticism, might be attributed with aboutequal probability to a genuine deepening of hostile feeling, to absenceof revision, and to possible sophistication by some one into whose handsit fell between the author's death and its publication. But a perfectlyimpartial critic, who, on the one hand, does not, in Carlyle's admirablephrase, "regard the Universe as a hunting-field from which it were goodand pleasant to drive the Pope," and, on the other, is content to regardthe extremer Protestants as singularly unpleasant persons withoutpronouncing Ernulphus-curses on them, may perhaps fail to find in iteither the cleverest or the most amusing part of the voyage. The episodeof the next Isle--that _des Ferrements_--is obscure, whether it is or isnot (as the commentators were sure to suggest) something else beginningwith "obsc-," and the succeeding one, with its rocks fashioned likegigantic dice, is not very amusing. But the terrible country of the_Chats Fourres_ and their chief Grippeminaud--an attack on the Law asunsparing as, and much more vivid than that on the Church in theoverture--may rank with the best things in Rabelais. The tyrant'sferocious and double-meaning catchword of _Or ca!_ and the power at hisback, which even Pantagruel thinks it better rather to run away fromthan to fight openly, which Panurge frankly bribes, and over which eventhe reckless and invincible Friar John obtains not much triumph, exceptthat of cutting up, after buying it, an old woman's bed--these and therest have a grim humour not quite like anything else.
[Sidenote: "La Quinte."]
The next section--that of the Apedeftes or Uneducated Ones[106]--hasbeen a special object of suspicion; it is certainly a little difficult,and perhaps a little dull. One is not sorry when the explorers, in theambiguous way already noted, "_passent_ _Oultre_," and, afterdifficulties with the wind, come to "the kingdom of Quintessence, namedEntelechy." Something has been said more than once of this already, andit is perhaps unnecessary to say more, or indeed anything, except tothose who themselves "hold of La Quinte," and who for that very reasonrequire no talking about her. "We" (if one may enrol oneself in theircompany) would almost rather give up Rabelais altogether than sacrificethis delightful episode, and abandon the idea of having the ladies ofthe Queen for our partners in Emmelie, and Calabrisme, and the thousandother dances, of watching the wonderful cures by music, and theinteresting process of throwing, not the house out of the window, butthe window out of the house, and the miraculous and satisfactorytransformation of old ladies into young girls, with very slightalteration of their former youthful selves, and all the charmingtopsyturvifications of Entelechy. Not to mention the gracious ifslightly unintelligible speeches of the exquisite princess, when clearHesperus shone once more, and her supper of pure nectar and ambrosia(not grudging more solid viands to her visitors), and the greatafter-supper chess-tournament with living pieces, and the "invisibledisparition" of the lady, and the departure of the fortunate visitorsthemselves, duly inscribed and registered as Abstractors ofQuintessence. The whole is like a good dream, and is told so as almostto be one.
Between this and the final goal of the Country of Lanterns the interestfalls a little. The island of "Odes" (not "poems" but "ways"), where the"walks walk" (_les chemins cheminent_); that of "Esclots" ("clogs"),where dwell the Freres Fredonnants, and where the attack on monkery isrenewed in a rather unsavoury and rather puerile fashion; and that ofSatin, which is a sort of Medamothi rehandled, are not first-rate--theywould have been done better, or cut out, had the book ever been issuedby Master Francis. But the arrival at and the sojourn in Lanterniaitself recovers the full powers of Rabelais at his best, though one mayonce more think that some of the treatment might have been altered inthe case just mentioned.
[Sidenote: The conclusion and The Bottle.]
Apart from the usual mixture of serious and purely jocular satire, oflearning and licence, of jargonic catalogues, of local references toWestern France and the general topography of Utopia, this conclusionconsists of two main parts--first, a most elaborate description of theTemple, containing underground the Oracle of the Bottle, to which thepilgrims are conducted by a select "Lantern," and of its priestessBacbuc, its _adytum_ with a fountain, and, in the depth and centre ofall, the sacred Bottle itself; and secondly, the ceremonies of thedelivery of the Oracle; the divine utterance, _Trinq!_ itsinterpretation by Bacbuc; the very much _ad libitum_ reinterpretationsof the interpretation by Panurge and Friar John, and the dismissal ofthe pilgrims by the priestess, _Or allez de par Dieu, qui vousconduise!_[107]
* * * * *
What, it may be asked, is the object of this cumbrous analysis ofcertainly one of the most famous and (as it at least should be) one ofthe best known books of the world? That object has been partly indicatedalready; but it may be permissible to set it forth more particularlybefore ending this chapter. Of the importance, on the one hand, of theacquisition by the novel of the greatest known and individual writer ofFrench up to his date, and of the enormous popularity of this example ofit, enough may have been said. But the abstract has been given, and thefurther comment is now added, with the purpose of showing, in a littledetail, how immensely the resources and inspirations of futurepractitioners were enriched and strengthened, varied and multiplied, by_Gargantua_ and _Pantagruel_. The book as a whole is to be classed, nodoubt, as "Eccentric" fiction. But if you compare
with Rabelais that oneof his followers[108] who possessed most genius and who worked at hisfollowing with most deliberation, you will find an immense falling offin richness and variety as well as in strength. The inferiority ofSterne to Master Francis in his serious pieces, whether he is whimperingover dead donkeys and dying lieutenants, or simulating honestindignation against critics, is too obvious to need insistence. Nor canone imagine any one--unless, like Mackenzie and other misguidedcontemporaries or juniors, he himself wanted to whimper, or unless healso aimed at the _fatrasie_--going to Sterne for pattern orinspiration. Now Rabelais is a perpetual fount of inspiration, aninexhaustible magazine of patterns to the most "serious" novelist whoseseriousness is not of the kind designated by that term in dissentingslang. That abounding narrative faculty which has been so much dwelt ontouches so many subjects, and manages to carry along with it so manymoods, thoughts, and even feelings, that it could not but suggest to anysubsequent writer who had in him the germ of the novelist's art, how todevelop and work out such schemes as might occur to him. While, for hisown countrymen at least, the vast improvement which he made in Frenchprose, and which, with the accomplishment of his younger contemporariesAmyot and Montaigne, established the greatness of that prose itself, wasa gain, the extent of which cannot be exaggerated. Therefore it hasseemed not improper to give him a chapter to himself, and to treat hisbook with a minuteness not often to be paralleled in this_History_.[109]
FOOTNOTES:
[90] A complete argument on this much vexed subject can hardly be wishedfor here: but it may be permitted to say that nearly fifty years'consideration of the matter has left less and less doubt in my mind asto the genuineness of the "_Quart_" or "_Quint_" _Livre_ as it isvariously called--according as _Gargantua_ is numbered separately ornot. One of the apparently strongest arguments against itsgenuineness--the constant presence of "_Je_" in the narrative--reallyfalls, with the others--the fiercer and more outspoken character of thesatire, the somewhat lessened prominence of Pantagruel, etc.etc.--before one simple consideration. We know from the dates ofpublication of the other books that Rabelais was by no means a rapidwriter, or at any rate that, if he wrote rapidly, he "held up" what hedid write long, and pretty certainly rewrote a good deal. Now theprevious Book had appeared only a short time before what must have beenthe date of his death; and this could not, according to analogy andprecedent, have been ready, or anything like ready, when he died. On theother hand, time enough passed between his death and the publication(even of the _Ile Sonnante_ fragment) for the MS. to have passed throughother hands and to have been adulterated, even if it was not, when theMaster's hands left it, in various, as well as not finally finishedform. I can see nothing in it really inconsistent with the earlierBooks; nothing unworthy of them (especially if on the one hand possiblemeddling, and on the other imperfect revision be allowed for); and much,especially the _Chats Fourres_, the Quintessence part, and theConclusion, without which the whole book would be not only incompletebut terribly impoverished. I may add that, having a tolerably fullknowledge of sixteenth-century French literature, and a great admirationof it, I know no single other writer or group of other writers whocould, in my critical judgment, by any reasonable possibility havewritten this Book. Francois Rabelais could have done it, and I have nodoubt that he did it; though whether we have it as he left it no man cansay.
[91] It is perhaps hardly necessary, but may not be quite idle, toobserve that our Abstractor of Quintessence takes good care not to quotethe other half of the parallelism, "but the prudent looketh well to hisgoing."
[92] It is possible, but not certain, that he is playing on the twosenses of the word _apparence_, the ambiguity of which is not so greatin English. The A. V., "evidence of things _not seen_," would not havesuited his turn.
[93] In which, it will be remembered, the "liquor called punch," whichone notes with sorrow that Rabelais knew not, but which he certainlywould have approved, is also "nowhere spoken against."
[94] Original "Sibyle." I owe to Prof. Ker an important reminder (whichI ought not to have needed) of Dante's "Sibilia" in the famous "Ulysses"passage, _Inf._ xxvi. 110.
[95] The Turkish corsair, not the German Emperor.
[96] Probably erected into a kingdom in honour of St. Augustine.
[97] _Passant oultre_--one of Rabelais' favourite and most _polymorphic_expressions. It has nearly always an ironical touch in it; and it enjoysa chapter all to itself in that mood--V. xvii.
[98] Perhaps this _a gauche_ might make as good a short test as any of areader's sense of humour. But here also a possible Dantean reminiscence(not suggested to me this time) comes in; for in the lines alreadyquoted "dalla man _destra_" occurs.
[99] The King is, however, more difficult to satisfy on this point thanon others; and objects with a delightful _preterite_, "Yes: but we _didnot get_ our wine fresh and cool"; whereat they rebuke him with arespectful reminder that great conquerors cannot be always entirelycomfortable.
[100] "Suspender of judgment."
[101] Of course the first book of the son _preceded_ the reconstructedhistory of the father; but this is immaterial.
[102] The correct opposition of this term (Latin or Greek wordsvernacularised) to "Macaronic" (vernacular words turned into Latin orGreek form) is not always observed.
[103] It is very seldom, after his infantine and innocent excesses, thatPantagruel behaves thus. He is for the most part a quiet and somewhatreserved prince, very generous, very wise, very devout, and, thoughtolerating the eccentricities of Panurge and Friar John, never takingpart in them.
[104] If Swift had drunk more wine and had not put water in what he diddrink, possibly this quality might have been lessened in _him_.
[105] The first of these, the _Isle Sonnante_, as is well enough knownto all students, appeared separately and before the rest.
[106] A sort of dependency or province of the _Chats Fourres_.
[107] A MS. "addition" unknown to the old printed forms, appears in somemodern ones. It is a mere disfigurement: and is hardly likely even tohave been a rejected draft.
[108] Not Swift here, but Sterne. There is far higher genius in_Gulliver_ than in _Shandy_; but the former is not _fatrasie_, thelatter is.
[109] That the not quite unknown device of setting up a man of straw inorder to knock him down has not been followed in this chapter, a singlepiece of evidence out of many may be cited. H. Koerting in his justlywell reputed _Geschichte des Franz. Romans im XVII. Jahrh._ (Oppeln u.Leipzig, 1891, i. 133 _note_) would rule Rabelais out of the history ofthe novel altogether. This book, which will be quoted again withgratitude later, displays a painstaking erudition not necessitating anymake-weight of sympathy for its author's early death after greatsuffering. It is extremely useful; but it does not escape, in this andother places, the censure which, ten years before the war of 1914, thepresent writer felt it his duty to express on modern German critics andliterary historians generally (_History of Criticism_, London, 1904,vol. iii. Bks. viii. and ix.), that on points of literary appreciation,as distinguished from mere philology, "enumeration," bibliographicalresearch, and the like, they are "sadly to seek." It may not beimpertinent to add that Herr Koerting's history happened never to havebeen read by me till after the above chapter of the present book waswritten.