R. RABANUS MAURUS (MAGNENTIUS), a celebrated arch bishop of Mentz, and one of the most learned divines in the ninth century, was born in the year 785 at Mentz, or rather at Fulda, and descended from one of the most noble families in that country. Mackenzie, however, has inserted him among his Scotch writers, but without much apparent authority. The parents of Rabanus sent him, at ten years old, to the monastery of Fulda, where he was instructed in learning and virtue, and afterwards studied under the famous Alcuinus, at Tours. In this situation he made so rapid a progress, as to acquire great reputation from his writings at the age of thirty. On his return to Fulda he was chosen abbot there, and reconciled the emperor Louis le Débonnaire to his children. Rabanus wrote a letter of consolation to this prince when unjustly deposed, and published a tract on the respect due from children to their parents, and from subjects to their princes, which may be found in "Marca de Concordiâ," published by Baluze. He succeeded Orgar, archbishop of Mentz, in the year 847, but was so much a bigot, as to procure the condemnation of Godeschalc. He died at his estate of Winsel, in the year 856, aged sixty-eight, after having bequeathed his library to the abbeys of Fulda and St. Alban's, leaving a great number of works printed at Cologn, 1627, 6 vols. in 3 folio. The principal are, 1. "Commentaries on the Holy Scriptures," the greatest part of which are mere extracts from the fathers, as was the usual method among commentators in his time. 2. A poem in honour of the holy cross, of which there is a neat edition printed at Augsburg, 1605, in folio; but the most rare is that printed at Phorcheim, in ædibus Thomæ Anselim, 1503, curiously ornamented. Of the frontispiece the first figure is that of Albinus, abbot of Fulda, who presents Rabanus to the pope, with a poetical piece entitled "Intercessio Albini," Rabanus appears next, presenting his book to the pope, with a poetical piece, entitled "Commendatio Papæ.' Then follows a kind of dedication to the emperor Louis le Débonnaire, who is delineated on this dedication holding a shield in one hand, and a cross in the other, his head surrounded with glory; all the letters comprised in these ornamented lines, form a discourse foreign to the dedication. The poem is in the same style; on each of the 28 pages of which it consists, are figures of the cross, stars, cherubim, seraphim, &c. The last represents a cross, with the author adoring it; the letters comprised in this cross form various pious exclamations. 3. A treatise on "the Instruction of the Clergy." 4. A treatise on "the Ecclesiastical Calendar," in which he points out the method of distinguishing the leap years, and marking the indictions. 5. A book "on the sight of God, purity of heart, and the manner of doing penance." 6. A large work, entitled "De Universo, sive Etymologiarum Opus." 7. "Homilies." 8." A Martyrology," &c. But a treatise on "Vices and Virtues," which is attributed to Rabanus: Maurus, was written by Halitgarius bishop of Orleans. His treatise" against the Jews," may be found in Martenne's "Thesaurus;" and some other small tracts in the "Miscellanea" of Baluze, and Father Sirmond's works." Rabanus was unquestionably one of the most learned men of his age, and his character in this respect has been highly extolled both by Dupin and Mosheim.' RABELAIS (FRANCIS), a celebrated French wit, was the son of an apothecary, and born about 1483, at Chinon, in the province of Touraine. He was bred up in a convent of Franciscan friars in Poictou, the convent of Fontenaile-Comte, and received into their order. His strong inclination and taste for literature and the sciences made him transcend the bounds which restrained the learned in his times; so that he not only became a great linguist, but an adept in all branches of knowledge. His uncommon capacity and merit soon excited the jealousy of his brethren. Hence he was envied by some; others, through ignorance, thought him a conjuror; and all hated and abused him, particularly because he studied Greek; the novelty of that language making them esteem it, not only barbarous, but antichristian. This we collect from a Greek epistle of Budæus to Rabelais, in which he praises him highly for his great knowledge in that tongue, and exclaims against the stupidity and malice of the friars. Dupin,-Mosheim.-Mereri.-Mackenzie's Lives, vol. I. p. 81, Having endured their persecutions for a long time, he obtained permission of pope Clement VII. to leave the society of St. Francis, and to enter into that of St. Benedict; but his mercurial temper prevailing, he did not find any more satisfaction among the Benedictines, than he had found among the Franciscans, so that after a short time he left them also. Changing the regular habit for that which is worn by secular priests, he rambled up and down for a while; and then fixed at Montpellier, where he took the degrees in physic, and practised with great reputation. He was universally admired for his wit and great learning, and became a man of such estimation, that the university of that place, when deprived of its privileges, deputed him to Paris to obtain the restitution of them, by application to the chancellor Du Prat, who was so pleased with him, and so much admired his accomplishments, that he easily granted all that he solicited. He returned to Montpellier; and the service he did the university upon this occasion, is given as a reason why all the candidates for degrees in physic there, are, upon their admission to them, formally invested with a robe, which Rabelais left; this ceremony having been instituted in honour of him. In 1532, he published at Lyons some pieces of Hippocrates and Galen, with a dedication to the bishop of Mailezais; in which he tells him, that he had read lectures upon the aphorisms of Hippocrates, and the "ars medica" of Galen, before numerous audiences in the university of Montpellier. This was the last year of his continuance in that place; for the year after he went to Lyons, where he became physician to the hospital, and joined lectures with practice for some years following. John du Bellay, bishop of Paris, and afterwards cardinal, with whom he had been acquainted in his early years, going to Rome in 1534, upon the business of Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Spain, and passing through Lyons, carried Rabelais with him, in quality of his physician; who returned home, however, in about six months. He had sometime before quitted his religious connections for the sake of leading a life more suitable to his taste and humour; but now renewed them, and in a second journey to Rome, obtained in 1536, by his interest with some cardinals, a brief from pope Paul II. to qualify him for holding ecclesiastical benefices. John du Bellay, had procured the abbey of St. Maur near Paris to be secularized; and into this was Rabelais, now a Benedictine monk, received as a secular canon. Here he is supposed to have begun his famous romance, entitled "The lives, heroic deeds, and sayings of Gargantua and Pantagruel." He continued in this retreat till 1545, when Du Bellay, his friend and patron, and now a cardinal, nominated him to the cure of Meudon, which he is said to have filled with great zeal and application to the end of his life. His profound knowledge and skill in physic made him doubly useful to the people under his care; and he was ready upon all occasions to relieve them under indispositions of body as well as mind. He died in 1553. As he was a great wit, many witticisms and facetious sayings are laid to his charge, of which he knew nothing; and many ridiculous circumstances are related of him by some of his biographers, to which probably little credit is due. He published several productions; but his chef d'œuvre is "The History of Gargantua and Pantagruel," a most extravagant satire, in the form of a romance, upon monks, priests, popes, and fools and knaves of all kinds. Wit and learning are scattered here in great profusion, but in a manner so wild and irregular, and with a strong mixture of obscenity, coarse and puerile jests, profane allusions, and low raillery, that, while some have regarded it as a firstrate effort of human wit, and, like Homer's poems, as an inexhaustible source of learning, science, and knowledge, others have affirmed it to be nothing but an unintelligible rhapsody, a heap of foolish conceits, without meaning, without coherence; a collection of gross impieties and obscenities. There seems to be much truth in both these opinions, and throughout the whole such a degree of obscurity, where he is supposed to allude to persons or events, that no commentary can easily satisfy the reader's . curiosity. The monks, who were supposed to be the chief object of his satire, gave some opposition to it when it first began to be published, for it was published by parts * Warton, in his " Essay on Pope," says, "Rabelais was not the inventor of many of the burlesque tales he introduced into his principal story; the finest touches of which, it is to be feared, have undergone the usual and unavoidable fate of satirical writings; that is, not to be tasted or understood, when the characters, the facts, and the VOL. XXV. follies they stigmatize, are perished and unknown." This may be true, but how are taste and virtue improved, or vice depressed, through such a medium of coarse obscenity, as cannot be read aloud in any language?" We may here remark that Sterne must have "given his days and nights" to the perusal of Rabelais. Ни in 1535; but this opposition was soon overruled by the powerful patronage of Rabelais among the great. The best edition of his works is that with cuts, and the notes of Le Duchat, 5 vols. 12mo, and De Monnoye, 1741, in 3 vols. 4to. Mr. Motteux published an English translation of it at London, 1708, with a preface and uotes, in which he endeavours to shew, that Rabelais has painted the history of his own time, under an ingenious fiction and borrowed names. Ozell published afterwards a new translation, with Duchat's notes, 5 vols. 12mo, printed afterwards in 4 vols. We know not which is worst; in point of vulgar obscenity of style, both are execrable.' RABENER (THEOPHILUS WILLIAM), a German satirist, was born in 1714, at Wachau, an estate and manor near Leipsic, of which his father was lord. As he was educated for the law, and was employed for the greatest part of his life in public business, his literary performances must have been the amusement of bis leisure hours. He appeared first in print, in 1741, as an associate in a pe⚫riodical work entitled "Amusements of Wit and Reason," to which some of the most eminent men of his age were contributors, and among these Gellert, with whom he had a lasting friendship. About this time, he was made comptroller of the taxes in the district of Leipsic, an office which required constant attention, and obliged him to be frequently riding from place to place; and on these journeys, as a relaxation from business of a very different kind, be says, in one of his letters, all his satires were written. He published four volumes of them, and in his preface to the last, which is dated 1755, he professes his resolution to publish no more during his life. This determination, he says, is extorted from him by the multiplicity of business in which he is involved, by the impression which the loss of his best friends had made on his mind, and by his disgust at the impertinence of some of his readers; who, though he had avoided every thing personal, were continually applying his general characters to individuals. had then been made secretary to the board of taxes at Dresden, and was afterwards involved in the calamities which that city suffered when besieged by the king of Prussia. During this siege, his house, his manuscripts, and all his property, were destroyed; which misfortune he bore 1 Life prefixed to Ozell's edition.—Chaufepie.—Niceron, vol. XXXII. He |