the Cardinal de Lorraine; Friar John des Entommeures is the Cardinal du Bellay. Rabelais and Swift are often classed together; but the distinguishing characteristic of Gargantua is its exuberant fun and jollity, and the total lack of that cynicism which runs through every page of Gulliver. Bacon has fitly styled Rabelais "the great jester of France;" others, less appositely, style him “the prose Homer." THE INFANT GARGANTUA. It did one good to see him, for he was a fine boy with about eight or ten chins, and cried very little. If it happened that he was put out, angry, vexed, or crossif he fretted, if he wept, if he cried—if drink was brought to him, he would be restored to temper, and suddenly become quiet and joyous. One of his governesses told me that at the very sound of pints and flagons he would fall into an ecstasy, as if he were tasting the joys of paradise; and upon consideration of this, his divine complexion, they would every morning, to cheer him, play with a knife upon the glasses, or the bottles with their stoppers, and on the pint-pots with their lids; at the sound whereof he became gay, would leap for joy, and would rock himself in the cradle, lolling with his head and monochordizing with his fingers.-Translation of WALTER Besant. THE ABBEY OF THELEMA. All their life was spent not by statutes, law, or rules, but according to their free will and pleasure. They rose when they thought good; they ate, drank, worked, slept when the desire came to them. No one woke them up; no one forced them to eat, drink, nor to do any other thing whatever. So had Gargantua established it. In their Rule there was but this one clause: "Fay ce què vouldras-Do what you will." By this liberty they entered into a laudable emulation to do all of them what they saw pleased anybody else. If one of them-either a monk or a sister-said, "Let us play," they all played ; if one said, "Let us go and take our pleasure in the fields," they all went.. Never were seen ladies so handsome, less whimsical, more ready with hand, needle, or every honest and free womanly action than these. For this reason when the time came that any man of said Abbey had a mind to go out of it, he carried along with him one of the ladies, and they were married. And if they had formerly lived in Thelema, in good devotion and amity, they continued therein, and increased it to a greater height in their state of matrimony; so that they entertained that mutual love till the end of their days, just as on the day of their marriage.-Translation of WALTER BESANT. MONKS AND MONKEYS. "If," said Friar John, "you understand why a monkey in a family is always mocked and worried, you will understand why monks are abhorred of all, both old and young. The monkey does not watch the house, like a dog; he does not drag the cart, like the ox; he gives no wool, like the sheep; he does not carry burdens, like the horse. So with the monk. He does not cultivate the soil, like the peasant; he does not guard the land, like the soldier; he does not heal the sick, like the physician; he does not teach like the evangelical doctor or the school-master; he does not import goods and necessary things, like the merchant." "But the monks pray for all," objects Grandgoosier. "Nothing less," says Gargantua. "They only annoy the neighborhood with ringing their bells." "Truly," says Friar John, "a mass, a matin, and a vesper with many are half-said. They mumble great store of legends and psalms of which they understand nothing. They count plenty of Paternosters and Ave Marias, without thinking and without understanding; and that I call mocking God, and not making prayers. But God help them if they pray for us and not for fear of losing their fat soups."-Translation of Walter Be SANT. |