RABELAIS 33 IV " Then I went in-doors, brought out a loaf, Half a cheese, and a bottle of Chablis ; Lay on the grass, and forgot the oaf, Over a jolly chapter of Rabelais." — Robert Browning : Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis, Having sketched the life of Rabelais, it remains for me to venture a few remarks on his genius and his great work. Lord Bacon called him the grand jester of France, and this view of his character was the common one amongst us, so far as I am aware, until Coleridge challenged it in a famous passage, brief enough for citation here : " Beyond a doubt, Rabelais was among the deepest as well as boldest thinkers of his age. His buffoonery was not merely Brutus's rough stick, which contained a rod of gold : it was necessary as an amulet against the monks and legates. Never was there a more plausible, and seldom, I am persuaded, a less appropriate line, than the thousand times quoted — ' Rabelais laughing in his easy-chair,' of Mr. Pope. The caricature of his filth and zanyism show sic how fully he both knew and felt the danger in which he stood. I could write a treatise in praise of the moral elevation of Rabelais' work, which would make the Church stare and the conventicle groan, and yet would be truth, and nothing but the truth. I class Rabelais with the great creative minds of the world— Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes, &c." I may note, in passing, that "the thousand times quoted" line of Pope is quoted incorrectly (as verse usually
