Pantagruel is the hero of the eccentric romance by which Rabelais is chiefly known, and many of the writers of his school have expressly claimed for themselves, and gloried in, the title of Pantagruelists. The book of which I speak is a satire on some of the absurdities of the Romish Church (for that Reformation which Luther in Germany and Henry VIII. in England subsequently accomplished many things were even then heralding—and of these not the least strange was the spectacle of a priest ridiculing that very Church of which he professed himself a son)—hidden under a crust of licentiousness—a licentiousness never equalled before or since—through fear of incurring danger by more open speaking.
O ye compilers of slang dictionaries, intellectual scavengers who wallow in the miry ways of literature—behold here an inexhaustible vocabulary for the enrichment of your volumes! Before you, indeed, the real pearls of learning and genius would be cast in vain.
Can I throw no counterbalancing laudation of the jocular curé into the opposite scale? His praise is hymned by loftier harps than mine —by loftier harps, too, than his own. Among his admirers, he can count better men than himself. Hood, with his accustomed humour, says that the history of Pantagruel "is equal to the best gruel, with rum in it." We will, however, dwell no longer on Rabelais: it would be a hopeless task to separate the pearls—though, certainly, very precious pearls are there—from the loathsome putrescence of his dunghill. Let him crow on it undisturbed before an audience who appreciate his melody.
Boccaccio, the Italian founder of the school we have designated from Rabelais, wrote in his youth (bitterly repenting it in his age[1]) The Decameron (Il. Decamerone); consisting of a hundred short tales of love, so called—that
- ↑ Young tells us the same of Chaucer and La Fontaine:—
"Fontaine and Chancer, dying, wish'd unwrought
The sprightliest efforts of their wanton thought."— Epistles.
