January 17, I9i« 
LANU & WATER 
aife anti Setters 
By J. C. Squire 
17 
Rabelais 
IT is obscn-ed by ■Rabelais himself tliat tlio?o who have 
read " tli<' pleasant titles of some books of our invention," 
such as Pease and Bacon with a Commentary, " arc too 
ready to judge that there is nothing in them but jests. 
mockeries, lascivious discourse, ajid recreative lies " ; but 
'■ the subject thereof is not so foolish as by the title at the 
first sight it should appear to be." Were one not faced with 
incitements to speculation about meaning on o\-cry page, 
this would be sufficftnt excuse for the commentators and 
explorers. But these gentlemen would do well to remember 
a later remark of the author's about " a certain gulUgut friar 
and true bacon-picker " who tried to get incredible allegories 
oiit of Ovid : 
If vou give no credit thereto, why do not you the same in 
these jovial new chronicles of mine 'f Albeit when I did 
dictate them, I thought upon no more than you, who possibly 
Mcro drinking the whilst as I was. Por in the composing 
of this lordly book, T never lost nor bestowed any more, nor 
any other time than what was appointed to serve mc for 
taking of mv Ixidilv refection, that is, whilst I was eating ami 
drinking. And, indeed, that is the fittest and most proper 
hour wherein to write these higli matters and deep sciences : 
as Homer knew very well, the paragon of all philologucs. and 
Ennius, the father of the Latin poets, as Horace calls him, 
although a ccrtjiin sneaking jobbernol alleged that-^his verses 
smcUetl more of the wine than oil. 
An accusation which Rabelais calls " an honour and a prcusc." 
. V * * * * « 
Our ancestors tended to regard Rabelais as purely a buffoon. 
Their imaginary portraits of him were much like their por- 
traits of i-'alstaff. Mode.r4i research has recovered a good 
many details of his industrious life, and shown lH)W vast is 
the learning and how purposeful mnch of the satii:c of his 
great book. It has even been decided that the only portrait 
with the slightest claim to aiithenticity is one which gi\e> 
him wear}' eyes, sunken cheeks, a wispy beard, and a forehead 
like a phjughed field. Some of the results of the immense 
mass of modern hrcnch investigation arc tabulated in Mr. ^^'. 
J'". Smith's Rabelais in His Writitif^s, just published by the 
Cambridge University Press (bs. net), and Mr. Smith nwkes a 
good many conjectures of his own. Among his arguments some 
are not exactly conclusive. It is not ver>' satisfying to be told 
that Rabelais was not, as used to be supposed, born in 148.? ; 
■ lie was always exact about facts and we can (wc arc told) 
deduce with certainty from' his own writings that he wajj born 
in 1494, " about 1494 or 1495," or else in 1489. It is not 
much use to kn(jw that his statements of facts were accurate 
when you don't know which were his statements of facts. 
But his history has been very much amplified ; we know 
where he went and when he wrote much better than we did ; 
and the nature of his reading and references is being gradually 
cleared up. In one regard, at least, the tendenc\' of modern 
students is significant. When research on him began the 
inclination wa.s to read great affairs into his every chapter. 
It is now certain that the war between (Irandgousier and 
Picrocholc represents nothing more than a law-suit between 
Rabelais' father (who is no longer alleged to have been an 
innkeeper as the robust old tradition had it), and a neigh- 
bouring landlord over riparian rights. But the point to 
remember (in the light of the introduction to Gargantna. 
if our own sense doesn't guide us) is that the raw material of 
Rabelais ceases Uf Ix- important after he has used it. He 
may have amused himself as much as he liked by using real 
characters, incidents, and events in his narrative, but the 
fair>-tale he made out of them is the thing that matters. The 
war between those two kings was not written merely in order 
to record this insignificant law-suit ; when Friar John of the 
Funnels, "by his prowess and valour discomfited all those 
of the army that entered into the close of the abbev, unto the 
number of thirteen thousand, six hundred, twenty and 
two, besides the women and little children, which is always to 
be understotxl," Rabelais had forgotten all abo«.t the fishing 
rights of Rabelais pcrc and was merely thinking of his own 
amusement and perhaps of the grinning faces of his hospitnl 
patients, for whose amusement tlie first two books arc alleged 
to have been written. 
***** 
The scholars must not, in fact, begin to make iiim smell 
nv^re of the oil than of the «inc. They ha\c demonstrated 
tliat lie wa> nut a drunkard — thougli anyone with half an cyi: 
lOuldVe.- that ; but they now tend to suggest rather that h< 
wn> a teetotaler. They prove that he was an eminent 
physician, a successful lecturer, a trusted diplomatist, an 
rnidite tbeologiatii. a great Humanist, a Church Rcfonncr, a 
linguist, a lawyer, a traveller, an expert in architecture anu 
the military art, and Lord knows what else ; and" they almost 
lose sight of the fact that, whatever else he was, he was a jolly 
old dog. Here, for instance, is Mr. Smith, wIjo has patience, 
judgment, learning, and who certainly would not be spending 
his life upon such an author if he did not relish hirn. . Yet 
his book is completely humourless, lacking in high s])irits or 
even rehsh, and unilluminated even by the quotations from 
the text which might give balance to it. One caiiwt help 
thinkii)!? that if the spirit of Rabelais himself, looking d.own 
from the clouds over the lid of a tankard of nectar, shouUl 
descry these books on ,the work \vhich he dedicated with a 
" Ho! Ye, most illustrious drinkers," he would be twnptcd 
to add a few more items to that long catalogue of imsjginarv 
p<'dairtry with which he filled his Library of St. Victor,- and 
which includes Ouacstio subtilissima,. utruni chimacm. in 
vacuo tiomhinans pussit- comederc secuitdas inleiiliones,- arid 
llarwotniiis de baboonis. et apis, cum Commcnto DorbcUis. 
***** 
In fact, after I had read Mr. Smith's book— closely reilsopcd, 
carefully an-anged, clearly expressed, a? it is — I Irad to go back 
to Rabelais and read a" few rcmernbercd passages iij order 
to remind myself that neither reform nor autobiogiap.liical 
histor\- were his prime interest. I read ofthat storni dtjring 
which Panurge, as white as chalk, chattered. "Be,, be, be, 
bous, bous, bous." I read the debate on Marrying or not 
Marrying, and the Discour.se of the Drinkers, the finest 
reproduction of the chatter of a crowd enjoying themsch-cs 
which exists anywhere in literature. I read the great formal • 
address wherewith Master Janotus de Bragmardo besought 
f largantua to return to the people of Paris the bells of Our 
Lady's Church w hi.cli he had carried off on the neck of his 
mare, and which opens :" '*' , 
Hem, hem, gud-day, .sire, gud-day. Et vobis, my mastc-rs. 
It were but reason" that you should restore to us our bells; 
for wc have great need of "them. Hem, hem. aihf uhash. — '^''e 
have oftentimes heretofore refused good money for them of 
those of London in Cahors, yea, and those of Bordeaux in 
Brie, who would have bought them for the substantific 
rjuality of the elementary complexion, which is introniicated 
on the terrcstreity of their quidditati\-e nature, to extraneize 
the blasting mists and whirlwinds upon our vines, indeoj 
not ours, but these round about us. 
And I read that most perfect chapture of all " of the qualities 
and conditions of Panurge," v.ho "was of a middle statute, hot 
too high nor too low,^and had somewhat of an aquiline nos<^ 
made like the handle of a razor," who was " naturally sui)ject 
to a kind of disease which at that time they called lack of 
money," and who " was a wicked lewd rogue, a cozener, 
drinker, roister, rover, and a very dissolute and debauched 
fellow, if there were any in Paris ; otherwise, and in all 
matters else, the best and most virtuous man in the world." 
And, having thus read I felt sure again that although it is 
interesting to know that the idea of Panurge came out of an 
Italian macaronic romance, and probably out of fifty-seven 
other places as well, itjcally does not greatly matter: any 
more than that " fair gieat book " which Panurge wrote, but 
which " is not printed vet that I know of." 
* "* ♦ ■ * ♦. 
Still, it is ridiciilous not to be thankful tor the bObk one 
will use. This is especially so when, in England, Rabelaisian 
literature is so scarce. No Enghsh biographer has tlioughtit 
worth while to write a really big book on him ; and beyond 
Professor Saintsbury (w-Ti'o had a magnificent chapter on him 
in his recent History of the French Noirl) and two industrious 
Cambridge dons, scarcely any living English critic, has 
attempted to do him justice. He is not e\-cn widely read ; 
except by schoolboys who get hold of nasty paper-covered 
editions of him because he was in the habit of plastering his 
pages with unpleasant, and, in print, unusual words. He 
cannot be excused — as some have atternptcd to excuse him — 
from the charge of a verbal coarseness unparalleled in any 
(jther great moflern writer. But his gigantic humour, b'^ 
inexhaustibly liappy language, his knowledge of mankind, 
his wisdom and the genen)sity of his spirit, have madf- him the- 
secular Bible of a succession of English writers (amongst 
whom, a little surprisinglv, was Charles Kingsley), and there 
are many men living who would find him equally companion- 
able if only they would once try him. '^hcy need not even 
bother aboiit reading him in the. original. For the seventeenth 
century translatioH by Sir Thomas Vrquhart of Cromartie 
(roncluded, not quit<:'s<> suprrbh-. by Pctrr Moltfux) i? onr; 
of the great translations of the world, unequa,llf-d by any 
other translation in our language, a miracle in it-^ constant 
re-creation of what cannot be Utcrally rendered from the 
French into our ox^-n tongue. 
