Chapter 13

Jam gridor æterias hominum concussit abyssos,Sentiturque ingens cordarum stridor, et ipsePontus habet pavidos vultus, mortisque colores.Nunc Sirochus habit palmam, nunc Borra superchiat;Irrugit pelagus, tangit quoque fluctibus astra,Fulgure flammigero creber lampezat Olympus;Vela forata micant crebris lacerata balottis;Horrendam mortem nautis ea cuncta minazzant.Nunc sbalzata ratis celsum tangebat Olympum,Nunc subit infernam unda sbadacchiante paludem.TRANSLATIONNow the clamour of the men shook the ethereal abysses,And the mighty crashing of the ropes is felt, and the verySea has pale looks, and the hue of death.Now the Sirocco has the palm, now Eurus exults over it;The sea roars, and touches the stars with its waves,Olympus continually blazes out with flaming thunder,The pierced sails glitter torn with frequent thunderbolts;All these threaten frightful death to the sailors.Now the ship tossed up touched the top of Olympus,Now, the wave yawning, it sinks into the infernal lake.

Jam gridor æterias hominum concussit abyssos,

Sentiturque ingens cordarum stridor, et ipse

Pontus habet pavidos vultus, mortisque colores.

Nunc Sirochus habit palmam, nunc Borra superchiat;

Irrugit pelagus, tangit quoque fluctibus astra,

Fulgure flammigero creber lampezat Olympus;

Vela forata micant crebris lacerata balottis;

Horrendam mortem nautis ea cuncta minazzant.

Nunc sbalzata ratis celsum tangebat Olympum,

Nunc subit infernam unda sbadacchiante paludem.

TRANSLATION

Now the clamour of the men shook the ethereal abysses,

And the mighty crashing of the ropes is felt, and the very

Sea has pale looks, and the hue of death.

Now the Sirocco has the palm, now Eurus exults over it;

The sea roars, and touches the stars with its waves,

Olympus continually blazes out with flaming thunder,

The pierced sails glitter torn with frequent thunderbolts;

All these threaten frightful death to the sailors.

Now the ship tossed up touched the top of Olympus,

Now, the wave yawning, it sinks into the infernal lake.

Teofilo Folengo was followed by a number of imitators, of whom it will be sufficient to state that he stands in talent as far above his followers as above those who preceded him. One of these minor Italian macaronic writers, named Bartolommeo Bolla, of Bergamo, who flourished in the latter half of the sixteenth century, had the vanity to call himself, in the title of one of his books, “the Apollo of poets, and the Cocaius of this age;” but a modern critic has remarked of him that he is as far removedfrom his model Folengo, as his native town Bergamo is distant from Siberia. An earlier poet, named Guarino Capella, a native of the town of Sarsina, in the country of Forli, on the borders of Tuscany, approached far nearer in excellence to the prince of macaronic writers. His work also is a mock romance, the history of “Cabrinus, king of Gagamagoga,” in six books or cantos, which was printed at Arimini in 1526, and is now a book of excessive rarity.

The taste for macaronics passed rather early, like all other fashions in that age, from Italy into France, where it first brought into literary reputation a man who, if he had not the great talent of Folengo, possessed a very considerable amount of wit and gaiety. Antoine de la Sable, who Latinised his name into Antonius de Arena, was born of a highly respectable family at Soliers, in the diocese of Toulon, about the year 1500, and, being destined from his youth to follow the profession of the law, studied under the celebrated jurisconsult Alciatus. He had only arrived at the simple dignity ofjuge, at St. Remy, in the diocese of Arles, when he died in the year 1544. In fact, he appears to have been no very diligent student, and we gather from his own confessions that his youth had been rather wild. The volume containing his macaronics, the second edition of which (as far as the editions are known) was printed in 1529, bears a title which will give some notion of the character of its contents,—“Provencalis de bragardissima villa de Soleriis, ad suos compagnones qui sunt de persona friantes, bassas dansas et branlas practicantes novellas, de guerra Romana, Neapolitana, et Genuensi mandat; una cum epistola ad falotissimam suam garsam, Janam Rosæam, pro passando tempora”—(i.e.a Provençal of the most swaggering town of Soliers, sends this to his companions, who are dainty of their persons, practising basse dances and new brawls, concerning the war of Rome, Naples, and Genoa; with an epistle to his most merry wench, Jeanne Rosée, for pastime). In the first of these poems Arena traces in his burlesque verse, which is an imitation of Folengo, his own adventures and sufferings in the war in Italy which led to the sack of Rome, in 1527, and in the subsequent expeditions to Naples and Genoa. From the picture of the horrors of war, he passes very willingly to describe the joyous manners of the students in Provençal universities, of whom hetells us, that they are all fine gallants, and always in love with the pretty girls.

Gentigalantes sunt omnes instudiantes,Et bellas garsas semper amare solent.

Gentigalantes sunt omnes instudiantes,

Et bellas garsas semper amare solent.

He goes on to describe the scholars as great quarrellers, as well as lovers of the other sex, and after dwelling on their gaiety and love of the dance, he proceeds to treat in the same burlesque style on the subject of dancing; but I pass over this to speak of Arena’s principal piece, the satirical description of the invasion of Provence by the emperor Charles V. in 1536. This curious poem, which is entitled“Meygra Enterprisa Catoloqui imperatoris,”and which extends to upwards of two thousand lines, opens with a laudatory address to the king of France, François I., and with a sneer at the pride of the emperor, who, believing himself to be the master of the whole world, had foolishly thought to take away France and the cities of Provence from their rightful monarch. It was Antonio de Leyva, the boaster, who had put this project into the emperor’s head, and they had already pillaged and ravaged a good part of Provence, and were dividing the plunder, when, harassed continually by the peasantry, the invaders were brought to a stand by the difficulty of subsisting in a devastated country, and by the diseases to which this difficulty gave rise. Nevertheless, the Spaniards and their allies committed terrible devastation, which is described by Arena in strong language. He commemorates the valiant resistance of his native town of Soliers, which, however, was taken and sacked, and he lost in it his house and property. Arles held the imperialists at bay, while the French, under the constable Montmorency, established themselves firmly at Avignon. At length disease gained possession of Antonio de Leyva himself, and the emperor, who had been making an unsuccessful demonstration against Marseilles, came to him in his sickness. The first lines of the description of this interview, will serve as a specimen of the language of the French macaronics:—

Sed de Marsella bragganti quando retornat,Fort male contentus, quando repolsat eum,Antonium Levam trobavit forte maladum,Cui mors terribilis triste cubile parat.Ethica torquet eum per costas, et dolor ingens:Cum male res vadit, vivere fachat eum.Dixerunt medici, speransa est nulla salutis:Ethicus in testa vivere pauca potest.Ante suam mortem voluit parlare per horamImperelatori, consiliumque dare.Scis, Cæsar, stricte nostri groppantur amores,Namque duas animas corpus utrumque tenet,Heu! fuge Provensam fortem, fuge littus amarum,Fac tibi non noceat gloria tanta modo.TRANSLATION.But when he returns from boasting Marseilles,Very ill content, that she had repulsed him,He found Antonio de Leyva very ill,For whom terrible death is preparing a sorrowful bed.Hectic fever tortures him in the ribs, and great pain;Since things are going ill, he is weary of life.Before his death he wished to speak an hourTo the emperor, and to give him counsel.“You know, Cæsar, our affections are closely bound together,For either body holds the two souls,Alas! fly Provence the strong, fly the bitter shore,Take care that your great glory prove not an injury to you.”

Sed de Marsella bragganti quando retornat,

Fort male contentus, quando repolsat eum,

Antonium Levam trobavit forte maladum,

Cui mors terribilis triste cubile parat.

Ethica torquet eum per costas, et dolor ingens:

Cum male res vadit, vivere fachat eum.

Dixerunt medici, speransa est nulla salutis:

Ethicus in testa vivere pauca potest.

Ante suam mortem voluit parlare per horam

Imperelatori, consiliumque dare.

Scis, Cæsar, stricte nostri groppantur amores,

Namque duas animas corpus utrumque tenet,

Heu! fuge Provensam fortem, fuge littus amarum,

Fac tibi non noceat gloria tanta modo.

TRANSLATION.

But when he returns from boasting Marseilles,

Very ill content, that she had repulsed him,

He found Antonio de Leyva very ill,

For whom terrible death is preparing a sorrowful bed.

Hectic fever tortures him in the ribs, and great pain;

Since things are going ill, he is weary of life.

Before his death he wished to speak an hour

To the emperor, and to give him counsel.

“You know, Cæsar, our affections are closely bound together,

For either body holds the two souls,

Alas! fly Provence the strong, fly the bitter shore,

Take care that your great glory prove not an injury to you.”

Thus Leyva goes on to persuade the emperor to abandon his enterprise, and then dies. Arena exults over his death, and over the emperor’s grief for his loss, and then proceeds to describe the disastrous retreat of the imperial army, and the glory of France in her king.

Antonius de Arena wrote with vigour and humour, but his verses are tame in comparison with his model, Folengo. The taste for macaronic verse never took strong root in France, and the few obscure writers who attempted to shine in that kind of composition are now forgotten, except by the laborious bibliographer. One named Jean Germain, wrote a macaronic history of the invasion of Provence by the imperialists in rivalry of Arenas. I will not follow the taste for this class of burlesque composition into Spain or Germany, but merely add that it was not adopted in England until the beginning of the seventeenth century, when several authors employed it at about the same time. The most perfect example of these early English macaronics is the “Polemo-Middiana,”i.e.battle ofthe dunghill, by the talented and elegant-minded Drummond of Hawthornden. We may take a single example of the English macaronic from this poem, which will not need an English translation. One of the female characters in the dunghill war, calls, among others, to her aid—

Hunc qui dirtiferas tersit cum dishclouty dishras,Hunc qui gruelias scivit bene lickere plettas,Et saltpannifumos, et widebricatos fisheros,Hellæosque etiam salteros duxit ab antris,Coalheughos nigri girnantes more divelli;Lifeguardamque sibi sævas vocat improba lassas,Maggyam magis doctam milkare covœas,Et doctam suepare flouras, et sternere beddas,Quæque novit spinnare, et longas ducere threddas;Nansyam, claves bene quæ keepaverat omnes,Quæque lanam cardare solet greasy-fingria Betty.

Hunc qui dirtiferas tersit cum dishclouty dishras,

Hunc qui gruelias scivit bene lickere plettas,

Et saltpannifumos, et widebricatos fisheros,

Hellæosque etiam salteros duxit ab antris,

Coalheughos nigri girnantes more divelli;

Lifeguardamque sibi sævas vocat improba lassas,

Maggyam magis doctam milkare covœas,

Et doctam suepare flouras, et sternere beddas,

Quæque novit spinnare, et longas ducere threddas;

Nansyam, claves bene quæ keepaverat omnes,

Quæque lanam cardare solet greasy-fingria Betty.

Perhaps before this was written, the eccentric Thomas Coryat had published in the volume of his Crudities, printed in 1611, a short piece of verse, which is perfect in its macaronic style, but in which Italian and other foreign words are introduced, as well as English. The celebrated comedy of “Ignoramus,” composed by George Ruggle in 1615, may also be mentioned as containing many excellent examples of English macaronics.

While Italy was giving birth to macaronic verse, the satire upon the ignorance and bigotry of the clergy was taking another form in Germany, which arose from some occurrences which it will be necessary to relate. In the midst of the violent religious agitation at the beginning of the sixteenth century in Germany, there lived a German Jew named Pfeffercorn, who embraced Christianity, and to show his zeal for his new faith, he obtained from the emperor an edict ordering the Talmud and all the Jewish writings which were contrary to the Christian faith to be burnt. There lived at the same time a scholar of distinction, and of more liberal views than most of the scholastics of his time, named John Reuchlin. He was a relative of Melancthon, and was secretary to the palsgrave, who was tolerant like himself. The Jews, as might be expected, were unwilling to give up their books to be burnt, and Reuchlin wrote in their defence, under the assumed name of Capnion, which is aHebrew translation of his own name of Reuchlin, meaning smoke, and urged that it was better to refute the books in question than to burn them. The converted Pfeffercorn replied in a book entitled “Speculum Manuale,” in answer to which Reuchlin wrote his “Speculum Oculare.” The controversy had already provoked much bigoted ill-feeling against Reuchlin. The learned doctors of the university of Cologne espoused the cause of Pfeffercorn, and the principal of the university, named in Latin Ortuinus Gratius, supported by the Sorbonne in Paris, lent himself to be the violent organ of the intolerant party. Hard pressed by his bigoted opponents, Reuchlin found good allies, but one of the best of these was a brave baron named Ulric von Hutten, of an old and noble family, born in 1488 in the castle of Staeckelberg, in Franconia. He had studied in the schools at Fulda, Cologne, and Frankfort on the Oder, and distinguished himself so much as a scholar, that he obtained the degree of Master of Arts before the usual age. But Ulric possessed an adventurous and chivalrous spirit, which led him to embrace the profession of a soldier, and he served in the wars in Italy, where he was distinguished by his bravery. He was at Rome in 1516, and defended Reuchlin against the Dominicans. The same year appeared the first edition of that marvellous book, the“Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum,”one of the most remarkable satires that the world has yet seen. It is believed that this book came entirely from the pen of Ulric von Hutten; and the notion that Reuchlin himself, or any others of his friends, had a share in it appears to be without foundation. Ulric was in the following year made poet-laureat. Nevertheless, this book greatly incensed the monks against him, and he was often threatened with assassination. Yet he boldly advocated the cause and embraced the opinions of Luther, and was one of the staunch supporters of Lutheranism. After a very turbulent life, Ulric von Hutten died in the August of the year 1523.

The“Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum,”or letters of obscure men, are supposed to be addressed to Ortuinus Gratius, mentioned above, by various individuals, some his scholars, others his friends, but all belonging to the bigoted party opposed to Reuchlin, and they were designed to throw ridicule on the ignorance, bigotry, and immorality of the clergy of theRomish church. The old scholastic learning had become debased into a heavy and barbarous system of theology, literary composition consisted in writing a no less barbarous Latin, and even the few classical writers who were admitted into the schools, were explained and commented upon in a strange half-theological fashion. These old scholastics were bitterly opposed to the new learning, which had taken root in Italy, and was spreading abroad, and they spoke contemptuously of it as “secular.” The letters of the obscure individuals relate chiefly to the dispute between Reuchlin and Pfeffercorn, to the rivalry between the old scholarship and the new, and to the low licentious lives of the theologists; and they are written in a style of Latin which is intended for a parody on that of the latter, and which closely resembles that which we call “dog-Latin.”[97]They are full of wit and humour of the most exquisite description, but they too often descend into details, treated in terms which can only be excused by the coarse and licentious character of the age. The literary and scientific questions discussed in these letters are often very droll. The first in order of the correspondents of Ortuinus Gratius, who boasts of the rather formidable name, Thomas Langschneiderius, and addresses master Ortuinus as “poet, orator, philosopher, and theologist, and more if he would,” propounds to him a difficult question:—

“There was here one day an Aristotelian dinner, and doctors, licenciates, and masters too, were very jovial, and I was there too, and we drank at the first course three draughts of Malmsey, ... and then we had six dishes of flesh and chickens and capons, and one of fish, and as we passed from one dish to another, we continually drunk wine of Kotzburg and the Rhine, and ale of Embeck, and Thurgen, and Neuburg. And the masters were well satisfied, and said that the new masters had acquitted themselves well and with great honour. Then the masters in their hilarity began to talk learnedly on great questions, and one asked whether it werecorrect to saymagister nostrandus, ornoster magistrandus, for a person fit to be made doctor in theology.... And immediately Master Warmsemmel, who is a subtle Scotist, and has been master eighteen years, and was in his time twice rejected and thrice delayed for the degree of master, and he went on offering himself, until he was promoted for the honour of the university, ... spoke, and held that we should saynoster magistrandus.... Then Master Andreas Delitsch, who is very subtle, and half poet, half artist (i.e.one who professed in the faculty of arts), physician, and jurist; and now he reads ordinarily ‘Ovid on the Metamorphoses,’ and expounds all the fables allegorically and literally, and I was his hearer, because he expounds very fundamentally, and he also reads at home Quintillian and Juvencus, and he held the opposite to Master Warmsemmel, and said that we ought to saymagister nostrandus. For as there is a difference betweenmagister nosterandnoster magister, so also there is a difference betweenmagister nostrandusandnoster magistrandus; for a doctor in theology is calledmagister noster, and it is one word, butnoster magisterare two words, and it is taken for any master; and he quoted Horace in support of this. Then the masters much admired his subtlety, and one drank to him a cup of Neuburg ale. And he said, ‘I will wait, but spare me,’ and touched his hat, and laughed heartily, and drank to Master Warmsemmel, and said, ‘There, master, don’t think I am an enemy,’ and he drank it off at one draught, and Master Warmsemmel replied to him with a strong draught. And the masters were all merry till the bell rang for Vespers.”

Master Ortuin is pressed for his judgment on this weighty question. A similar scene described in another letter ends less peacefully. The correspondent on this occasion is Magister Bornharddus Plumilegus, who addresses Ortuinus Gratius as follows:—

“Wretched is the mouse which has only one hole for a refuge! So also I may say of myself, most venerable sir, for I should be poor if I had only one friend, and when that one should fail me, then I should not have another to treat me with kindness. As is the case now with a certain poet here, who is called George Sibutus, and he is one of the secular poets, and reads publicly in poetry, and is in other respects a good fellow (bonus socius). But as you know these poets, when they are not theologists like you, will always reprehend others, and despise the theologists. And once in a drinking party in his house, when we were drinking Thurgen ale, and sat until the hour of tierce, and I was moderately drunk, because that ale rose into my head, then there was one who was not before friendly with me, and I drank to him half a cup, and he accepted it. But afterwards he would not return the compliment. And thrice I cautioned him, and he would not reply, but sat in silence and said nothing. Then I thought to myself, Behold this man treats thee with contempt, and is proud, and always wants to confound you. And I was stirred in my anger, and took the cup, and threw it at his head. Then that poet was angry at me, and said that I had caused a disturbance in his house, and said I should go out of his house in the devil’s name. Then I replied, ‘What matter is it if you are myenemy? I have had as bad enemies as you, and yet I have stood in spite of them. What matters it if you are a poet? I have other poets who are my friends, and they are quite as good as you,ego bene merdarem in vestram poetriam! Do you think I am a fool, or that I was born under a tree like apples?’ Then he called me an ass, and said that I never saw a poet. And I said, ‘You are an ass in your skin, I have seen many more poets than you.’ And I spoke of you.... Wherefore I ask you very earnestly to write me one piece of verse, and then I will show it to this poet and others, and I will boast that you are my friend, and you are a much better poet than he.”

The war against the secular poets, or advocates of the new learning, is kept up with spirit through this ludicrous correspondence. One correspondent presses Ortuinus Gratius to “write to me whether it be necessary for eternal salvation that scholars learn grammar from the secular poets, such as Virgil, Tullius, Pliny, and others; for,” he adds, “it seems to me that this is not a good method of studying.” “As I have often written to you,” says another, “I am grieved that this ribaldry (ista ribaldria), namely, the faculty of poetry, becomes common, and is spread through all provinces and regions. In my time there was only one poet, who was called Samuel; and now, in this city alone, there are at least twenty, and they vex us all who hold with the ancients. Lately I thoroughly defeated one, who said thatscholarisdoes not signify a person who goes to the school for the purpose of learning; and I said, ‘Ass! will you correct the holy doctor who expounded this word?’” The new learning was, of course, identified with the supporters of Reuchlin. “It is said here,” continues the same correspondent, “that all the poets will side with doctor Reuchlin against the theologians. I wish all the poets were in the place where pepper grows, that they might let us go in peace!”

Master William Lamp, “master of arts,” sends to Master Ortuinus Gratius, a narrative of his adventures in a journey from Cologne to Rome. First he went to Mayence, where his indignation was moved by the open manner in which people spoke in favour of Reuchlin, and when he hazarded a contrary opinion, he was only laughed at, but he held his tongue, because his opponents all carried arms and looked fierce. “One of them is a count, and is a long man, and has white hair; and they say that he takes a man in armour in his hand, and throws him to the ground,and he has a sword as long as a giant; when I saw him, then I held my tongue.” At Worms, he found things no better, for the “doctors” spoke bitterly against the theologians, and when he attempted to expostulate, he got foul words as well as threats, a learned doctor in medicine affirming “quod merdaret super nos omnes.” On leaving Worms, Lamp and his companion, another theologist, fell in with plunderers who made them pay two florins to drink, “and I saidocculte, Drink what may the devil bless to you!” Subsequently they fell into low amours at country inns, which are described coarsely, and then they reached Insprucken, where they found the emperor, and his court and army, with whole manners and proceedings Magister Lamp became sorely disgusted. I pass over other adventures till they reach Mantua, the birthplace of Virgil, and of a late mediæval Latin poet, named from it Baptista Mantuanus. Lamp, in his hostile spirit towards the “secular poets,” proceeds,—“And my companion said, ‘Here Virgil was born.’ I replied, ‘What do I care for that pagan? We will go to the Carmelites, and see Baptista Mantuanus, who is twice as good as Virgil, as I have heard full ten times from Ortuinus;’ and I told him how you once reprehended Donatus, when he says, ‘Virgil was the most learned of poets, and the best;’ and you said, ‘If Donatus were here, I would tell him to his face that he lies, for Baptista Mantuanus is above Virgil.’ And when we came to the monastery of the Carmelites, we were told that Baptista Mantuanus was dead; then I said, ‘May he rest in peace!’” They continued their journey by Bologna, where they found the inquisitor Jacob de Hochstraten, and Florence, to Siena. “After this there are small towns, and one is called Monte-flascon, where we drunk excellent wine, such as I never drank in my life. And I asked the host what that wine is called, and he replied that it is lachryma Christi. Then said my companion, ‘I wish Christ would cry in our country!’ And so we drank a good bout, and two days after we entered Rome.”

In the course of these letters the theologists, the poets especially, the character of the clergy, and particularly Reuchlin and Pfeffercorn, afford continual subjects for dispute and pleasantry. The last mentioned individual, in the opinion of some, had merited hanging for theft, and it was pretended that the Jews had expelled him from their society for hiswicked courses. One argued that all Jews stink, and as it was well known that Pfeffercorn continued to stink like a Jew, it was quite evident that he could not be a good Christian. Some of Ortuinus’s correspondents consult him on difficult theological questions. Here is an example in a letter from one Henricus Schaffmulius, another of his scholars who had made the journey to Rome:—

“Since, before I journeyed to the Court, you said to me that I am to write often to you, and that sometimes I am to send you any theological questions, which you will solve for me better than the courtiers of Rome, therefore now I ask your mastership what you hold as to the case when any one on a Friday, or any other fast day, eats an egg, and there is a chicken inside. Because the other day we sat in a tavern in the Campo-flore, and made a collation, and eat eggs, and I, opening an egg, saw that there was a young chicken in it, which I showed to my companion, and then he said, ‘Eat it quickly before the host sees it, for if he sees it, then you will be obliged to give a carlino or a julio for a hen, because it is the custom here that, when the host places anything on the table, you must pay for it, for they will not take it back. And when he sees there is a young hen in the egg, he will say, Pay me for the hen, because he reckons a small one the same as a large one.’ And I immediately sucked up the egg, and with it the chicken, and afterwards I bethought me that it was Friday, and I said to my companion. ‘You have caused me to commit a mortal sin, in eating flesh on Friday.’ And he said that it is not a mortal sin, nor even a venial sin, because that embryo of a chicken is not reckoned other than an egg till it is born; and he told me that it is as in cheeses, in which there are sometimes worms, and in cherries, and fresh peas and beans, yet they are eaten on Fridays, and also in the vigils of the apostles. But the hosts are such rogues, that they say that they are flesh, that they may have more money. Then I went away, and thought about it. And,per Deum! Magister Ortuinus, I am much troubled, and I know not how I ought to rule myself. If I went to ask advice of a courtier [of the papal court], I know that they have not good consciences. It seems to me that these young hens in the eggs are flesh, because the matter is already formed and figured in members and bodies of an animal, and it has life; it is otherwise with worms in cheeses and other things, because worms are reputed for fishes, as I have heard from a physician, who is a very good naturalist. Therefore I ask you very earnestly, that you will give me your reply on this question. Because if you hold that it is a mortal sin, then I will purchase an absolution here, before I return to Germany. Also you must know that our master Jacobus de Hochstraten has obtained a thousand florins from the bank, and I think that with these he will gain his cause, and the devil confound that John Reuchlin, and the other poets and jurists, because they will be against the church of God, that is, against the theologists, in whom is founded the church, as Christ said: Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church. And so I commend you to the Lord God. Farewell. Given from the city of Rome.”

While in Italy macaronic literature was reaching its greatest perfection,there arose in the very centre of France a man of great original genius, who was soon to astonish the world by a new form of satire, more grotesque and more comprehensive than anything that had been seen before. Teofilo Folengo may fairly be considered as the precursor of Rabelais, who appears to have taken the Italian satirist as his model. What we know of the life of François Rabelais is rather obscure at best, and is in some parts no doubt fabulous. He was born at Chinon in Touraine, either in 1483 or in 1487, for this seems to be a disputed point, and some doubt has been thrown on the trade or profession of his father, but the most generally received opinion is that he was an apothecary. He is said to have shown from his youth a disposition more inclined to gaiety than to serious pursuits, yet at an early age he had made great proficiency in learning, and is said to have acquired a very sufficient knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, two of which, at least, were not popular among the popish clergy, and not only of the modern languages and literature of Italy, Germany, and Spain, but even of Arabic. Probably this estimate of his acquirements in learning is rather exaggerated. It is not quite clear where the young Rabelais gained all this knowledge, for he is said to have been educated in convents and among monks, and to have become at a rather early age a Franciscan friar in the convent of Fontenai-le-Compte, in Lower Poitou, where he became an object of jealousy and ill-feeling to the other friars by his superior acquirements. It was a tradition, at least, that the conduct of Rabelais was not very strictly conventual, and that he had so far shown his contempt for monastic rule, and for the bigotry of the Romish church, that he was condemned to the prison of his monastery, upon a diet of bread and water, which, according to common report, was very uncongenial with the tastes of this jovial friar. Out of this difficulty he is said to have been helped by his friend the bishop of Maillezais, who obtained for him the pope’s licence to change the order of St. Francis for the much more easy and liberal order of St. Benedict, and he became a member of the bishop’s own chapter in the abbey of Maillezais. His unsteady temper, however, was not long satisfied with this retreat, which he left, and, laying aside the regular habit, assumed that of a secular priest. In this character he wandered forsome time, and then settled at Montpellier, where he took a degree as doctor in medicine, and practised for some time with credit. There he published in 1532 a translation of some works of Hippocrates and Galen, which he dedicated to his friend the bishop of Maillezais. The circumstances under which he left Montpellier are not known, but he is supposed to have gone to Paris upon some business of the university, and to have remained there. He found there a staunch friend in Jean de Bellay, bishop of Paris, who soon afterwards was raised to the rank of cardinal. When the cardinal de Bellay went as ambassador to Rome from the court of France, Rabelais accompanied him, it is said in the character of his private medical adviser, but during his stay in the metropolis of Christendom, as Christendom was understood in those days by the Romish church, Rabelais obtained, on the 17th of January, 1536 the papal absolution for all his transgressions, and licence to return to Maillezais, and practise medicine there and elsewhere as an act of charity. Thus he became again a Benedictine monk. He, however, changed again, and became a secular canon, and finally settled down as the curé of Meudon, near Paris, with which he also held a fair number of ecclesiastical benefices. Rabelais died in 1553, according to some in a very religious manner, but others have given strange accounts of his last moments, representing that, even when dying, he conversed in the same spirit of mockery, not only of Romish forms and ceremonies, but of all religions whatever, which was ascribed to him during his life, and which are but too openly manifested in the extraordinary satirical romance which has given so much celebrity to his name.

During the greater part of his life, Rabelais was exposed to troubles and persecutions. He was saved from the intrigues of the monks by the friendly influence of popes and cardinals; and the favour of two successive kings, François I. and Henri II., protected him against the still more dangerous hostility of the Sorbonne and the parliament of Paris. This high protection has been advanced as a reason for rejecting the anecdotes and accounts which have been commonly received relating to the personal character of Rabelais, and his irregularities may possibly have been exaggerated by the hatred which he had drawn upon himself by hiswritings. But nobody, I think, who knows the character of society at that time, who compares what we know of the lives of the other satirists, and who has read the history of Gargantua and Pantagruel, will consider such an argument of much weight against the deliberate statements of those who were his contemporaries, or be inclined to doubt that the writer of this history was a man of jovial character, who loved a good bottle and a broad joke, and perhaps other things that were equally objectionable. His books present a sort of wild riotous orgy, without much order or plan, except the mere outline of the story, in which is displayed an extraordinary extent of reading in all classes of literature, from the most learned to the most popular, with a wonderful command of language, great imagination, and some poetry, intermixed with a perhaps larger amount of downright obscene ribaldry, than can be found in the macaronics of Folengo, in the“Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum,”or in the works of any of the other satirists who had preceded him, or were his contemporaries. It is a broad caricature, poor enough in its story, but enriched with details, which are brilliant with imagery, though generally coarse, and which are made the occasions for turning to ridicule everything that existed. The five books of this romance were published separately and at different periods, apparently without any fixed intention of continuing them. The earlier editions of the first part were published without date, but the earliest editions with dates belong to the year 1535, when it was several times reprinted. It appeared as the life of Gargantua. This hero is supposed to have flourished in the first half of the fifteenth century, and to have been the son of Grandgousier, king of Utopia, a country which lay somewhere in the direction of Chinon, a prince of an ancient dynasty, but a jovial fellow, who loved good eating and drinking better than anything else. Grandgousier married Gargamelle, daughter of the king of the Parpaillos, who became the mother of Gargantua. The first chapters relate rather minutely how the child was born, and came out at its mother’s ear, why it was called Gargantua, how it was dressed and treated in infancy, what were its amusements and disposition, and how Gargantua was put to learning under the sophists, and made no progress. Thereupon Grandgousier sent his son to Paris, toseek instruction there, and he proceeds thither mounted on an immense mare, which had been sent as a present by the king of Numidia—it must be borne in mind that the royal race of Utopia were all giants. At Paris the populace assembled tumultuously to gratify their curiosity in looking at this new scholar; but Gargantua, besides treating them in a very contemptuous manner, carried off the great bells of Notre Dame to suspend at the neck of his mare. Great was the indignation caused by this theft. “All the city was risen up in sedition, they being, as you know, upon any slight occasions, so ready to uproars and insurrections, that foreign nations wonder at the patience of the kings of France, who do not by good justice restrain them from such tumultuous courses.” The citizens take counsel, and resolve on sending one of the great orators of the university, Master Janotus de Bragmardo, to expostulate with Gargantua, and obtain the restoration of the bells. The speech which this worthy addresses to Gargantua, in fulfilment of his mission, is an amusing parody on the pedantic style of Parisian oratory. The bells, however, are recovered, and Gargantua, under skilful instructors, pursues his studies with credit, until he is suddenly called home by a letter from his father. In fact, Grandgousier was suddenly involved in a war with his neighbour Picrocole, king of Lerné, caused by a quarrel about cakes between some cake-makers of Lerné and Grandgousier’s shepherds, in consequence of which Picrocole had invaded the dominions of Grandgousier, and was plundering and ravaging them. His warlike humour is stirred up by the counsels of his three lieutenants, who persuade him that he is going to become a great conqueror, and that they will make him master of the whole world. It is not difficult to see, in the circumstances of the time, the general aim of the satire contained in the history of this war. It ends in the entire defeat and disappearance of king Picrocole. A sensual and jovial monk named brother Jean des Entommeurs, who has first distinguished himself by his prowess and strength in defending his own abbey against the invaders, contributes largely to the victory gained by Gargantua against his father’s enemies, and Gargantua rewards him by founding for him that pleasant abbey of Thélème, a grand establishment, stored with everything which could contribute to terrestrial happiness, from whichall hypocrites and bigots were to be excluded, and the rule of which was comprised in the four simple words, “Do as you like.”

Such is the history of Gargantua, which was afterwards formed by Rabelais into the first book of his great comic romance. It was published anonymously, the author merely describing himself as“l’abstracteur de quinte essence;”but he afterwards adopted the pseudonyme of Alcofribas Nasier, which is merely an anagram of his own name, François Rabelais. A very improbable story has been handed down to us relating to this book. It is pretended that, having published a book of medical science which had no sale, and the publisher complaining that he had lost money by it, Rabelais promised to make amends for his loss, and immediately wrote the history of Gargantua, by which the same book-seller made his fortune. There can be no doubt that this remarkable satire had a deeper origin than any casual accident like this; but it was exactly suited to the taste and temper of the age. It was quite original in its form and style, and it met with immediate and great success. Numerous editions followed each other rapidly, and its author, encouraged by its popularity, very soon afterwards produced a second romance, in continuation, to which he gave the title of Pantagruel. The caricature in this second romance is bolder even than in the first, the humour broader, and the satire more pungent. Grandgousier has disappeared from the scene, and his son, Gargantua, is king, and has a son named Pantagruel, whose kingdom is that of the Dipsodes. The first part of this new romance is occupied chiefly with Pantagruel’s youth and education, and is a satire on the university and on the lawyers, in which the parodies on their style of pleading as then practised is admirable. In the latter part, Pantagruel, like his father Gargantua, is engaged in great wars. It was perhaps the continued success of this new production of his pen which led Rabelais to go on with it, and form the design of making these two books part only of a more extensive romance. During his studies in Paris, Pantagruel has made the acquaintance of a singular individual named Panurge, who becomes his attached friend and constant companion, holding somewhat the position of brother Jean in the first book, but far more crafty and versatile. The whole subject of the thirdbook arises out of Pantagreul’s desire to marry, and its various amusing episodes describe the different expedients which, at the suggestion of Panurge, he adopts to arrive at a solution of the question whether his marriage would be fortunate or not.

In publishing his fourth book, Rabelais complains that his writings had raised him enemies, and that he was accused of having at least written heresy. In fact, he had bitterly provoked both the monks and the university and parliament; and, as the increasing reaction of Romanism in France gave more power of persecution to the two latter, he was not writing without some degree of danger, yet the satire of each successive book became bolder and more direct. The fifth, which was left unfinished at his death, and which was published posthumously, was the most severe of them all. The character of Gargantua, indeed, was almost forgotten in that of Pantagruel, and Pantagruelism became an accepted name for the sort of gay, reckless satire of which he was looked upon as the model. He described it himself as acertaine gaieté d’esprit confite en mépris des choses fortuites, in fact, neither Romanism nor Protestantism, but simply a jovial kind of Epicurianism. All the gay wits of the time aspired to be Pantagruelists, and the remainder of the sixteenth century abounded in wretched imitations of the style of Rabelais, which are now consigned as mere rarities to the shelves of the bibliophilist.

Among the dangers which began to threaten them in France in the earlier part of the sixteenth century, liberal opinions found an asylum at the court of a princess who was equally distinguished by her beauty, by her talents and noble sentiments, and by her accomplishments. Marguerite d’Angoulême, queen of Navarre, was the only sister of François I., who was her junior by two years, and was affectionately attached to her. She was born on the 11th of April, 1492. She had married, first, that unfortunate duke d’Alençon, whose misconduct at Pavia was the cause of the disastrous defeat of the French, and the captivity of their king. The duke died, it was said of grief at his misfortune, in 1525; and two years afterwards, on the 24th of January, 1527, she married Henri d’Albret, king of Navarre. Their daughter, Jeanne d’Albret, carried this petty royalty to the house of Bourbon, and was the mother of Henri IV.

Marguerite held her court in true princely manner in the castle of Pau or at Nérac, and she loved to surround herself with a circle of men remarkable for their character and talents, and ladies distinguished by beauty and accomplishments, which made it rival in brilliance even that of her brother François. She placed nearest to her person, under the character of hervalets-de-chambre, the principal poets andbeaux-espritsof her time, such as Clement Marot, Bonaventure des Periers, Claude Gruget, Antoine du Moulin, and Jean de la Haye, and admitted them to such a tender familiarity of intercourse, as to excite the jealousy of the king her husband, from whose ill-treatment she was only protected by her brother’s interference. The poets called her chamber a “veritable Parnassus.” Hers was certainly a great mind, greedy of knowledge, dissatisfied with what was, and eager for novelties, and therefore she encouraged all who sought for them. It was in this spirit, combined with her earnest love for letters, that she threw her protection over both the sceptics and the religious reformers. At the beginning of the persecutions, as early as 1523, she openly declared herself the advocate of the Protestants. When Clement Marot was arrested by order of the Sorbonne and the Inquisitor on the charge of having eaten bacon in Lent, Marguerite caused him to be liberated from prison, in defiance of his persecutors. Some of the purest and ablest of the early French reformers, such as Roussel and Le Fèvre d’Etaples, and Calvin himself, found a safe asylum from danger in her dominions. As might be supposed, the bigoted party were bitterly incensed against the queen of Navarre, and were not backward in taking advantage of an opportunity for showing it. A moral treatise, entitled“Le Miroir de l’Ame Pécheresse,”of which Marguerite was the author, was condemned by the Sorbonne in 1533, but the king compelled the university, in the person of its rector, Nicolas Cop, to disavow publicly the censure. This was followed by a still greater act of insolence, for, at the instigation of some of the more bigoted papists, the scholars of the college of Navarre, in concert with their regents, performed a farce in which Marguerite was transformed into a fury of hell. François I., greatly indignant, sent his archers to arrest the offenders, who further provoked his anger byresistance, and only obtained their pardon through the generous intercession of the princess whom they had so grossly insulted.

Marguerite was herself a poetess, and she loved above all things those gay, and seldom very delicate, stories, the telling of which was at that time one of the favourite amusements of the evening, and one in which she was known to excel. Her poetical writings were collected and printed, under her own authority, in 1547, by her thenvalet-de-chambre, Jean de la Haye, who dedicated the volume to her daughter. They are all graceful, and some of them worthy of the best poets of her time. The title of this collection was, punning upon her name, which means a pearl,“Marguerites de la Marguerite des princesses, très illustre reyne de Navarre.”Marguerite’s stories (nouvelles) were more celebrated than her verses, and are said to have been committed to writing under her own dictation. All the ladies of her court possessed copies of them in writing. It is understood to have been her intention to form them into ten days’ tales, of ten in each day, so as to resemble the “Decameron” of Boccaccio, but only eight days were finished at the time of her death, and the imperfect work was published posthumously by hervalet-de-chambre, Claude Gruget, under the title of“L’Heptameron, ou Histoire des Amants Fortunés.”It is by far the best collection of stories of the sixteenth century. They are told charmingly, in language which is a perfect model of French composition of that age, but they are all tales of gallantry such as could only be repeated in polite society in an age which was essentially licentious. Queen Marguerite died on the 21st of December, 1549, and was buried in the cathedral of Pau. Her death was a subject of regret to all that was good and all that was poetic, not only in France, but in Europe, which had been accustomed to look upon her as the tenth Muse and the fourth Grace:—

Musarum decima et Charitum quarta, inclyta regumEt soror et conjux, Marguaris illa jacet.

Musarum decima et Charitum quarta, inclyta regum

Et soror et conjux, Marguaris illa jacet.

Before Marguerite’s death, her literary circle had been broken up by the hatred of religious persecutors. Already, in 1536, the imprudent boldness of Marot had rendered it impossible to protect him any longer,and he had been obliged to retire to a place of concealment, from whence he sometimes paid a stealthy visit to her court. His place ofvalet-de-chambrewas given to a man of talents, even more remarkable, and who shared equally the personal esteem of the queen of Navarre, Bonaventure des Periers. Marot’s successor paid a graceful compliment to him in a short poem entitled“L’Apologie de Marot absent,”published in 1537. The earlier part of the year following witnessed the publication of the most remarkable work of Bonaventure des Periers, the“Cymbalum Mundi,”concerning the real character of which writers are still divided in opinion. In it Des Periers introduced a new form of satire, imitated from the dialogues of Lucian. The book consists of four dialogues, written in language which forms a model of French composition, the personages introduced in them intended evidently to represent living characters, whose names are concealed in anagrams and other devices, among whom was Clement Marot. It was the boldest declaration of scepticism which had yet issued from the Epicurean school represented by Rabelais. The author sneers at the Romish church as an imposture, ridicules the Protestants as seekers after the philosopher’s stone, and shows disrespect to Christianity itself. Such a book could hardly be published in Paris with impunity, yet it was printed there, secretly, it is said, by a well-known bookseller, Jean Morin, in the Rue St. Jacques, and therefore in the immediate vicinity of the persecuting Sorbonne. Private information had been given of the character of this work, possibly by the printer himself or by one of his men, and on the 6th of March, 1538, when it was on the eve of publication, the whole impression was seized at the printer’s, and Morin himself was arrested and thrown into prison. He was treated rigorously, and is understood to have escaped only by disavowing all knowledge of the character of the book, and giving up the name of the author. The first edition of the“Cymbalum Mundi”was burnt, and Bonaventure des Periers, alarmed by the personal dangers in which he was thus involved, retired from the court of the queen of Navarre, and took refuge in the city of Lyons, where liberal opinions at that time found a greater degree of tolerance than elsewhere. There he printed a second edition of the“Cymbalum Mundi,”whichalso was burnt, and copies of either edition are now excessively rare.[98]Bonaventure des Periers felt so much the weight of the persecution in which he had now involved himself, that, in the year 1539, as far as can be ascertained, he put an end to his own existence. This event cast a gloom over the court of the queen of Navarre, from which it seems never to have entirely recovered. The school of scepticism to which Des Periers belonged had now fallen into equal discredit with Catholics and Protestants, and the latter looked upon Marguerite herself, who had latterly conformed outwardly with Romanism, as an apostate from their cause. Henri Estienne, in his“Apologie pour Herodote,”speaks of the“Cymbalum Mundi”as an infamous book.

Bonaventure des Periers left behind him another work more amusing to us at the present day, and more characteristic of the literary tastes of the court of Marguerite of Navarre. This is a collection of facetious stories, which was published several years after the death of its author, under the title of“Les Contes, ou Les Nouvelles Récréations et Joyeux Devis de Bonaventure des Periers.”They have some resemblance in style to the stories of the Heptameron, but are shorter, and rather more facetious, and are characterised by their bitter spirit of satire against the monks and popish clergy. Some of these stories remind us, in their peculiar character and tone, of the“Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum,”as, for an example, the following, which is given as an anecdote of the curé de Brou:—

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