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During his stay at Paris, Pantagruel meets with Panurge, who continues to be a leading character through the remainder of the work, and attends Pantagruel in his expedition against the Dipsodes, who had laid waste a great part of his territory. The Dipsodes are the Flemings, and other subjects of Charles V., who invaded Picardy and the adjacent districts, of which Anthony of Bourbon was governor; and the real issue of that war is enigmatically pointed out towards the end of the second book, by the discomfiture of the three hundred giants.

Panurge is the principal character through the whole of the third book. His mind is represented as fluctuating between the desire of entering into a matrimonial engagement and the fear of repenting his choice. To dispel his doubts he consults certain persons, who, by magical skill, could relieve mental anxiety by prediction of the future: in particular, he applies to Raminogrobis, an aged poet, then in the last moments of his existence, who is intended for Cretin, an author almost as much celebrated in his own day as he has been neglected by posterity. The last person of whom he asks advice puts into his hands an empty bottle, which Panurge interprets to imply that he should

undertake a voyage for the purpose of obtaining a response from the oracle of the Holy Bottle. The fourth and fifth books are occupied with the expedition of Panurge, accompanied by Pantagruel, in quest of the oracle. This voyage is said to signify a departure from the World of Error to search after Truth, which the author places in a bottle, in consequence of the proverbial effects of intoxication. These two books are considered as the most entertaining part of the work, as the satire is more general and obvious than in those by which they are preceded.

In the account of this voyage, the author, according to the expression of Thuanus, omnes hominum ordines deridendos propinavit. Each island, which his characters pass, or on which they disembark, is made the vehicle of new ridicule. Thus, the first place touched at is the island of Medamothi (No where), and in the account of the rarities with which this country abounds, the improbable fictions of travellers are ridiculed. In another island the author paints the manners of bailiffs and other inferior officers of justice. Leaving this archipelago of absurdity, the vessel of Panurge and Pantagruel is nearly wrecked in a storm, which typifies the persecution raised in France against the Hugonots, and the land where the ship went into

port after the tempest, is the British dominions, which formed a safe harbour from the violence of popish persecution. Here the ruins of obelisks and temples, and vestiges of ancient monuments, denote the abolition of the monasteries which had recently been effected. The last place at which Pantagruel and Panurge arrive is Lanternland, or the Land of Learning, inhabited by professors of various arts and sciences. Our voyagers beseech the queen of this country to grant them a lantern to light and conduct them to the oracle of the Holy Bottle. Their request being complied with, they are guided by the lantern, that is, the light of learning, to the spot which they so vehemently desired to reach. On arriving in the country where the oracle was situated, they, in the first place, pass through an extensive vineyard. At the end of this vineyard, being still preceded by the lantern, they come through a vault, to the porch of a magnificent temple. The architecture of this building is splendidly described, and mysteries have, of course, been discovered by commentators in the account of the component parts. Its gates spontaneously open, after which the perspicuous lantern takes leave, and consigns the strangers to the care of Bacbuc, priestess of the temple. Under her escort they view a beautiful represen

tation of the triumphs of Bacchus, the splendid lamp by which the temple is illuminated, and the miraculous fountain of water, which had the taste of wine. Finally, Panurge is conducted through a golden gate to a round chapel formed of transparent stones, in the middle of which stood a heptagonal fountain of alabaster, containing the oracular bottle, which is described as being of fine crystal, and of an oval shape. The priestess throws something into the fount, on which the water begins to bubble, and the word Trinc is heard to proceed from the bottle, which the priestess declares to be the most auspicious response pronounced while she had officiated at the oracle. This term she explains to be equivalent to Drink, and as the goddess had directed her votary to the divine liquor, she presents him with Falernian wine in a goblet. The priestess having also partaken with her guests, raves and prophesies, and all being inspired with Bacchanalian enthusiasm, the romance concludes with a tirade of obscene and impious verses.

Few writers have been more reviled and extolled than Rabelais; he has been highly applauded by De Thou, but bitterly attacked by the poet Ronsard, and also by Calvin, who thought to have made

a convert of him. Subsequent critics are equally at variance: Boileau has called him La Raison habillée en Masque, while Voltaire, in his Temple de Gout, pronounces, that all the sense and wit of Rabelais may be comprised in three pages, and that the rest of the work is a mass of incoherent absurdity.

We are informed by Pasquier, in his Letters, (1. 1.) that Rabelais had two unsuccessful imitators. -One under the name of Leon L'Adulfy, in his Propos Rustiques, and the other, anonymous, in a work entitled Les Fanfreluches. Le Moyen de Parvenir, by Beroalde de Verville, is the work which bears, I think, the closest resemblance to that of Rabelais. The author professes himself an imitator of the father of comic romance, but the disorder that pervades his work is greater than in the romance of his predecessor. Like Athenæus, he introduces a company conversing together at random on various topics, and a number of jests and tales in the manner of Rabelais are thus thrown together at hazard, but there is no leading character or story by which they are in any way connected. We are told in the Menagiana that the best of these tales may be found, in form of question and answer, at the end of a MS. in the old

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