RABELAIS.

[FRANCOIS RABELAIS was born in 1483 (or according Co some biographers, in 1495), at Chinon, a small town in Touraine, France. His father, who combined the cultivation of a small farm, of which he was the owner, with the business of an apothecary, gave his son the best educational advantages. At an early age Francois was sent as a pupil to the abbey of Seully, and thence to the University of Angers. Here he made the acquaintance of Jean (afterwards Cardinal) Du Bellay, to whose friendship he was subsequently much indebted. At the request of his father, Rabelais entered the priesthood, becoming first a brother of the Franciscan convent of Fontenay le Comte, in 1519. He now began to display that enthusiasm for study which made him perhaps the most erudite man of his age. His studies embraced the whole range of the sciences, especially medicine, and a mastery of the Latin, Greek, Italian, Spanish, German English, Hebrew, and Arabic languages. His learning, however, provoked the jealousy and hatred of the monks, who suspected that his Greek was a cover for heresy. On one occasion, in 1523, his cell was searched for suspicious books, and to avoid severer persecution he fled. His wit and learning having gained him influential friends, he obtained by their exertions a papal indulgence authorizing his transfer from the order of St. Francis to that of St. Benedict, upon which he became an inmate of the monastery of Maillezay. Here his condition appears to have been little improved; for after a few years he abruptly quitted the monastery without ecclesiastical sanction. In 1530, he settled at Montpellier, and, taking a degree in medicine at the University, was appointed a lecturer therein. At Lyons, whither he

went as hospital physician in 1532, he published several

works on medical science, archæology, jurisprudence,

etc. In 1534, he accompanied Du Bellay to Rome, as travelling physician. He obtained from Pope Paul III.

ɔn the occasion, a remission of the penalties attached

to his monastic misdemeanor, with permission to return

to the order of St. Benedict. He continued, however, to practice medicine at Montpellier and elsewhere until 1538, when he became canon of Du Bellay's abbey of St. Maur des Fosses, near Paris. On Cardinal Du Bellay's loss of influence, Rabelais at first shared the ef

VOL. II.-W. H.

fects of his disgrace, but afterwards received from the
Cardinal of Lorraine the curacy of Meudon, which he
held until his death. He is said to have been exem-
plary in life, profuse in charity, and sedulous in the
relief of suffering. Some wrote that Rabelais died at
Meudon; but Dom Pierre de St. Romuald says, that
Dr. Guy Paton, Royal Professor at Paris, who was a
great admirer of Rabelais, assured him that he, himself,
caused him to be brought from his cure to Paris, where
he lies buried in St. Paul's Church yard, at the foot of a
great tree still to be seen. He died in a house in the
Street called La Rue des' Jardins, in St. Paul's Parish at
Paris about the year 1553, aged seventy years.
The following is his Epitaph written by his contem-
porary, Baif:

Pluton, prince du noir Empire,
Où les tiens ne rient jamais,
Recois aujourd'huy Rabelais,

Et les tiens auront, de quoy rire.

The scientific works of Rabelais are forgotten; but his romance of Gargantua and Pantagruel ranks as one of the world's mas terpieces of humor and grotesque invention. "In the form of a sportive and extravagant fiction, it is, in fact, a satirical criticism of the corrupt society of the period, the prevalent follies and vices of which are parodied with surprising effect and ingenuity."

"The work of Rabelais," says Leigh Hunt, "is a wild but profound burlesque of some of the worst abuses in government and religion; and it has had a corresponding effect on the feeling, or unconscious reasonings of the world. This must be its excuse for a coarseness which was perhaps its greatest recommendation in the 'good old times,' though at present one is astonished how people could bear it. Rabelais' combination of work and play, of merriment and study, of excessive animal spirits and prodigious learning would be a perpetual marvel, if we did not reflect that nothing is

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