CHAPTER XIX

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THE SATIRICAL LITERATURE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.--PASQUIL.-- MACARONIC POETRY.--THE EPISTOLÆ OBSURORUM VIRORUM.--RABELAIS.-- COURT OF THE QUEEN OF NAVARRE, AND ITS LITERARY CIRCLE; BONAVENTURE DES PERIERS.--HENRI ETIENNE.--THE LIGUE, AND ITS SATIRE: THE "SATYRE MÉNIPPÉE."

The sixteenth century, especially on the Continent, was a period of that sort of violent agitation which is most favourable to the growth of satire. Society was breaking up, and going through a course of decomposition, and it presented to the view on every side spectacles which provoked the mockery, perhaps more than the indignation, of lookers-on. Even the clergy had learnt to laugh at themselves, and almost at their own religion; and people who thought or reflected were gradually separating into two classes--those who cast all religion from them, and rushed into a jeering scepticism, and those who entered seriously and with resolution into the work of reformation. The latter found most encouragement among the Teutonic nations, while the sceptical element appears to have had its birth in Italy, and even in Rome itself, where, among popes and cardinals, religion had degenerated into empty forms.

At some period towards the close of the fifteenth century, a mutilated ancient statue was accidentally dug up in Rome, and it was erected on a pedestal in a place not far from the Ursini Palace. Opposite it stood the shop of a shoemaker, named Pasquillo, or Pasquino, the latter being the form most commonly adopted at a later period. This Pasquillo was notorious as a facetious fellow, and his shop was usually crowded by people who went there to tell tales and hear news; and, as no other name had been invented for the statue, people agreed to give it the name of the shoemaker, and they called it Pasquillo. It became a custom, at certain seasons, to write on pieces of paper satirical epigrams, sonnets, and other short compositions in Latin or Italian, mostly of a personal character, in which the writer declared whatever he had seen or heard to the discredit of somebody, and these were published by depositing them with the statue, whence they were taken and read. One of the Latin epigrams which pleads against committing these short personal satires to print, calls the time at which it was usual to compose them Pasquil's festival:--

Jam redit illa dies in qua Romana juventus Pasquilli festum concelebrabit ovans. Sed versus impressos obsecro ut edere omittas, Ne noceant iterum quæ nocuere semel.

The festival was evidently a favourite one, and well celebrated. "The soldiers of Xerxes," says another epigram, placed in Pasquil's mouth, "were not so plentiful as the paper bestowed upon me; I shall soon become a bookseller"--

Armigerûm Xerxi non copia tanta papyri Quanta mihi: fiam bibliopola statim.

The name of Pasquil was soon given to the papers which were deposited with the statue, and eventually a _pasquil_, or _pasquin_, was only another name for a lampoon or libel. Not far from this statue stood another, which was found in the forum of Mars (_Martis forum_), and was thence popularly called Marforio. Some of these satirical writings were composed in the form of dialogues between Pasquil and Marforio, or of messages from one to the other.

A collection of these pasquils was published in 1544 in two small volumes.[94] Many of them are extremely clever, and they are sharply pointed. The popes are frequent objects of bitterest satire. Thus we are reminded in two lines upon pope Alexander VI. (_sextus_), the infamous Borgia, that Tarquin had been a Sextus, and Nero also, and now another Sextus was at the head of the Romans, and told that Rome was always ruined under a Sextus--

De Alexandro VI. Pont. _Sextus Tarquinius, Sextus Nero, Sextus et iste: Semper sub Sextis perdita Roma fuit._

The following is given for an epitaph on Lucretia Borgia, pope Alexander's profligate daughter:--

_Hoc tumulo dormit Lucretia nomine, sed re Thais, Alexandri filia, sponsa, nurus._

[94] "Pasquillorum Tomi duo." Eleutheropoli, MDXLIIII.

In another of a rather later date, Rome, addressing herself to Pasquil, is made to complain of two successive popes, Clement VII. (Julio de Medicis, 1523-1534) and Paul III. (Alexandro Farnese, 1534-1549), and also of Leo X. (1513-1521). "I am," Rome says, "sick enough with the physician (_Medicus_, as a pun on the Medicis), I was also the prey of the lion (_Leo_), now, Paul, you tear my vitals like a wolf. You, Paul, are not a god to me, as I thought in my folly, but you are a wolf, since you tear the food from my mouth"--

_Sum Medico satis ægra, fui quoque præda Leonis, Nunc mea dilaceras viscera, Paule, lupus. Non es, Paule, mihi numen, ceu stulta putabam, Sed lupus es, quoniam subtrahis ore cibum._

Another epigram, addressed to Rome herself, involves a pun in Greek (in the words _Paulos_, Paul, and _Phaulos_, wicked). "Once, Rome," it says, "lords of lords were thy subjects, now thou in thy wretchedness art subject to the serfs of serfs; once you listened to the oracles of St. Paul, but now you perform the abominable commands of the wicked"--

_Quondam, Roma, tibi suberant domini dominorum, Servorum servis nunc miseranda subes; Audisti quondam divini oracula Παύλου, At nunc των φαύλων jussa nefanda facis._

The idea, of course, is the contrast of Rome in her Pagan glory, with Rome in her Christian debasement, very much the same as that which struck Gibbon, and gave birth to his great history of Rome's "decline and fall."[95]

[95] Pasquil and Pasquin became, during the latter part of the sixteenth and the whole of the seventeenth centuries, a well-known name in French and English literature. In English popular literature he was turned into a jester, and a book was published in 1604 under the title "Pasquil's Jests; with the Merriments of Mother Bunch. Wittie, pleasant, and delightfull."

The pasquils formed a body of satire which struck indiscriminately at everybody within its range, but satirists were now rising who took for their subjects special cases of the general disorder. Rotten at the heart, society presented an external glossiness, a mixture of pedantry and affectation, which offered subjects enough for ridicule in whatever point of view it was taken. The ecclesiastical body was in a state of fermentation, out of which new feelings and new doctrines were about to rise. The old learning and literature of the middle ages remained in form after their spirit had passed away, and they were now contending clumsily and unsuccessfully against new learning and literature of a more refined and healthier character. Feudalism itself had fallen, or it was struggling vainly against new political principles, yet the aristocracy clung to feudal forms and feudal assumptions, with an exaggeration which was meant for an appearance of strength. Among the literary affectations of this false feudalism, was the fashion for reading the long, dry, old romances of chivalry; while the churchmen and schoolmen were corrupting the language in which mediæval learning had been expressed, into a form the most barbarous, or introducing words compounded from the later into the vernacular tongue. These peculiarities were among the first to provoke literary satire. Italy, where this class of satire originated, gave it its name also, though it appears still to be a matter of doubt why it was called _macaronic_, or in its Italian form _maccharonea_. Some have considered this name to have been taken from the article of food called _macaroni_, to which the Italians were, and still are, so much attached; while others pretend that it was derived from an old Italian word _macarone_, which meant a lubberly fellow. Be this, however, as it may, what is called macaronic composition, which consists in giving a Latin form to words taken from the vulgar tongue, and mixing them with words which are purely Latin, was introduced in Italy at the close of the fifteenth century.

Four Italian writers in macaronic verse are known to have lived before the year 1500.[96] The first of these was named Fossa, and he tells us that he composed his poem entitled "Vigonce," on the second day of May, 1494. It was printed in 1502. Bassano, a native of Mantua, and the author of a macaronic which bears no title, was dead in 1499; and another, a Paduan named Fifi degli Odassi, was born about the year 1450. Giovan Georgio Allione, of Asti, who is believed also to have written during the last ten years of the fifteenth century, is a name better known through the edition of his French works, published by Monsieur J. C. Brunet in 1836. All these present the same coarseness and vulgarity of sentiment, and the same licence in language and description, which appear to have been taken as necessary characteristics of macaronic composition. Odassi appears to give support to the derivation of the name from macaroni, by making the principal character of his poem a fabricator of that article in Padua--

_Est unus in Padua natus speciale cusinus, In maccharonea princeps bonus atque magister._

[96] The great authority on the history of Macaronic literature is my excellent friend Monsieur Octave Delepierre, and I will simply refer the reader to his two valuable publications, "Macaronéana, ou Mélanges de Littérature Macaronique des differents Peuples de l'Europe," 8vo., Paris, 1852; and "Macaronéana," 4to., 1863; the latter printed for the Philobiblon Club.

But the great matter of macaronic poetry was Teofilo Folengo, of whose life we know just sufficient to give us a notion of the personal character of these old literary caricaturists. Folengo was descended from a noble family, which had its seat at the village of Cipada, near Mantua, where he was born on the 8th of November, 1491, and baptised by the name of Girolamo. He pursued his studies, first in the university of Ferrara, under the professor Visago Cocaio, and afterwards in that of Bologna, under Pietro Pomponiazzo; or rather, he ought to have pursued them, for his love of poetry, and his gaiety of character, led him to neglect them, and at length his irregularities became so great, that he was obliged to make a hasty flight from Bologna. He was ill received at home, and he left it also, and appears to have subsequently led a wild life, during part of which he adopted the profession of a soldier, until at length he took refuge in a Benedictine convent near Brescia, in 1507, and became a monk. The discipline of this house had become entirely relaxed, and the monks appear to have lived very licentiously; and Folengo, who, on his admission to the order, had exchanged his former baptismal name for Teofilo, readily conformed to their example. Eventually he abandoned the convent and the habit, ran away with a lady named Girolama Dedia, and for some years he led a wandering, and, it would seem, very irregular life. Finally, in 1527, he returned to his old profession of a monk, and remained in it until his death, in the December of 1544. He is said to have been extremely vain of his poetical talents, and a story is told of him which, even if it were invented, illustrates well the character which was popularly given to him. It is said that when young, he aspired to excel in Latin poetry, and that he wrote an epic which he himself believed to be _superior_ to the Æneid. When, however, he had communicated the work to his friend the bishop of Mantua, and that prelate, intending to compliment him, told him that he had equalled Virgil, he was so mortified, that he threw the manuscript on the fire, and from that time devoted his talents entirely to the composition of macaronic verse.

Such was the man who has justly earned the reputation of being the first of macaronic poets. When he adopted this branch of literature, while he was in the university of Bologna, he assumed in writing it the name of Merlinus Cocaius, or Coccaius, probably from the name of his professor at Ferrara. Folengo's printed poems consist of--1. The Zanitonella, a pastoral in seven eclogues, describing the love of Tonellus for Zanina; 2, the macaronic romance of Baldus, Folengo's principal and most remarkable work; 3, the Moschæa, or dreadful battle between the flies and the ants; and 4, a book of Epistles and Epigrams.

The first edition of the Baldus appeared in 1517. It is a sort of parody on the romances of chivalry, and combines a jovial satire upon everything, which, as has been remarked, spares neither religion nor politics, science nor literature, popes, kings, clergy, nobility, or people. It consists of twenty-five cantos, or, as they are termed in the original, _phantasiæ_, fantasies. In the first we are told of the origin of Baldus. There was at the court of France a famous knight named Guy, descended from that memorable paladin Renaud of Montauban. The king, who showed a particular esteem for Guy, had also a daughter of surpassing beauty, named Balduine, who had fallen in love with Guy, and he was equally amorous of the princess. In the sequel of a grand tournament, at which Guy has distinguished himself greatly, he carries off Balduine, and the two lovers fly on foot, in the disguise of beggars, reach the Alps in safety, and cross them into Italy. At Cipada, in the territory of Brescia, they are hospitably entertained by a generous peasant named Berte Panade, with whom the princess Balduine, who approaches her time of confinement, is left; while her lover goes forth to conquer at least a marquisate for her. After his departure she gives birth to a fine boy, which is named Baldus. Such, as told in the second canto, is the origin of Folengo's hero, who is destined to perform marvellous acts of chivalry. The peasant Berte Panade has also a son named Zambellus, by a mother who had died in childbirth of him. Baldus passes for the son of Berte also, so that the two are supposed to be brothers. Baldus is successively led through a series of extraordinary adventures, some low and vulgar, others more chivalrous, and some of them exhibiting a wild fertility of imagination, which are too long to enable me to take my readers through them, until at length he is left by the poet in the country of Falsehood and Charlatanism, which is inhabited by astrologers, necromancers, and poets. Thus is the hero Baldus dragged through a great number of marvellous accidents, some of them vulgar, many of them ridiculous, and some, again, wildly poetical, but all of them presenting, in one form or other, an opportunity for satire upon some of the follies, or vices, or corruptions of his age. The hybrid language in which the whole is written, gives it a singularly grotesque appearance; yet from time to time we have passages which show that the author was capable of writing true poetry, although it is mixed with a great amount of coarse and licentious ideas, expressed no less coarsely and licentiously. What we may term the filth, indeed, forms a large proportion of the Italian macaronic poetry. The pastoral of Zanitonella presents, as might be expected, more poetic beauty than the romance of Balbus. As an example of the language of the latter, and indeed of that of the Italian macaronics in general, I give a few lines of a description of a storm at sea, from the twelfth canto, with a literal translation:--

_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 removed from 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 of _juge_, 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 he tells 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._

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 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 of the 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._

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 a Hebrew 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 the Romish 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 were correct to say _magister nostrandus_, or _noster 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 say _noster 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 say _magister nostrandus_. For as there is a difference between _magister noster_ and _noster magister_, so also there is a difference between _magister nostrandus_ and _noster magistrandus_; for a doctor in theology is called _magister noster_, and it is one word, but _noster magister_ are 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."

[97] This style differs entirely from the macaronic. It consists merely in using the words of the Latin language with the forms and construction of the vulgar tongue, as illustrated by the directions of the professor who, lecturing in the schools, was interrupted by the entrance of a dog, and shouted out to the doorkeeper, _Verte canem ex_, meaning thereby that he should "turn the dog out." It was perhaps from this, or some similar occurrence, that this barbarous Latin gained the name of dog-Latin. The French call it _Latin de cuisine_.

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 my enemy? 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 that _scholaris_ does 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 said _occulte_, 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 his wicked 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 for some 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 his writings. 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, to seek 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 which all 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 third book 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 a _certaine 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 her _valets-de-chambre_, the principal poets and _beaux-esprits_ of 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 by resistance, 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 then _valet-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 her _valet-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 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 of _valet-de-chambre_ was 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," which also 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.

[98] A cheap and convenient edition of the "Cymbalum Mundi," edited by the Bibliophile Jacob (Paul Lacroix), was published in Paris in 1841. I may here state that similar editions of the principal French satirists of the sixteenth century have been printed during the last twenty-five years.

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:--

"This curé had a way of his own to chant the different offices of the church, and above all he disliked the way of saying the Passion in the manner it was ordinarily said in churches, and he chanted it quite differently. For when our Lord said anything to the Jews, or to Pilate, he made him talk high and loud, so that everybody could hear him, and when it was the Jews or somebody else who spoke, he spoke so low that he could hardly be heard at all. It happened that a lady of rank and importance, on her way to Châteaudun, to keep there the festival of Easter, passed through Brou on Good Friday, about ten o'clock in the morning, and, wishing to hear service, she went to the church where the curé was officiating. When it came to the Passion, he said it in his own manner, and made the whole church ring again when he said _Quem quæritis_? But when it came to the reply, _Jesum Nazarenum_, he spoke as low as he possibly could. And in this manner he continued the Passion. The lady, who was very devout, and, for a woman, well informed in the holy scriptures, and attentive to the ecclesiastical ceremonies, felt scandalised at this mode of chanting, and wished she had never entered the church. She had a mind to speak to the curé, and tell him what she thought of it; and for this purpose sent for him to come to her after the service. When he came, she said to him, 'Monsieur le Curé, I don't know where you learnt to officiate on a day like this, when the people ought to be all humility; but to hear you perform the service, is enough to drive away anybody's devotion.' 'How so, madame?' said the curé. 'How so?' said she, 'you have said a Passion contrary to all rules of decency. When our Lord speaks, you cry as if you were in the town-hall; and when it is a Caiaphas, or Pilate, or the Jews, you speak softly like a young bride. Is this becoming in one like you? are you fit to be a curé? If you had what you deserve, you would be turned out of your benefice, and then you would be made to know your fault!' When the curé had very attentively listened to her, he said, 'Is this what you had to say to me, madame? By my soul! it is very true, what they say; and the truth is, that there are many people who talk of things which they do not understand. Madame, I believe that I know my office as well as another, and I beg all the world to know that God is as well served in this parish according to its condition, as in any place within a hundred leagues of it. I know very well that the other curés chant the Passion quite differently; I could easily chant it like them if I would; but they do not understand their business at all. I should like to know if it becomes those rogues of Jews to speak as loud as our Lord! No, no, madame; rest assured that in my parish it is my will that God be the master, and He shall be as long as I live; and let the others do in their parishes according to their understanding.'"

Another story, equally worthy of Ulric von Hutten, is satirical enough on priestly pedantry:--

"There was a priest of a village who was as proud as might be, because he had seen a little more than his Cato; for he had read _De Syntaxi_, and his _Fauste precor gelida_ [the first eclogue of Baptista Mantuanus]. And this made him set up his feathers, and talk very grand, using words that filled his mouth, in order to make people think him a great doctor. Even at confession, he made use of terms which astonished the poor people. One day he was confessing a poor working man, of whom he asked, 'Here, now, my friend, tell me, art thou ambitious?' The poor man said 'No,' thinking this was a word which belonged to great lords, and almost repented of having come to confess to this priest; for he had already heard that he was such a great clerk, and that he spoke so grandly, that nobody understood him, which he now knew by this word _ambitious_; for although he might have heard it somewhere, yet he did not know at all what it was. The priest went on to ask 'Art thou not a fornicator?' 'No,' said the labourer, who understood as little as before. 'Art thou not a gourmand?' said the priest. 'No.' 'Art thou not superbe [_proud_]?' 'No.' 'Art thou not iracund?' 'No.' The priest seeing the man answer always 'No,' was somewhat surprised. 'Art thou not concupiscent?' 'No.' 'And what art thou, then?' said the priest. 'I am,' said he, 'a mason; here is my trowel!'"

At this time "Pantagruelism" had mixed itself more or less largely in all the satirical literature of France. It is very apparent in the writings of Bonaventure des Periers, and in a considerable number of satirical publications which now issued, many of them anonymously, or under the then fashionable form of anagrams, from the press in France. Among these writers were a few who, though far inferior to Rabelais, may be considered as not unequal to Des Periers himself. One of the most remarkable of these was a gentleman of Britany, Noel du Fail, lord of La Hérissaye, who was, like so many of these satirists, a lawyer, and who died, apparently at an advanced age, at the end of 1585, or beginning of 1586. In his publications, according to the fashion of that age, he concealed his name under an anagram, and called himself Leon Ladulfil (doubling the _l_ in the name Fail). Noel du Fail has been called the ape of Rabelais, though the mere imitation is not very apparent. He published (as far as has been ascertained), in 1548, his "Discours d'aucuns propos ruftiques facétieux, et de singulière récréation." This was followed immediately by a work entitled "Baliverneries, ou Contes Nouveaux d'Eutrapel;" but his last, and most celebrated book, the "Contes et Discours d'Eutrapel," was not printed until 1586, after the death of its author. The writings of Noel du Fail are full of charming pictures of rural life in the sixteenth century, and, though sufficiently free, they present less than most similar books of that period of the coarseness of Rabelais. I cannot say the same of a book which is much more celebrated than either of these, and the history of which is still enveloped in obscurity. I mean the "Moyen de Parvenir." This book, which is full of wit and humour, but the licentiousness of which is carried to a degree which renders it unreadable at the present day, is now ascribed by bibliographers, in its present form, to Béroalde de Verville, a gentleman of a Protestant family who had embraced Catholicism, and obtained advancements in the church, and it was not printed until 1610, but it is supposed that in its present form it is only a revision of an earlier composition, perhaps even an unacknowledged work of Rabelais himself, which had been preserved in manuscript in Beroald's family.

Pantagruelism, or, if you like, Rabelaism, did not, during the sixteenth century, make much progress beyond the limits of France. In the Teutonic countries of Europe, and in England, the sceptical sentiment was small in comparison with the religious feeling, and the only satirical work at all resembling those we have been describing, was the "Utopia" of Sir Thomas More, a work comparatively spiritless, and which produced a very slight sensation. In Spain, the state of social feeling was still less favourable to the writings of Rabelais, yet he had there a worthy and true representative in the author of Don Quixote. It was only in the seventeenth century that the works of Rabelais were translated into English; but we must not forget that our satirists of the last century, such as Swift and Sterne, derived their inspiration chiefly from Rabelais, and from the Pantagruelistic writers of the latter half of the sixteenth century. These latter were most of them poor imitators of their original, and, like all poor imitators, pursued to exaggeration his least worthy characteristics. There is still some humour in the writings of Tabourot, the sieur des Accords, especially in his "Bigarrures," but the later productions, which appeared under such names as Bruscambille and Tabarin, sink into mere dull ribaldry.

There had arisen, however, by the side of this satire which smelt somewhat too much of the tavern, another satire, more serious, which still contained a little of the style of Rabelais. The French Protestants at first looked upon Rabelais as one of their towers of strength, and embraced with gratitude the powerful protection they received from the graceful queen of Navarre; but their gratitude failed them, when Marguerite, though she never ceased to give them her protection, conformed outwardly, from attachment to her brother, to the forms of the Catholic faith, and they rejected the school of Rabelais as a mere school of Atheists. Among them arose another school of satire, a sort of branch from the other, which was represented in its infancy by the celebrated scholar and printer, Henri Estienne, better known among us as Henry Stephens.

The remarkable book called an "Apologie pour Herodote," arose out of an attack upon its writer by the Romanists. Henri Estienne, who was known as a staunch Protestant, published, at great expense, an edition of Herodotus in Greek and Latin, and the zealous Catholics, out of spite to the editor, decried his author, and spoke of Herodotus as a mere collector of monstrous and incredible tales. Estienne, in revenge, published what, under the form of an apology for Herodotus, was really a violent attack on the Romish church. His argument is that all historians must relate transactions which appear to many incredible, and that the events of modern times were much more incredible, if they were not known to be true, than anything which is recorded by the historian of antiquity. After an introductory dissertation on the light in which we ought to regard the fable of the Golden Age, and on the moral character of the ancient peoples, he goes on to show that their depravity was much less than that of the middle ages and of his own time, indeed of all periods during which people were governed by the Church of Rome. Not only did this dissoluteness of morals pervade lay society, but the clergy were more vicious even than the people, to whom they ought to serve as an example. A large part of the book is filled with anecdotes of the immoral lives of the popish clergy of the sixteenth century, and of their ignorance and bigotry; and he describes in detail the methods employed by the Romish church to keep the mass of the people in ignorance, and to repress all attempts at inquiry. Out of all this, he says, had risen a school of atheists and scoffers, represented by Rabelais and Bonaventure des Periers, both of whom he mentions by name.

As we approach the end of the sixteenth century, the struggle of

## parties became more political than religious, but not less bitter than

before. The literature of the age of that celebrated "Ligue," which seemed at one time destined to overthrow the ancient royalty of France, consisted chiefly of libellous and abusive pamphlets, but in the midst of them there appeared a work far superior to any purely political satire which had yet been seen, and the fame of which has never passed away. Its object was to turn to ridicule the meeting of the Estates of France, convoked by the duke of Mayenne, as leader of the Ligue, and held at Paris on the 10th of February, 1503. The grand object of this meeting was to exclude Henri IV. from the throne; and the Spanish party proposed to abolish the Salic law, and proclaim the infanta of Spain queen of France. The French ligueurs proposed plans hardly less unpatriotic, and the duke of Mayenne, indignant at the small account made of his own personal pretensions, prorogued the meeting, and persuaded the two parties to hold what proved a fruitless conference at Suresne. It was the meeting of the Estates in Paris which gave rise to that celebrated _Satyre Ménippée_, of which it was said, that it served the cause of Henri IV. as much as the battle of Ivry itself.

This satire originated among a party of friends, of men distinguished by learning, wit, and talent, though most of their names are obscure, who used to meet in an evening in the hospitable house of one of them, Jacques Gillot, on the Quai des Orfèvres in Paris, and there talk satirically over the violence and insolence of the ligueurs. They all belonged either to the bar or to the university, or to the church. Gillot himself, a Burgundian, born about the year 1560, had been a dean in the church of Langres, and afterwards canon of the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, and was at this time conseiller-clerc to the parliament of Paris. In 1589 he was committed to the Bastille, but was soon afterwards liberated. Nicolas Rapin, one of his friends, was born in 1535, and was said to have been the son of a priest, and therefore illegitimate. He was a lawyer, a poet, and a soldier, for he fought bravely in the ranks of Henri IV. at Ivry, and his devotion to that prince was so well known, that he was banished from Paris by the ligueurs, but had returned thither before the meeting of the Estates in 1593. Jean Passerat, born in 1534, was also a poet, and a professor in the Collège Royal. Florent Chrestien, born at Orleans in 1540, had been the tutor of Henri IV., and was well known as a man of sound learning. The most learned of the party was Pierre Pithou, born at Troyes in 1539, who had abjured Calvinism to return to Romanism, and who held a distinguished position at the French bar. The last of this little party of men of letters was a canon of Rouen named Pierre le Roy, a patriotic ecclesiastic, who held the office of almoner to the cardinal de Bourbon. It was Le Roy who drew up the first sketch of the "Satyre Ménippée," each of the others executed his part in the composition, and Pithou finally revised it. For several years this remarkable satire circulated only secretly, and in manuscript, and it was not printed until Henri IV. was established on the throne.

The satire opens with an account of the virtues of the "Catholicon," or nostrum for curing all political diseases, or the _higuiero d'infierno_, which had been so effective in the hands of the Spaniards, who invented it. Some of these are extraordinary enough. If, we are told, the lieutenant of Don Philip "have some of this Catholicon on his flags, he will enter without a blow into an enemy's country, and they will meet him with crosses and banners, legates and primates; and though he ruin, ravage, usurp, massacre, and sack everything, and carry away, ravish, burn, and reduce everything to a desert, the people of the country will say, 'These are our friends, they are good Catholics; they do it for our peace, and for our mother holy church.'" "If an indolent king amuse himself with refining this drug in his escurial, let him write a word into Flanders to Father Ignatius, sealed with the Catholicon, he will find him a man who (_salva conscientia_) will assassinate his enemy whom he has not been able to conquer by arms in twenty years." This, of course, is an allusion to the murder of the prince of Orange. "If this king proposes to assure his estates to his children after his death, and to invade another's kingdom at little expense, let him write a word to Mendoza, his ambassador, or to Father Commelet (one of the most seditious orators of the Ligue), and if he write with the _higuiero del infierno_, at the bottom of his letter, the words _Yo el Rey_, they will furnish him with an apostate monk, who will go under a fair semblance, like a Judas, and assassinate in cold blood a great king of France, his brother-in-law, in the middle of his camp, without fear of God or men; they will do more, they will canonise the murderer, and place this Judas above St. Peter, and baptise this prodigious and horrible crime with the name of a providential event, of which the godfathers will be cardinals, legates, and primates." The allusion here is to the assassination of Henri III. by Jacques Clement. These are but a few of the marvellous properties of the political drug, after the enumeration of which the report of the meeting of the Estates is introduced by a burlesque description of the grand procession which preceded it. Then we are introduced to the hall of assembly, and different subjects pictured on the tapestries which cover its walls, all having reference to the politics of the Ligue, are described fully. Then we come to the report of the meeting, and to the speeches of the different speakers, each of which is a model of satire. It is not known which of the little club of satirists wrote the open speech of the duke of Mayenne, but that of the Roman legate is known to be the work of Gillot, and that of the cardinal de Pelvé, a masterpiece of Latin in the style of the "Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum," was written by Florent Chrestien. Nicolas Rapin composed the "harangue" placed in the mouth of the archbishop of Lyons, as well as that of Rose, the rector of the university; and the long speech of Claude d'Aubray was by Pithou. Passerat composed most of the verses which are scattered through the book, and it is understood that Pithou finally revised the whole. This mock report of the meeting of the Estates closes with a description of a series of political pictures which are arranged on the wall of the staircase of the hall.

These pictures, as well as those on the tapestries of the hall of meeting, are simply so many caricatures, and the same may be said of another set of pictures, of which a description is given in one of the satirical pieces which followed the "Satyre Ménippée," on the same side, entitled, "Histoire des Singeries de la Ligue." It was amid the political turmoil of the sixteenth century in France that modern political caricature took its rise.

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