Very slight indeed can be the notice which we are able to give of the proposed Universal Language, the description of which, as set forth in the early part of the Logopandecteision, is more like an incoherent dream than anything else. There is no evidence that Sir Thomas Urquhart ever really made a grammar or vocabulary of the new language. Indeed, he writes about it in such a manner as to lead one to think that he had made no way in the real working out of the scheme, but merely dreamed of what he was going to do. In the new tongue which was to supersede all others there were to be twelve parts of speech, all words would have at least ten synonyms, nouns and pronouns would have eleven cases and four numbers—singular, dual, plural, and redual—and verbs would have four voices, seven moods, and eleven tenses. "In this tongue," says the author, "there are eleven genders,[224] wherein," he truthfully adds, "it exceedeth all other languages." "Every word in this language," we are told, "signifieth as well backward as forward, and however you invert the letters, still shall you fall upon significant words, whereby a wonderful facility is obtained in making of anagrams.... Of all languages, this is the most compendious in complement, and consequently fittest for courtiers and ladies.... As its interjections are more numerous, so are they more emphatical in their respective expression of passions, then [than] that part of speech is in any other language whatsoever."[225] And finally Sir Thomas vouches for its conciseness in a hyperbole which it would be difficult to excel. "This language," he says, "affordeth so concise words for numbering, that the number for setting down, whereof would require in vulgar arithmetic more figures in a row then [than] there might be grains of sand containable from the center of the earth to the highest heavens, is in it expressed by two letters."[226] A considerable revenue might be secured if the rule found at the end of some of Grimm's Household Tales were applied to this statement, and strictly enforced: "Whosoever does not believe this must pay a thaler." In a very innocent manner our author excuses himself for the extravagant praise he has poured out upon his own invention. "Why it is," he exclaims, "I should extoll the worth thereof, without the jeopardy of vaine glory, the reason is clear and evident, being necessitated ... to merchandise it for the redintegrating of an ancient family, it needeth not be thought strange, that in some measure I descend to the fashion of the shop-keepers, who, to scrue up the buyer to the higher price, will tell them no better can be had for mony, 'tis the choicest ware in England, and if any can match it, he shall have it for nought.... [And so] I went on in my laudatives, to procure the greater longing, that an ardent desire might stir up an emacity [a propensity to buy], to the furtherance of my proposed end." One is obliged sadly to assent to his further statement about such conduct—"whereof ... there wanteth not store of presidents [precedents]."[227]

Hugh Miller, animated by the patriotic zeal which prompts one North Briton to stand by another, and with the desire to make out the best case possible for one who was not only a fellow-countryman, but also a fellow-townsman, speaks in high terms of Urquhart's inventive powers as displayed in the Logopandecteision. "The new chemical vocabulary," he says, "with all its philosophical ingenuity, is constructed on principles exactly similar to those which he divulged more than a hundred years prior to its invention, in the preface to his Universal Language."[228] This is a statement which it is rather difficult to understand. The only indication of the nature of the new tongue which we can glean from Sir Thomas's description of it, is that every letter of every word in it would have a meaning, so that when anyone who knew the principles of the language heard a word for the first time, he would understand it.[229] Now, of course, it is true that anyone who knows the principle of the nomenclature of salts, to which, we suppose, Hugh Miller refers, can tell a good deal about a salt from the name of it, say, nitrate of potassium, KNO₃, but it would be impossible to invent a systematic nomenclature of which this would not be true.

The same author is also very much impressed by the fact that the new language was to contain the dual, and regards this, on Lord Monboddo's authority, as a proof of philosophical acumen on the part of the inventor. He does not take any notice of the "redual," which the language was also to contain, and which might have been taken as an indication of double-distilled wisdom. Lord Monboddo (1714-1799) says of the Greek language that if there "were nothing else to convince him of its being a work of philosophers and grammarians, its dual number would of itself be sufficient; for as certainly as the principles of body are the point, the line, and the surface, the principles of number are the monad and the duad, though philosophers only are aware of the fact." The idea that this venerated instrument for the expression or concealment of thought was the concoction of a committee of primitive sages, and that they deliberately invented the dual, and added it as another spike to the chevaux-de-frise through which our young people, of both sexes, have to struggle[230] on their way to the Temple of Learning, is truly revolting. One would not like to think that the ancient Greeks were quite so malicious as to do a thing like that. It is more probably the case that, like other Aryans, they received the dual as part of the inheritance of the past, handed down to them, and retained it; while in some of the cognate languages[231] it was gradually rubbed off, very much in the same way as Lord Monboddo's men lost their tails, when they gave up their arboreal habits, and betook themselves to sedentary occupations.

CHAPTER VII

Translation of Rabelais

HE foundation on which Sir Thomas Urquhart's literary fame securely rests is his translation into English of the first three books of the works of Rabelais. Of these the first and second appeared in two separate volumes in the year 1653—exactly a century after the death of the great French satirist—and the third was published by Pierre Antoine Motteux in 1693, long after Sir Thomas's own death.[232]

The difficulty, singularity, and obscurity of the writings of Rabelais had probably been hindrances in the way of their being presented to the English public in their own tongue; for, though the register of the Stationers' Company preserves a record of two attempts at translation, these seem to have been but fragmentary, and to have dropped still-born from the press. The works themselves are not known to be extant, and nothing more than the bare name of them survives.

The difficulties which lie in the way of the ordinary reader who wishes to become acquainted with the works of Rabelais are very considerable.[233] The fantastical style of the satirist, his countless allusions to contemporary persons and events, his out-of-the-way learning, the care with which he conceals at such length the seriousness of his purpose, and the incredible grossness of manners which so often disfigures his pages, are obstacles which can with difficulty be surmounted. The last-mentioned characteristic is, indeed, a grave and ingrained fault, which must for ever be a slur upon the writer's fame. Yet we may say of him what Don Pedro says of Benedick, "The man doth fear God howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make"; or what Mrs Blower in St Ronan's Well says of her deceased husband, "He was a merry man, but he had the root of the matter in him for a' his light way of speaking." Coleridge—"the brother," according to Mr Birrell, "whose praise is throughout all the churches"—speaks of Rabelais in very high terms indeed; "Beyond a doubt," he says, "he was among the deepest, as well as boldest thinkers of his age. His buffoonery was not merely Brutus' rough stick, which contained a rod of gold: it was necessary as an amulet against the monks and legates.[234] Never was there a more plausible, and seldom, I am persuaded, a less appropriate line than the thousand times quoted

'Rabelais laughing in his easy chair'

of Mr Pope. The caricature of his filth and zanyism show how fully he both knew and felt the danger in which he stood. I could write a treatise in praise of the moral elevation of Rabelais' work, which would make the church stare and the conventicle groan,[235] and yet would be truth, and nothing but the truth. I class Rabelais with the great creative minds of the world, Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes, etc."

François Rabelais was born in Touraine, according to the date usually given, and which there is no reason to question, in the same year as Luther and Raphael, A.D. 1483, and died in Paris in 1553. His father had a small estate, and was an apothecary (or, as some say, a tavern-keeper) in the town of Chinon, at the foot of the castle where, three centuries before, our Henry II. had died, and whither, a little more than fifty years before François was born, Joan of Arc had come with promises of supernatural aid to Charles VII. He was the youngest of five sons, and, as was often the case in those days, was provided for by being made a monk, while the other members of the family divided amongst them the paternal estate. In one passage in his works he speaks of mothers who "cannot bear their children nor brook them in their houses nine, nay often not seven years, but by putting a shirt over their robe, and by cutting a few hairs on the top of their head ... they transform them into birds," i.e., get rid of them as soon as possible, and thrust them into monasteries. This seems to have been his own sad fate.

In course of time, after the schoolboy period of his life was past, he entered the order of Franciscan monks at the convent of Fontenay-le-Comte in Poitou, and took holy orders; and it was here, during the next fifteen years (1509-1524), that he devoted himself to the acquisition of everything in the shape of literature or learning, and laid the foundation of the astonishing erudition which his works display. His long residence in the monastery had inspired Rabelais with a deep hatred of monasticism and monks, and, after being allowed to exchange the Franciscan for the Benedictine order, he laid down the regular habit and took that of a secular priest, and left the convent without the sanction of his superior—a breach of ecclesiastical discipline which exposed him to severe censure. After wandering hither and thither in the pursuit of medical knowledge, he entered the University of Montpellier, graduated as a physician, and practised there with credit and success. After being Hospital Physician at Lyons, he spent some time in Rome, as a medical attendant upon Jean du Bellay, Bishop of Paris. While here he succeeded in making his peace with the Church, and by a papal Bull (17th January 1536) was allowed to return to the Benedictine order and to practise physic according to canonical rules, i.e., to charge no fees and to use neither fire nor knife. This release from ecclesiastical disabilities allowed him to be appointed to a place in the abbey of St Maur-des-Fosses, near Paris. After another period of exile and wandering he was nominated curé of Meudon, an office which he resigned after two years. Three months afterwards he died in Paris (9th April, 1553), and was buried in the cemetery of the parish of St Paul's.

The publication of the satirical writings of Rabelais was spread over a long series of years, from 1532 or 1533, when the first installment, in his Gargantua, was brought out, down to 1564, eleven years after his death, when the fifth and concluding book of his Pantagruel was issued in its entirety. The main object of his satire was what used to be called "the intolerance, superstition, and disgusting follies and vices of the Romish Church," but, incidentally, pretenders to knowledge of every kind come under his lash. For when imposture, folly, and humbug grow too rank and noisome, there arise, it can scarcely be by accident, men like Lucian, Rabelais, and Voltaire, whose calling it is to cut them down. That theirs is an ill-requited office is sufficiently plain from the odium which, in spite of their beneficent labours, is often associated with their names. "[Hast thou] only a torch for burning, no hammer for building?" says the somewhat wearisome Herr Teufelsdröckh to the last named of these satirists, "take our thanks, then, and—thyself away."[236] Yet the torch for burning is as necessary as the hammer for building, if the site for the Temple of Truth is to be prepared. It may well be that burning down and rooting up are needed before building can be begun, and some of those who have endeavoured to benefit mankind have felt themselves called to the one sort of work rather than to the other.

The form which Rabelais chooses for the frame-work of his satire is the burlesque adventures of the giant Gargantua, of whom many legends were current in Touraine, and of his son Pantagruel, sometimes spoken of as also a giant, and at others as a wise and virtuous prince of ordinary proportions. Along with the strange, tangled, and chaotic story of their exploits the writer from time to time enunciates admirable ideas, which must have seemed revolutionary to his contemporaries, and some of which even we have not yet realised.

The translation of Rabelais by Sir Thomas Urquhart is his great literary achievement. "It is impossible," says Tytler, "to look into it without admiring the air of ease, freshness, and originality which the translator has so happily communicated to his performance. All those singular qualifications which unfitted Urquhart to succeed in serious composition—his extravagance, his drollery (?), his unbridled imagination, his burlesque and endless epithets—are in the task of translating Rabelais transplanted into their true field of action, and revel through his pages with a licence and buoyancy which is quite unbridled, yet quite allowable. Indeed, Urquhart and Rabelais appear, in many points, to have been congenial spirits, and the translator seems to have been born for his author."[237]

As might have been expected, the translation is not marked by painful exactness of rendering. On the contrary, evidences of carelessness and inaccuracy are by no means uncommon, but yet the work is, as some one calls it, "one of the most perfect transfusions of an author from one language to another,[238] that ever man accomplished." The great merits of the translation consist in its preserving the very air and style of the original, and in the astonishing richness of vocabulary which it manifests. Where Rabelais invents a word, Sir Thomas invents one, or two, or three; and if the former has a list of twenty or thirty epithets, the latter has no hesitation in supplying his readers with forty or sixty, which seem quite as good as the original stock which he thus enlarges. Sometimes, too, as Mr W. F. Smith, a very distinguished student of Rabelais, remarks, "in translating a single word of the French he often empties all the synonyms given by Cotgrave into his version."

Mr Tytler, in the above-quoted criticism on Urquhart's translation, speaks of the peculiarities of his style as "revelling through his pages with a licence and buoyancy which is quite unbridled, yet quite allowable." One is obliged to demur to the last adjective. A translator, like a compositor, should be under some obligation to adhere to the text before him; and, as a matter of fact, the success of Urquhart's version is occasionally interfered with by this same "unbridled revelling." The style of Rabelais is graphic and vigorous, and at times exceedingly graceful, and occupies a high place in French literature. Any tampering with it, therefore, in the way of alteration or addition, was not likely to be an improvement.

But, even after all deductions are made, the praise bestowed upon Urquhart's work has been fully deserved. "The buoyancy and unembarrassed sweep of its general character," says Sir Theodore Martin, "which gives his Rabelais more the look of an original than of a translation, its rich and well-compacted diction, the many happy turns of phrase that are quite his own, have fairly earned for it the high estimation in which it has long been held. His task was one of extreme difficulty, and there have perhaps been few men besides himself that could have brought to it the world of omnigenous knowledge which it required. It was apparently Urquhart's ambition to realise in his own person the ideal of human accomplishment, to be at once

He had left no source of information unexplored, few aspects of life unobserved, and, in the translation of Rabelais, he found full exercise for his multiform attainments. Ably as the work has been completed by Motteux, one cannot but regret that the worthy Knight of Cromarty had not spared him the task."[239]

The merits of the translation can scarcely be exhibited in selections torn from their context, and perhaps only partly intelligible; but perhaps the following may be welcome to the reader. Let us take these extracts from the graceful and charming sketch of the Abbey of Thelema, which was to be different from all other monastic communities, and was to be the home of a society of young people living together in all innocence and joy, free from sordid cares, and devoted to the studies, exercises, and accomplishments which are appropriate to refined and noble spirits.

"'First, then,' said Gargantua, 'you must not build a wall about your convent, for all other abbies are strongly walled and mured about.... Moreover, seeing there are certain convents in the world, whereof the custome is, if any woman come in, I mean chaste and honest women, they immediately sweep the ground which they have trod upon;[240] therefore was it ordained, that if any man or woman, entered into religious orders, should by chance come within this new abbey, all the roomes should be thoroughly washed and cleansed through which they had passed. And because in all other monasteries and nunneries all is compassed, limited, and regulated by houres, it was decreed that in this new structure there should be neither clock nor dial, but that, according to the opportunities and incident occasions, all their hours should be disposed of; for,' said Gargantua, 'the greatest losse of time, that I know, is to count the hours. What good comes of it? Nor can there be any greater dotage in the world then [than] for one to guide and direct his courses by the sound of a bell, and not by his owne judgement and discretion.'

"Item, Because at that time they put no women into nunneries, but such as were either purblind, blinkards, lame, crooked, ill-favoured, misshapen, fooles, senselesse, spoyled, or corrupt; nor encloystered any men, but those that were either sickly, ill-bred lowts, simple sots, or peevish trouble-houses; ... therefore was it ordained, that into this religious order should be admitted no women that were not faire, well featur'd, and of a sweet disposition; nor men that were not comely, personable, and well conditioned.

"Item, Because in the convents of women men come not but under-hand, privily, and by stealth, it was therefore enacted, that in this house there shall be no women in case there be not men, nor men in case there be not women.

"Item, Because both men and women, that are received into religious orders after the expiring of their noviciat or probation-year, were constrained and forced perpetually to stay there all the days of their life, it was therefore ordered, that all whatever, men or women, admitted within this abbey, should have full leave to depart with peace and contentment, whensoever it should seem good to them so to do.

"Item, for that the religious men and women did ordinarily make three vows, to wit, those of chastity, poverty, and obedience, it was therefore constituted and appointed, that in this convent they might be honourably married, that they might be rich, and live at liberty.

"In regard of the legitimat time of the persons to be initiated, and years under and above which they were not capable of reception, the women were to be admitted from ten till fifteen, and the men from twelve till eighteen."[241]

After an elaborate description of the magnificence of the abbey and of its endowments, and of the apparel worn by the members of the new order, we are told of "how the Thelemites were governed, and of their manner of living." "All their life," we read, "was spent not in lawes, statutes, or rules, but according to their own free will and pleasure. They rose out of their beds, when they thought good; they did eat, drink, labour, sleep, when they had a minde to it, and were disposed for it. None did awake them, none did offer to constrain them to eat, drink, nor to do any other thing; for so had Gargantua established it. In all their rule, and strictest tie of their order, there was but this one clause to be observed,

DO WHAT THOU WILT;

Because men that are free, well-borne, well-bred, and conversant in honest companies, have naturally an instinct and spurre that prompteth them unto vertuous actions, and withdraws them from vice, which is called honour. Those same men when by base subjection and constraint they are brought under and kept down, turn aside from that noble disposition, by which they formerly were inclined to vertue, to shake off and break that bond of servitude, wherein they are so tyrannously inslaved; for it is agreeable with the nature of man to long after things forbidden, and to desire what is denied us.[242]

"By this liberty they entered into a very laudable emulation, to do all of them what they saw did please one. If any of the gallants or ladies should say, Let us drink, they would all drink. If any one of them said, Let us play, they all played. If one said, Let us go a-walking into the fields, they went all. If it were to go a-hawking or a-hunting, the ladies mounted upon dainty, well-paced nags, seated in a stately palfrey saddle,[243] carried on their lovely fists, miniardly begloved every one of them, either a sparhawk, or a laneret, or a marlin, and the young gallants carried the other kinds of hawkes. So nobly were they taught, that there was neither he nor she amongst them but could read, write, sing, play upon several musical instruments, speak five or sixe several languages, and compose in them all very quaintly, both in verse and prose. Never were seen so valiant knights, so noble and worthy, so dextrous and skilful both on foot and a horseback, more brisk and lively, more nimble and quick, or better handling all manner of weapons then [than] were there. Never were seene ladies so proper[244] and handsome, so miniard and dainty, lesse froward, or more ready with their hand, and with their needle, in every honest and free action belonging to that sexe, then [than] were there. For this reason, when the time came, that any man of the said abbey, either at the request of his parents, or for some other cause, had a minde to go out of it, he carried along with him one of the ladies, namely, her whom he had before that chosen for his mistris,[245] and [they] were married together. And if they had formerly in Theleme lived in good devotion and amity, they did continue therein and increase it to a greater height in their state of matrimony: and did entertaine that mutual love till the very last day of their life, in no lesse vigour and fervency, then [than] at the very day of their wedding."[246]

Such is the dream which floated before the mind of Rabelais, but, unhappily, it is still an airy fancy, and has never received a local habitation and a name. Mrs Grundy, the vegetarians, the teetotallers, the anti-tobacco people, and the enemies of "rational costume" have up to the present forbidden the erection of any such building.

One of the most prominent figures in the story of Pantagruel is his favourite, Panurge, who is a rogue, a drunkard, a coward, and a malicious scoundrel, but who yet, like Falstaff, in spite of all his moral deficiencies, manages to appear as an amusing personage. Into his lips is put, with a fine disregard of congruity, an eloquent speech, which begins in praise of debt, and ends by setting forth the interdependence of all things in the universe. Panurge is represented as having threescore and three ways of making money, and two hundred and fourteen of spending it, so that he is always poor, and his sovereign Pantagruel remonstrates with him on account of his prodigal habits.

He replies as follows: "Be still indebted to somebody or other, that there may be somebody always to pray for you; [to pray] that the giver of all good things may grant unto you a blessed, long, and prosperous life; fearing, if fortune should deal crossly with you, that it might be his chance to come short of being paid by you, he will always speak good of you in every company, ever and anon purchase new creditors unto you; to the end, that through their means you may make a shift by borrowing from Peter to pay Paul,[247] and with other folk's earth fill up his ditch. When of old in the region of the Gauls, by the institution of the Druids,[248] the servants, slaves, and bondmen were burnt quick at the funerals and obsequies of their lords and masters, had not they fear enough, think you, that their lords and masters should die? For, per force, they were to die with them for company. Did not they uncessantly send up their supplications to their great God Mercury,[249] as likewise unto Dis, the Father of Wealth,[250] to lengthen out their days, and preserve them long in health? Were not they very careful to entertain them well, punctually to look unto them, and to attend them faithfully and circumspectly? For by those means were they to live together at least until the hour of death. Believe me your creditors with a more fervent devotion will beseech [Providence] to prolong your life, they being of nothing more afraid than that you should die.... I, in this only respect and consideration of being a debtor, esteem myself worshipful, reverend, and formidable. For, against the opinion of most philosophers, that of nothing ariseth nothing, yet, without having bottomed on so much as that which is called the First Matter [Primary Matter], did I out of nothing become such [a] maker and creator, that I have created—what?—a gay number of fair and jolly creditors. Nay, creditors, I will maintain it, even to the very fire itself exclusively,[251] are fair and goodly creatures. Who lendeth nothing is an ugly and wicked creature.... You can hardly imagine how glad I am, when every morning I perceive myself environed and surrounded with brigades of creditors,—humble, fawning, and full of their reverences. And whilst I remark that, as I look more favourably upon, and give a chearfuller countenance to one than to the other, the fellow thereupon buildeth a conceit that he shall be the first dispatched, and the foremost in the date of payment; and he valueth my smiles at the rate of ready money.... I have all my lifetime held debt to be as an union or conjunction of the heavens with the earth, and the whole cement whereby the race of mankind is kept together;[252] yea, of such vertue and efficacy, that, I say, the whole progeny of Adam would very suddenly perish without it."

He then goes on to describe a world in which there are no debtors and no debts. There will be no regular course among the planets, but all will be in disorder. Jupiter, reckoning himself to be nothing indebted to Saturn, will go near to thrust him out of his place; Saturn and Mars will combine to promote the confusion; Mercury, being debtor to no one, will no longer serve any; Venus, because she shall have lent nothing, will no longer be venerated. "The moon," he says, "will remain bloody and obscure. For to what end should the sun impart unto her any of his light?[253] He owed her nothing. Nor yet will the sun shine upon the earth, nor the stars send down any good influence,[254] because the terrestrial globe hath desisted from sending up their wonted nourishment by vapours and exhalations, wherewith Heraclitus said, the Stoicks proved, Cicero maintained, they were cherished and alimented.... No rain will descend upon the earth, nor light shine thereon; no wind will blow there, nor will there be in it any summer or harvest.... Such a world without lending will be no better than a dog-kennel, a place of contention and wrangling.... Men will not then salute one another; it will be but lost labour to expect aid or succour from any, or to cry fire, water, murther, for none will put to their helping hand. Why? He lent no money, there is nothing due to him. Nobody is concerned in his burning, in his shipwrack, in his ruine, or in his death; and that because he hitherto hath lent nothing, and would never thereafter have lent anything. In short, Faith, Hope, and Charity would be quite banish'd from such a world—for men are born to relieve and assist one another."

"But, on the contrary," he went on to say, "be pleased to represent unto your fancy another world, wherein every one lendeth, and everyone oweth, all are debtors, and all creditors. O how great will that harmony be, which shall thereby result from the regular motions of the heavens! Methinks I hear it every whit as well as ever Plato did.[255] What sympathy will there be amongst the elements! O how delectable then unto nature will be our own works and productions! Whilst Ceres appeareth loaden with corn, Bacchus with wines, Flora with flowers, Pomona with fruits, and Juno fair in a clear air, wholsom and pleasant. I lose myself in this high contemplation. Then will among the race of mankind, peace, love, benevolence, fidelity, tranquillity, rests, banquets, feastings, joy, gladness, gold, silver, single money [small change], chains, rings, with other ware, and chaffer of that nature, be found to trot from hand to hand. No suits at law, no wars, no strife, debate, nor wrangling; none will be there an usurer, none will be there a pinch-penny, a scrape-good wretch, or churlish hard-hearted refuser. Will not this be the golden age in the reign of Saturn?—the true idea of the Olympick regions, wherein all [other] vertues cease, charity alone ruleth, governeth, domineereth, and triumpheth? All will be fair and goodly people there, all just and vertuous. O happy world! O people of that world most happy! Yea, thrice and four times blessed is that people! I think in very deed that I am amongst them."[256]

In one curious passage Sir Thomas Urquhart amplifies the text of the author whom he translates, and supplies his readers with an astonishing list of onomatopœic words, many of which will probably be new to those who have not come across this passage before. Rabelais has nine of these words, but the translator[257] enlarges the list to seventy-one. Pantagruel is arguing against fasting and solitude as aids to a contemplative life, and quotes the authority of his father Gargantua.

"He [Gargantua] gave us also," he said, "the example of the philosopher, who, when he thought most seriously to have withdrawn himself unto a solitary privacy, far from the rusling clutterments of the tumultuous and confused world, the better to improve his theory, to contrive, comment, and ratiocinate, was, notwithstanding his uttermost endeavours to free himself from all untoward noises, surrounded and environ'd about so with the barking of currs [bawling of mastiffs, bleating of sheep, prating of parrets, tatling of jack-daws, grunting of swine, girning of boars, yelping of foxes, mewing of cats, cheeping of mice, squeaking of weasils, croaking of frogs, crowing of cocks, kekling of hens, calling of partridges, chanting of swans, chattering of jays, peeping of chickens, singing of larks, creaking of geese, chirping of swallows, clucking of moorfowls, cucking of cuckos, bumling of bees, rammage of hawks, chirming of linots, croaking of ravens, screeching of owls, whicking of pigs, gushing of hogs, curring of pigeons, grumbling of cushet-doves, howling of panthers, curkling of quails, chirping of sparrows, crackling of crows, nuzzing of camels, wheening of whelps, buzzing of dromedaries, mumbling of rabets, cricking of ferrets, humming of wasps, mioling of tygers, bruzzing of bears, sussing of kitnings, clamring of scarfes, whimpring of fullmarts, boing of buffaloes, warbling of nightingales, quavering of meavises, drintling of turkies, coniating of storks, frantling of peacocks, clattering of mag-pyes, murmuring of stock-doves, crouting of cormorants, cigling of locusts, charming of beagles, guarring of puppies, snarling of messens, rantling of rats, guerieting of apes, snuttering of monkies, pioling of pelicanes, quecking of ducks], yelling of wolves, roaring of lions, neighing of horses, crying of elephants, hissing of serpents, and wailing of turtles, that he was much more troubled than if he had been in the middle of the crowd at the fair of Fontenay or Niort."[258] In spite of the amplification of the original text of Rabelais, two of the sounds are omitted—"the braying of asses," and the noise made by grass-hoppers (sonnent les eigales), which we might have called "chirping," if the swallows and sparrows had not taken possession of that term.

As already stated, the first two books were all that were published in the lifetime of Sir Thomas Urquhart. They appeared as separate volumes in 1653. The unsold stock of each was reissued in 1664, in one volume, an additional title-page, an extra preface, and a life of Rabelais being prefixed to them. The volume became very scarce, and in 1693-94 Pierre Antoine Motteux, a Frenchman, who was master of exceedingly racy and idiomatic English, published an edition containing the third book. This was extremely inaccurate, so far as typography was concerned, and gave the public the version of Sir Thomas Urquhart with certain unspecified changes made by the editor in order to impart to it additional "smartness." In 1708 Motteux published a complete translation of Rabelais, the version of the fourth and fifth books being supplied by himself,[259] as supplementary to Urquhart's work. After the death of Motteux, a somewhat pretentious editor named Ozell[260] brought out the combined versions, with notes principally taken from the French of Duchat, and this has been reprinted time after time since its first appearance in 1737.

At least seventeen editions of Urquhart's work, either by itself or with Motteux's supplementary matter, have been issued since his day, and there is no sign of its fame waxing dim through the lapse of time; and therefore the immortality after which he longed has in a measure been won by him. And so, once more before we take our leave of him, we look again into the twilight of the past, and see his striking figure—the soldier, the scholar, and the author—crowned with the wreath which his own hands have placed upon his brows, but which succeeding generations declare him worthy to bear.