[261] The College of Navarre was founded by Jeanne of Navarre, consort of Philippe the Fair, in 1305. Throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it was the foremost foundation of the University of Paris (F. W. S.).

[262] John Hill Burton points out the somewhat curious fact that, among the hero's linguistic accomplishments, Gaelic, which must have been talked at his own door, does not appear.

[263] In the matter of length this is surely a record sentence.

[264] "A bourdon in his hand"—"A musical instrument resembling a bassoon, in use with pilgrims who visit the body of St James at Compostella" (Sir John Hawkins).

[265] "Honderspondered"—i.e. floundered. Fr. hondrespondres (Rab. iii. 42)—"hundred-pounders," heavy, burly fellows.

[266] "Barber's cithern"—"The instrument now ignorantly called a guitar. It was formerly part of the furniture of a barber's shop, and was the amusement of waiting customers" (Sir John Hawkins).

[267] This incident reminds one of the effect produced upon the lawyers in court when "Pantagruel gave judgment upon the difference of the two lords." Our readers will remember that it is the author of the above description who is the translator of the narrative which tells of that wonderfully satisfactory decision. "As for the counsellors, and other doctors in the law that were there present, they were all so ravished with admiration at the more than humane wisdom of Pantagruel, which they did most clearly perceive to be in him, by his so accurate decision of this so difficult and thornie cause, that their spirits, with the extremity of the rapture, being elevated above the pitch of actuating the organs of the body, they fell into a trance and sudden extasie, wherein they stayed for the space of three long houres; and had been so as yet, in that condition, had not some good people fetched store of vinegar and rose water to bring them again into their former sense and understanding, for the which God be praised everywhere. And so be it." (Rabelais, ii. 13.)