Chapter XIX (1)

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."