[233] For those who are not special students, adequate information concerning Rabelais and extracts from his works are to be got in Sir Walter Besant's luminous and charming volume in the series of Foreign Classics for English Readers (Blackwood), and in Morley's _Universal Library_ (Routledge). In one of his poems Browning describes the steps taken by a reader to banish the memory of a dreary pedant, whose book he had been perusing. He says:
"Then I went indoors, brought out a loaf, Half a cheese, and a bottle of Chablis; Lay on the grass, and forgot the loaf Over a jolly chapter of Rabelais."
Some have turned over Rabelais and searched for the jolly chapter in vain, and have, perhaps, attributed their failure to the want of a bottle of Chablis.
[234] This is somewhat doubtful. The Sorbonne and the Parliaments might have been moved by ultra-orthodox opponents to prosecute Rabelais on this account. The true explanation seems to be that the form of his book was popular, and the popular French literature of the Middle Ages--fableaux, farces, and burlesque romances--can hardly be exceeded in the matter of coarseness (_Ency. Brit._, "Rabelais").
[235] This is surely an early allusion to the superior sensitiveness on some points of the "_Nonconformist Conscience_." The fact alluded to should inspire joy rather than call forth sneers, for when a conscience becomes sensitive on some points there are reasonable hopes of its becoming sensitive on others.
[238] In addition to any aid Urquhart may have received from friends who were intimately acquainted with the French language, he was deeply indebted to Cotgrave's French Dictionary, published in 1611, and dedicated to "Sir William Cecil, Knight, Lord Burghley, and sonne and heir apparant unto the Earle of Exeter," _i.e._, the grandson of Queen Elizabeth's Lord Burghley.
[240] _I.e._ the Carthusians: like their impudence!
[242] "_Nitimur in vetitum, semper cupimus negata_" (Ovid, Amor. iii. 4, 17).
[243] _Avec leur palefroy guorrier_--rather, "with their prancing palfrey." Guorrier from Gr. γαυρος--haughty.
[245] _Celle laquelle l'auroit prins pour son devot_--rather, "her, who had chosen him as her devoted servant."
[247] Fr. _faire versure_ = Lat. _facere versuram_ (Cic. Att. v. 1, § 2), to borrow money to pay another debt (F. W. S.).