"Then I went indoors, brought out a loaf, Half a cheese and a bottle of Chablis; Lay on the grass and forgot the oaf Over a jolly chapter of Rabelais."
"It would cost him some trouble to find one. I've never found a jolly chapter of RABELAIS in my life, and what's more I mean to say so some day and watch the faces."
Well, Mr. PAYN believed in stating his own views truthfully. No doubt the necessity of finding a rhyme for "Chablis" had something to do with the appearance of RABELAIS' name at the end of that line. But _that_ cannot have been the reason why POPE, being under no compulsion of rhyme, brought RABELAIS into his lines:--
"O thou! whatever title please thine ear, Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff or Gulliver! Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air Or laugh and shake in Rabelais' easy-chair."
I don't much care whether I have quoted correctly or not. I suggested last week in these columns that one might be allowed, as a compensation for advancing years, to use one's quotations without fastidious regard for their accuracy. On consideration I don't see why this liberty should not be even further extended. I can see ("in my mind's eye, Horatio") whole masterpieces coming within its scope and yielding with a sufficiently bad grace to a courageous candour like JAMES PAYN'S. Why should _Don Quixote_, for instance, tyrannise over us? He has had a good innings, in the course of which, it is only fair to acknowledge, he has been enormously helped by his henchman, _Sancho Panza_, a fellow of infinite wit, no doubt. There are however readers who set up these two as idols and would compel us to kneel to them, especially when _Sancho_ receives the appointment of Governor of Barataria. I acknowledge I am a constant devotee of _Don Quixote_ and his _Sancho_, but it is conceivable that there are people who have no liking for them. Let such, if they are old enough, proclaim it, as JAMES PAYN did his opinion about RABELAIS' fun.
I should like to bring certain long poems of universal renown within the scope of my principle. What about _Paradise Lost_? Did any woman, except perhaps GEORGE ELIOT, ever read it throughout unless under scholastic compulsion? I doubt it; her sense of humour would not allow her to. Take, for instance, the following lines, describing the simple amusements of our first parents:--