the satire as well as for
occasional various readings. In genius both of thought and expression
this book is perhaps superior to any other; and, if it were decided that
Rabelais did not write it, much of what are now considered the
Rabelaisian characteristics must be transferred to an entirely unknown
writer who has left not the smallest vestige of himself or his genius.
It is not possible to give here a detailed abstract of _Gargantua_ and
_Pantagruel_: indeed, from the studied desultoriness of the work, any
such abstract must of necessity be nearly as long as the book
itself[181]. It is sufficient to say that both Gargantua and his son
Pantagruel are the heroes of adventures, designedly exaggerated and
burlesqued from those common in the romances of chivalry. The chief
events of the earlier romance are, first, the war between Grandgousier,
Gargantua's father, the pattern of easy-going royalty, and Picrochole,
king of Lerne, the ideal of an arbitrary despot intent only on conquest;
and, secondly, the founding of the Abbey of Thelema, a fanciful
institution, in which Rabelais propounds as first principles everything
that is most opposed to the forced abstinence, the real self-indulgence,
the idleness and the ignorance of the debased monastic communities he
knew so well and hated so much. Pantagruel is Gargantua's son, and, like
him, a giant, but the extravagances derived from his gianthood are not
kept up in the second part as they are in the first. A very important
personage in _Pantagruel_ is Panurge, a singular companion, whom
Pantagruel picks up at Paris, and who is perhaps the greatest single
creation of Rabelais. Some ideas may have been taken for him from the
Cingar of Merlinus Coccaius, or Folengo, a Macaronic Italian poet[182],
but on the whole he is original, and is hardly comparable to any one
else in literature except Falstaff. The main idea of Panurge is the
absence of morality in the wide Aristotelian sense with the presence of
almost all other good qualities. After a time, in which Pantagruel and
his companions (among whom, as in the former romance, Friar John is the
embodiment of hearty and healthy animalism, as Panurge is of a somewhat
diseased intellectual refinement) are engaged in wars of the old romance
kind, a whim of Panurge determines the conclusion of the story. He
desires to get married; and an entire book is occupied by the various
devices to which he resorts in order to determine whether it is