, as
representative of the nobility; and, lastly, by a certain Monsieur
d'Aubray, for the _Tiers-Etat_. A burlesque _coda_ concludes the volume,
the joints of which are, first, a short verse satire on Pelve; secondly,
a collection of epigrams due to Passerat; and, thirdly, Durant's _Regret
Funebre a Mademoiselle ma Commere sur le Trepas de son Ane_, a
delightful satire on the Leaguers, which did not appear in the first
edition, but which yields to few things in the book.

It has been said that the plan of the _Menippee_ has of itself not a
little originality. Satirical comment and travesty devoted to political
affairs had been common enough almost for centuries in France, but no
satire of the kind had hitherto flown so high, or with so well-organised
a flight. The seven speeches, which form the bulk of the book, display
moreover a remarkable variety and a still more remarkable combination of
excellences. The first six--those of Mayenne, the legate, Pelve, the
bishop of Lyons, Rose, and Rieux, none of which is long--are, without
exception, caricatures, and of that peculiar order of caricature in
which the victim is made, without a glaring violation of probability, to
render himself vile and ridiculous, and to give utterance to the satire
and invective which the author desires to pour upon him. Butler (who
beyond all doubt had the _Satyre Menippee_ in his mind when he projected
his own immortal travesty of the Puritan party) is the only writer who
has ever come near to its authors in this particular department of
satire. Treated as they were by different hands, there is a curiously
pleasing variety of style in the portraits. Mayenne uses a mixture of
aristocratic and somewhat haughty frankness with garrulous digression.
The two cardinals indulge in an astounding macaronic jargon, the one of
Italian mingled with Latin, the other of Latin mingled with French. The
bishop of Lyons, and Rose the rector, preach sermons, after the fashion
of the time, thickly larded with quotations, stories, and so forth.
Rieux (he was a noted bandit) expresses with soldierly frankness his
extreme surprise that he should have become a gentleman and the
representative of the nobility, and mildly reproaches Mayenne and the
League for not having given _carte-blanche_ to himself and his likes to
finish off the _Politiques_ bag-and-baggage. But in the last harangue,
that of the representative of the _Tiers-Etat_, Claude d'Aubray, which
is, as has bee