of the
publication of his fourth book. Rabelais died probably in 1552 or
1553, aged about sixty years.

On his death it might well have been said that the gaiety of nations
was eclipsed; but to his contemporaries Rabelais appeared less as
the enormous humourist, the buffoon Homer, than as a great scholar
and man of science, whose bright temper and mirthful conversation
were in no way inconsistent with good sense, sound judgment, and even
a habit of moderation. It is thus that he should still be regarded.
Below his laughter lay wisdom; below his orgy of grossness lay a noble
ideality; below the extravagances of his imagination lay the
equilibrium of a spirit sane and strong. The life that was in him
was so abounding and exultant that it broke all dikes and dams; and
laughter for him needed no justification, it was a part of this
abounding life. After the mediaeval asceticism and the intellectual
bondage of scholasticism, life in Rabelais has its vast outbreak and
explosion; he would be no fragment of humanity, but a complete man.
He would enjoy the world to the full, and yet at the same time there
is something of stoicism in his philosophy of life; while gaily
accepting the good things of the earth, he would hold himself detached
from the gifts of fortune, and possess his soul in a strenuous sanity.
Let us return--such is his teaching--to nature, honouring the body,
but giving higher honour to the intellect and to the moral feeling;
let us take life seriously, and therefore gaily; let us face death
cheerfully, knowing that we do not wholly die; with light in the
understanding and love in the heart, we can confront all dangers and
defy all doubts.

He is the creator of characters which are types. His
giants--Grandgousier, Gargantua, Pantagruel--are giants of good
sense and large benevolence. The education of Pantagruel presents
the ideal pedagogy of the Renaissance, an education of the whole
man--mind and body--in contrast with the dwarfing subtleties and
word-spinning of the effete mediaeval schools. Friar John is the monk
whose passion for a life of activity cannot be restrained; his
violence is the overflow of wholesome energy. It is to his care that
the Abbey of Thelema is confided, where young men and maidens are
to be occupied with every noble toil and every high delight, an abbey
whose rule has but a single clause (since goodness has no rule save
freedom), "Do what you will." Of such a fraternity, love and marr