class, and the _Fabliaux_ are almost a vaster collection (if you do not
exclude the "waterings out" of _Renart_) of kinds more general. There is
abundance of amusement and some charm; but nowhere are we much beyond
very simple forms of fiction itself. None of the writers of _nouvelles_,
except Antoine de la Salle, can be said to be a known personality.

[Sidenote: Rabelais unquestionably the first very great known writer.]

There has always been a good deal of controversy about Rabelais, not all
of which perhaps can we escape, though it certainly will not be invited,
and we have no very extensive knowledge of his life. But we have some:
and that, as a man of genius, he is superior to any single person named
and known in earlier French literature, can hardly be contested by any
one who is neither a silly paradoxer nor a mere dullard, nor affected by
some extra-literary prejudice--religious, moral, or whatever it may be.
But perhaps not every one who would admit the greatness of Master
Francis as a man of letters, his possession not merely of consummate
wit, but of that precious thing, so much rarer in French, actual humour;
his wonderful influence on the future word-book and phrase-book of his
own language, nay, not every one who would go almost the whole length of
the most uncompromising Pantagruelist, and would allow him profound
wisdom, high aspirations for humanity, something of a complete
world-philosophy--would at once admit him as a very great novelist. For
my own part I have no hesitation in doing so, and to make the admission
good must be the object of this chapter.

[Sidenote: But the first great novelist?]

It may almost be said that his very excellence in this way has "stood in
its own light." The readableness of Rabelais is extraordinary. The
present writer, after for years making of him almost an Addison
according to Johnson's prescription, fell, by mere accident and
occupation with other matters, into a way of _not_ reading him, except
for purposes of mere literary reference, during a long time. On three
different occasions more recently, one ten or a dozen years ago, one six
or seven, and the third for the purposes of this very book, he put
himself again under the Master, and read him right through. It is
difficult to imagine a severer test, and I am bound to confess (though I
am not bound to specify) that in some, though not many, instances I have
found famous and once favourite classics fail to stand