"_Je_" in the narrative--really
falls, with the others--the fiercer and more outspoken character of the
satire, the somewhat lessened prominence of Pantagruel, etc.
etc.--before one simple consideration. We know from the dates of
publication of the other books that Rabelais was by no means a rapid
writer, or at any rate that, if he wrote rapidly, he "held up" what he
did write long, and pretty certainly rewrote a good deal. Now the
previous Book had appeared only a short time before what must have been
the date of his death; and this could not, according to analogy and
precedent, have been ready, or anything like ready, when he died. On the
other hand, time enough passed between his death and the publication
(even of the _Ile Sonnante_ fragment) for the MS. to have passed through
other hands and to have been adulterated, even if it was not, when the
Master's hands left it, in various, as well as not finally finished
form. I can see nothing in it really inconsistent with the earlier
Books; nothing unworthy of them (especially if on the one hand possible
meddling, and on the other imperfect revision be allowed for); and much,
especially the _Chats Fourres_, the Quintessence part, and the
Conclusion, without which the whole book would be not only incomplete
but terribly impoverished. I may add that, having a tolerably full
knowledge of sixteenth-century French literature, and a great admiration
of it, I know no single other writer or group of other writers who
could, in my critical judgment, by any reasonable possibility have
written this Book. Francois Rabelais could have done it, and I have no
doubt that he did it; though whether we have it as he left it no man can
say.

[91] It is perhaps hardly necessary, but may not be quite idle, to
observe that our Abstractor of Quintessence takes good care not to quote
the other half of the parallelism, "but the prudent looketh well to his
going."

[92] It is possible, but not certain, that he is playing on the two
senses of the word _apparence_, the ambiguity of which is not so great
in English. The A. V., "evidence of things _not seen_," would not have
suited his turn.

[93] In which, it will be remembered, the "liquor called punch," which
one notes with sorrow that Rabelais knew not, but which he certainly
would have approved, is also "nowhere spoken against."

[94] Original "Sibyle." I owe to Prof. Ker an important reminder (which
I ought not to have needed) of Dante's "S