Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/58

 42 BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES not humoristic, he proves that he has a most noble natural style of his own, rich without excess, as in the epistle of Gargantua already cited, the descrip- tion of the Temple of the Holy Bottle at the close of Book v., and that at the close of Book i. of Friar John's glorious abbey of Theleme, where all was in direct contradiction to what obtains in the monas- teries and nunneries of the Church, where brave men and beautiful women freely mingled, where marriage was honourable, where the only regulation was to have no regulation at all : " In their rule there was but this clause — 'do what thou wilt.'" It may be here remarked that though his immense learning, his infinity of allusions to matters abstruse and obscure, and of recondite and lawless words, render him by far the most difficult of French authors to translate, he has been Englished more happily and thoroughly than almost any other of the French classics, who, indeed, with the notable exception of Montaigne by Cotton, have been usually treated scurvily by hacks, or else neglected altogether. The case of Rabelais is not so surprising as it at first appears. Of a common French writer there may be a thousand or ten thousand English who could give a commonplace version. Of an unique writer there will be only half-a-dozen qualified to attempt the translation ; but these will be well qualified, having strong affinities for the original in humour and predilections. I do not say that the version of Sir Thomas Urquhart and Motteux is by any means perfect, but it gives a better notion of Rabelais than I should have thought, before seeing it, could have been given in our language. Bohn's edition, in two