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Was it knowledge of this passage, Master, or ignorance of everything else, that made certain of the common steadfast dunces of our days speak of thee as if thou hadst been a starveling, neglected poetaster, jealous forsooth, of Maitre Francoys Rabelais? See how ignorantly M. Fleury writes, who teaches French literature withal to them of Muscovy, and hath indited a Life of Rabelais.
And then this amazing Fleury falls foul of thine epitaph on Mai'tre Francoys and cries, 'Ronsard a voulu faire des vers mechants; il n'a fait que de mechants vers. More truly saith M. Sainte-Beuve, 'If the good Rabelais had returned to Meudon on the day when this epitaph was made over the wine, he would, methinks, have laughed heartily. But what shall be said of a Professor like the egregious M. Fleury, who holds that Ronsard was despised at Court?
Away, ye scandalous folk, who tell us that there was strife between the Prince of Poets and the King of Mirth. Naught have ye by way of proof of your slander but the talk of Jean Bernier, a scurrilous, starveling apothecary, who put forth his fables in 1697, a century and a half after Mai'tre Francoys died.
Almost the sorest time of my sorrowing was for very grief of heart when Elliot set forth on pilgrimage to Puy en Velay, for we were but newly come together; "twain we were with one heart," as a maker sang whom once I met in France ere I came back to Scotland; sweetly could he make, but was a young clerk of no godly counsel, and had to name Maitre Francoys Villon.
On les vend a Lyon en la Maison de Francoys Juste, Demourant devant nostre Dame de Confort. But, in turning over the leaves, I saw something that brought my heart, as they say, into my mouth. So, beating down Bell from his upset price of fourpence to six bawbees, I pushed the treasure carelessly in my pocket, and never stopped till I was in a lonely place by Tyne-side and secure from observation.
'Rabelais etait revetu d'un emploi honorable; Ronsard etait traite en subalterne, quoth this wondrous professor. What! Pierre de Ronsard, a gentleman of a noble house, holding the revenue of many abbeys, the friend of Mary Stuart, of the Duc d'Orleans, of Charles IX., he is traite en subalterne, and is jealous of a frocked or unfrocked manant like Maitre Francoys!
They begin to see this again as of yore; but whether the end of their vision will be a laughing matter, you, fortunate Lucian, do not need to care. Hail to you, and farewell! VII. To Maitre Francoys Rabelais. Of the Coming of the Coqcigrues.
Such was their destiny; there was their end appointed, and thither the Coqcigrues can never come. For all the air of that land is full of laughter, which killeth Coqcigrues; and there aboundeth the herb Pantagruelion. But for thee, Master Francoys, thou art not well liked in this island of ours, where the Coqcigrues are abundant, very fierce, cruel, and tyrannical.
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