Then prayed they unto God the Creator, falling down before Him, and strengthening their faith towards Him, and glorifying Him for His boundless bounty; and, giving thanks unto Him for the time that was past, they recommended themselves to His divine clemency for the future. Which being done, they entered upon their repose.

If it happened that the weather were rainy and inclement, the forenoon was employed according to custom, except that they had a good clear fire lighted, to correct the distempers of the air. But after dinner, instead of their wonted exercitations, they did abide within, and, by way of Apotherapie, did recreate themselves in bottling hay, in cleaving and sawing wood, and in threshing sheaves of corn at the barn. Then they studied the art of painting or carving; or brought into use the antique game of knucklebones, as Leonicus hath written of it, and as our good friend Lascaris playeth at it. While playing, they examined the passages of ancient authors wherein the said play is mentioned, or any metaphor drawn from it. They went likewise to see the drawing of metals, or the casting of great ordnance: they went to see the lapidaries, the goldsmiths and cutters of precious stones, the alchemists, money - coiners, upholsterers, weavers, velvet-workers, watchmakers, looking-glass-makers, printers, organists, dyers, and other such kind of artificers, and, every

where giving them wine, did learn and consider the industry and invention of the trades.

They went also to hear the public lectures, the solemn Acts, the repetitions, the declamations, the pleadings of the gentle lawyers, and sermons of evangelical preachers.

He went through the halls and places appointed for fencing, and there played against the masters at all weapons, and showed them by experience that he knew as much in it as, yea more than they. And instead of herborising, they visited the shops of druggists, herbalists, and apothecaries, and diligently considered the fruits, roots, leaves, gums, seeds, and strange unguents, as also how they did compound them. He went to see jugglers, tumblers, mountebanks, and quacksalvers, and considered their cunning, their shifts, their summersaults, and smooth tongues, especially of those of Chauny in Picardy, who are naturally great praters, and brave gibers of fibs, in matter of green apes.

At their return they did eat more soberly at supper than at other times, and meats more desiccative and extenuating; to the end that the intemperate moisture of the air, communicated to the body by a necessary confinity, might by this means be corrected, and that they might not receive any prejudice for want of their ordinary bodily exercise. Thus was Gargantua governed, and kept on in this course of education, from day to

day profiting, as you may understand such a young man of good sense, with such discipline so continued, may do. Which, although at the beginning it seemed difficult, became a little after so sweet, so easy, and so delightful, that it seemed rather the recreation of a king than the study of a scholar. Nevertheless Ponocrates, to divert him from this vehement intention of spirit, thought fit, once in a month, upon some fair and clear day, to go out of the city betimes in the morning, either towards Gentilly or Boulogne, or to Montrouge, or Charenton-bridge, or to Vanves, or St Cloud, and there spend all the day long in making the greatest cheer that could be devised, sporting, making merry, drinking healths, playing, singing, dancing, tumbling in some fair meadow, unnestling of sparrows, taking of quails, and fishing for frogs and crayfish. But although that day was passed without books or lecture, yet was it not spent without profit; for in the said meadows they repeated certain pleasant verses of Virgil's Agriculture, of Hesiod, and of Politian's Husbandry; would set abroach some witty Latin epigrams, then immediately turned them into rondeaux and ballades in the French language. In their feasting they would sometimes separate the water from the wine that was therewith mixed-as Cato teacheth, De re rustica, and Pliny-with an ivy cup: would wash the wine in a basin full of water, then take it out again with a

funnel: would make the water go from one glass to another, and would contrive little automatic engines-that is to say, machines moving of themselves.

THE ROUT OF seuillé.

[The education of Gargantua was interrupted by the breaking out of the war with King Picrochole, commencing in no more than the squabble between certain shepherds and a party of cake-sellers of Lerné, who quarrelled and broke each other's heads. The Lerné people complain to their king Picrochole, who instantly, and without further debate or consideration, commands the ban and arrière-ban to be sounded through all the country, that all his vassals, of whatever condition, should come with what arms they have to the great Place before his castle. The army thus hastily summoned is quickly collected, and immediately sets out upon an invasion of Grandgousier's territory, all marching in loose and undisciplined order, pillaging, cattlelifting, beating down the trees, and committing every kind of outrage.]

So much they did, and so far they went pillaging and stealing, that at last they came to Seuillé, where they robbed both men and women, and took all they could catch: nothing was either too hot or too heavy for them. Although the plague was there in' the most part of the houses, they nevertheless entered everywhere, and plundered all that was within, and yet for all this not one

of them took any hurt - which is a most wonderful case. For the vicars, curates, preachers, physicians, chirurgeons, and apothecaries, who went to visit, dress, cure, preach unto, and admonish those that were sick, were all dead with the infection; and these devil of robbers and murderers caught never any harm at all. Whence comes this to pass, my masters? I beseech you, think upon it. The town being thus pillaged, they went unto the abbey with a horrible tumult, but they found it shut and made fast against them. Whereupon the body of the army marched forward towards the Ford of Véde, except seven companies of foot and two hundred lancers, who, staying there, broke down the walls of the close, in order to destroy all the vines within the place. The poor devils of monks knew not to which of all their sancts they should vow themselves. Nevertheless, at all adventures they rang ad capitulum capitulantes. There it was decreed that they should make a fair procession, stuffed with good preachers contra hostium insidias, and fair responses pro pace.

There was then in the abbey a claustral monk called Friar John des Entommeures, young, gallant, frisk, lusty, nimble, bold, adventurous, resolute, tall, lean, wide-mouthed, long-nosed, a fair despatcher of" hours," a fair unbridler of masses, a fair runner over vigils; and, to conclude summarily in a word, a true monk, if ever there was any, since the monk

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