June 14. 1830
Study of the Bible
Intense study of the Bible will keep any writer from being vulgar, in point of style.
June 15. 1830
Rabelais — Swift — Bentley — Subnet
Rabelais is a most wonderful writer. Pantagruel is the Reason; Panurge the Understanding,—the pollarded man, the man with every faculty except the reason. I scarcely know an example more illustrative of the distinction between the two. Rabelais had no mode of speaking the truth in those days but in such a form as this; as it was, he was indebted to the King’s protection for his life. Some of the commentators talk about his book being all political; there are contemporary politics in it, of course, but the real scope is much higher and more philosophical. It is in vain to look about for a hidden meaning in all that he has written; you will observe that, after any particularly deep thrust, as the Papimania1 for example, Rabelais, as if to break the blow, and to appear unconscious of what he has done, writes a chapter or two of pure buffoonery.
He, every now and then, flashes you a glimpse of a real face from his magic lantern, and then buries the whole scene in mist. The morality of the work is of the most refined and exalted kind; as for the manners, to be sure, I cannot say much.
Swift was anima Rabelaisii habitans in sicco,—the soul of Rabelais dwelling in a dry place.
Yet Swift was rare. Can any thing beat his remark on King William’s motto, —Recepit, non rapuit,—“that the receiver was as bad as the thief?”
The effect of the Tory wits attacking Bentley with such acrimony has been to make them appear a set of shallow and incompetent scholars. Neither Bentley nor Burnet suffered from the hostility of the wits. Burnet’s “History of his own Times” is a truly valuable book. His credulity is great, but his simplicity is equally great; and he never deceives you for a moment.
Notes
1 B. iv. c. 48. “Comment Pantagruel descendit en l’Isle de Papimanes.” See the five following chapters, especially c. 50.; and note also c. 9. of the fifth book; “Comment nous fut monstré Papegaut à grande difficulté.”—ED.