THE SCHOOL OF PANTAGRUEL AN ESSAY BY RICHARD HERNE SHEPHERD SECOND EDITION HECA SUNBURY CHARLES COLLETT 1862 (Hujus secundæ editionis XXV exemplaria sola impressa sunt) Arch Bodl. A "Ovid's a rake, as half his verses show him, Anacreon's morals are a still worse sample, Catullus scarcely has a decent poem, I don't think Sappho's Ode a good example, Although Longinus tells us there is no hymn Where the sublime soars forth on wings more ample. But Virgil's songs are pure, except that horrid one Beginning with 'Formosum Pastor Corydon.' "Lucretius' irreligion is too strong For early stomachs to prove wholesome food; I can't help thinking Juvenal was wrong, Although no doubt his real intent was good, For speaking out so plainly in his song, So much indeed as to be downright rude. And then what proper person can be partial To all those nauseous epigrams of Martial?" DON JUAN. THE SCHOOL OF PANTAGRUEL. ALTHOUGH Our modern literature is thoroughly purified from the taint of which I am about to speak, many of the older books infected by it still remain in our libraries, sheltering themselves under the indulgent title of "standard literature." In many cases, indeed, their state is one of passivity ('O respect his lordship's taste, and spare the golden bindings'); in most, the toleration they receive is mainly owing to ignorance or inconsideration of the evil with which they are charged. I believe an exposure of them might lead, in not a few quarters, to their banishment from the place of honour they now occupy in libraries; that it might bring us to consider their removal, at least from general reading, a thing to be desired. I refer to the pollutions in literature that have arisen from a class of writers existing even in ancient times, but at a more recent date revived by Rabelais and Boccaccio, who may be considered as the founders of a distinct school, which in Italy and France, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, counted a very goodly array of disciples, and exercised an influence over the whole of European literature that it did not entirely lose until the Revolution of 1793. It may not inappropriately be called THE SCHOOL OF PANTAGRUEL. |