e to
find, who seem never to be tired of identifying Grandgousier, Gargantua,
and Pantagruel himself with French kings to whom they bear not the
slightest resemblance; of obliging us English by supposing us to be the
Macreons (who seem to have been very respectable people, but who inhabit
an island singularly unlike England in or anywhere near the time of
Rabelais), and so on. But to a much larger number of persons--and one
dares say to all true Pantagruelists--these interpretations are either
things that the Master himself would have delighted to satirise, and
would have satirised unsurpassably, or, at best, mere superfluities and
supererogations. At any rate there is no possibility of finding in them
the magic spell--the "Fastrada's ring," which binds youth and age alike
to the unique "Alcofribas Nasier."

One must, it is supposed, increase the dose of respect (though
some people, in some cases, find it hard) when considering a further
quality or property--the Riddle-attraction of Rabelais. This
riddle-attraction--or attractions, for it might be better spoken of in a
very large plural--is of course quite undeniable in itself. There are as
many second intentions in the ordinary sense, apparently obvious in
_Gargantua_ and _Pantagruel_, as there can have been in the scholastic
among the dietary of La Quinte, or of any possible Chimaera buzzing at
greatest intensity in the extremest vacuum. On the other hand, some of
us are haunted by the consideration, "Was there ever any human being
more likely than Francois Rabelais to echo (with the slightest change)
the words ascribed to Divinity in that famous piece which is taken, on
good external and ultra-internal evidence, to be Swift's?

_I_ to such block-heads set my wit!
_I_ [_pose_] such fools! Go, go--you're bit."

And there is not wanting, amongst us sceptics, a further section who are
quite certain that a not inconsiderable proportion of the book is not
allegory at all, but sheer "bamming," while others again would transfer
the hackneyed death-bed saying from author to book, and say that the
whole Chronicle is "a great perhaps."

[Sidenote: And dismissed as affecting the general attraction of the
book.]

These things--or at least elaborate discussions of them--lie somewhat,
though not so far as may at first seem, outside our proper business. It
must, however, once more be evident, from the facts and very nature of
the case, that the puzzles, the riddles, th