ade the body and the soul debate together, and ridicule
the complaints of a damned soul! The greater part of the poets of the
time were always composing on the subject of Death in their humorous
pieces.[141] Such historical records of the public mind, historians,
intent on political events, have rarely noticed.

Of a work of this nature, a popular favourite was long the one entitled
"_Le faut mourir, et les Excuses Inutiles qu'on apporte a cette
Necessite; Le tout en vers burlesques, 1658_." Jacques Jacques, a canon
of Ambrun, was the writer, who humorously says of himself that he gives
his thoughts just as they lie on his heart, without dissimulation--"For
I have nothing double about me except my name! I tell thee some of the
most important truths in laughing; it is for thee _d'y penser tout a
bon_." This little volume was procured for me with some difficulty in
France; and it is considered as one of the happiest of this class of
death-poems, of which I know not of any in our literature.

Our canon of Ambrun, in facetious rhymes, and with the _naivete_ of
expression which belongs to his age, and an idiomatic turn fatal to a
translator, excels in pleasantry; his haughty hero condescends to hold
very amusing dialogues with all classes of society, and delights to
confound their "excuses inutiles." The most miserable of men, the
galley-slave, the mendicant, alike would escape when he appears to them.
"Were I not absolute over them," Death exclaims, "they would confound me
with their long speeches; but I have business, and must gallop on!" His
geographical rhymes are droll.

Ce que j'ai fait dans l'Afrique
Je le fais bien dans l'Amerique;
On l'appelle monde nouveau
Mais ce sont des brides a veau;
Nulle terre a moy n'est nouvelle
Je vay partout sans qu'on m'appelle;
Mon bras de tout temps commanda
Dans le pays du Canada;
J'ai tenu de tout temps en bride
La Virginie et la Floride,
Et j'ai bien donne sur le bec
Aux Francais du fort de Kebec.
Lorsque je veux je fais la nique
Aux Incas, aux rois de Mexique;
Et montre aux Nouveaux Grenadins
Qu'ils sont des foux et des badins.
Chacun sait bien comme je matte
Ceux du Bresil et de la Plate,
Ainsi que les Taupinembous--
En un mot, je fais voir a tout
Que ce que nait dans la nature,
Doit prendre de moy tablature![142]

The perpetual employments of Death display copious invention with a
facility of humour.

Egalement je vay