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From the Earliest Accounts of Time to the present Period.

WHEREIN

Their remarkable ACTIONS and SUFFERINGS,
Their VIRTUES, PARTS, and LEARNING,

ARE ACCURATELY DISPLAYED.

With a CATALOGUE of their LITERARY PRODUCTIONS.

A NEW EDITION, IN TWELVE VOLUMES,

GREATLY ENLARGED AND IMPROVED.

VOL. XI.

LONDON,

STON MBRARY

NEW-YOU

PRINTED FOR W. STRAHAN, T. PAYNE AND SON, J. RIVING-
TON AND SONS, W. OWEN, B, WHITE, T. AND W.
LOWNDES, B. LAW, J. ROBSON, J. JOHNSON, G. ROBINSON,
J. NICHOLS, J. MURRAY, W. GOLDSMITH, G. NICOL, F.
MACQUEEN, T. BOWLES, W. CHAPMAN, AND E. NÉWBERY,
MDCCLXXXIV.

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Α

UNIVERSAL, HISTORICAL, and LITERARY

DICTIONARY,

R

R.

Rabelais,

tranflation

in two vols.

ABELAIS (FRANCIS), a celebrated French wit, Niceron, was the fon of an apothecary; and born about T. XXXII. 1483 at Chinon, in the province of Touraine. Life of He was bred up in a convent of Francifcan friars in prefixed to Poitou, the convent of Fontenoy le Come; and re- an English ceived into their, order. His frong inclination and tafte of his works for literature and the fciences made him tranfcend the by Mr. bounds which reftrained the learned in his times; fo Motteaux, that he not only became a great linguift, but an adept in Lond. 1708, all branches of knowledge. His uncommon capacity and 8vo. merit foon excited the jealoufy of his brethren. Hence he was envied by fome; others, through ignorance, thought him a conjurer; and all hated and abufed him, particularly because he ftudied Greek; the novelty of that language making them efteem it not only barbarous, but antichriftian. This we collect from a Greek epiftle of Budæus to Rabelais, in which he praifes him highly for his great knowledge in that tongue, and exclaims against the ftupidity and malice of the friars.

Having endured their perfecutions for a long time, he obtained permiffion of pope Clement VII, to leave the fociety of St. Francis, and to enter into that of St. Bennet; but, his mercurial temper prevailing, he did not VOL. XI.

B

find

find any more fatisfaction among the Benedictines, than he had found among the Francifcans, fo that after a short time he left them alfo. Changing the regular habit for that which is worn by fecular priefts, he rambled up and down for a while; and then fixed at Montpelier, where he took the degrees in phyfic, and practifed with great reputation. He was infinitely admired for his great wit and great learning, and became a man of fuch weight and estimation, that the univerfity of that place deputed him to Paris upon a very important errand. His reputation and character were fpread through the kingdom; fo that, when he arrived at Paris, the chancellor du Prat, moved with the extraordinary accomplishments of the man, eafily granted all that he folicited. He returned to Montpelier; and the fervice he did the university upon this occafion is given as a reason, why all the candidates for degrees in phyfic there are, upon their admiffion to them, formally invefted with a robe, which Rabelais left: this ceremony having been inftituted in honour of him.

In 1532, he published at Lyons fome pieces of Hippocrates and Galen, with a dedication to the bishop of Maillezais; in which he tells him, that he had read lectures upon the aphorifms of Hippocrates, and the ars medica of Galen, before numerous audiences in the university of Montpelier. This was the last year of his continuance in this place; for the year after he went to Lyons, where he became physician to the hospital, and joined lectures with practice for fome years following. John du Bellay, bishop of Paris, going to Rome in 1534, upon the bufinefs of our Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Spain, and paffing through Lyons, carried Rabelais with him, in quality of his phyfician; who returned however home in about fix months. He had quitted his religious connexions, for the fake of leading a life more suitable to his tafte and humour: but he afterwards renewed them, and in a fecond journey to Rome obtained in 1536, by his intereft with fome cardinals, a brief from pope Paul III, to qualify him for holding ecclefiaftical benefices. John du Bellay, inade a cardinal in 1533, had procured the abbey of St. Maur near Paris to be fecularized; and into this was Rabelais, now a Benedictine monk, received as a fecular canon. Here he is fupposed to have begun his famous romance, intituled, "The lives, heroic deeds, and fayings of Gargantua and Pantagruel." He continued in this retreat till 1545, when the cardinal du Belley, his

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