to Montpelier; and the service he did the univerfity 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 honor of him.

In 1532, Rabelais published at Lyons some pieces of Hippocrates and Galen, with a dedication to the bishop of Maiļlezais; 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 business of our Henry the VIIIth's divorce from Catherine of Spain, and pasfing through Lyons, carried Rabelais with him, in quality of his physician; who returned however home in about fix months. He had quitted his religious connexions, for the fake of leading a life more fuitable to his taste and humour: but he afterwards renewed them, and in a fecond journey to Rome, obtained in 1536, by his interest with some cardinals, a brief from pope Paul III, to qualify him for holding ecclesiastical benefices. John du Bellay, made 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 supposed to have begun his famous romance, intitled, "The lives, he"roic deeds, and fayings of Gargantua and Pantagruel." He continued in this retreat till 1545, when the cardinal du Bellay, his friend and patron, nominated him to the cure of Meudon, which he is faid to have filled with great zeal and application to the end of his life. His profound knowledge and skill in phyfic made him doubly useful to the people under his care; and he was ready upon all occafions to relieve them under bodily indifpofitions, as well as to consult and provide for the fafety of their fouls. He died in 1553. As he was a great wit, many witticifms and facetious fayings are laid to his charge, which he knew nothing of; and many

many ridiculous circumftances related of his life and death, which it is but justice to him to omit as fabulous.

He published several things, but his Chef d'Ouvre is, "The hiftory of Gargantua and Pantagruel." "Tis a fatyr, in the form of a romance, upon monks, priests, popes, and fools and knaves of all kinds; where wit and learning are scattered about with great profufion, but in a manner wild and irregular, and with a ftrong mixture of obscenity, coarse and puerile jefts, prophane allufions, and low raillery. Hence it has come to pafs, that while fome have regarded it as a prime effort of the human wit, and, like Homer's poems, as an inexhauftible source of learning, fcience, and knowledge, others have affirmed it to be nothing but an unintelligible rhapsody, a heap of foolish conceits, without meaning, without coherence; a collection of grofs impie-. ties and obscenities. Both parties have reason for what they say; that is, the truth lies between them both. Rabelais certainly intended to fatyrise the manners of his age, as appears plainly enough from the general turn and nature of his work; but from a certain wildness and irregularity of manner, what he alludes to or means in some particular pasfages, does not appear so plain. They must be greatly prejudiced against him, who will not allow him to have wit, learning, and knowledge of various kinds; and so must they, who cannot fee that he is oftentimes low, coarse, prophane, and obscene.

The monks, who are the chief object of his fatyr, gave fome oppofition to it, when it firft began to be published, for it was published by parts, in 1535: but this oppofition was foon overruled by the powerful patronage of Rabelais among the great. The beft edition of his works is that with cuts, and the notes of le Duchat and da Monnoye, 1741, in 3 vols. 4to. Mr. Motteaux published an English translation of it at London 1708, in two volumes 8vo; with a preface and notes, in which he endeavours to fhew, that Rabelais has painted the history of his own time, under an ingenious fiction and borrowed names. Ozell published afterwards a new tranflation, with Duchat's notes, 5 vol. 120.

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RACAN (HONORAT de BEVIL, Marquis of) a French poet, was born at Roche Racan in Touraine, anno 1589. Bayle'sDiet. At fixteen years of age, he was made one of the pages to Henry IV; and, as he began to amufe himself with writ. ing verfes, he got acquainted with Malherbe, from whom he learned all the fkill he had in French poetry. Malherbe reproached him with being too negligent and incorrect in his verfification, and Boileau has paffed the fame cenfure on. him; yet affirms him to have had more genius than his master, and to have been as capable of writing in the Epic way,, as he was in the Lyric, in which he particularly excelled. Boileau, Menage has also spoken highly of Racan, in his additions and alterations to his Remarques fur les Poefies de Malherbe. Mr. MauWhat is most extraordinary in this poet, is, that he acquired perfection in his art by mere dint of genius; for, as fome relate, he had never ftudied at all, but even fhewn an incapacity for attaining the Latin tongue. Upon quitting the office of page, he entered into the army; but this, more to oblige his father, the marquis of Racan, than out of any inclination of his own: and therefore after two or three campains, he returned to Paris, where he married a wife, and devoted himfelf to books and poetry. His works confift of facred odes, paftorals, letters, and memoirs of the life of Malherbe, prefixed to many editions of the works of that poet. He was chofen one of the members of the French academy, at the time of its foundation. He died in 1670, aged eighty one years. He had fo low a voice, that he could scarcely be heard.

RACINE (JOHN) an illuftrious French poet, was born at la Ferté-Milon in 1639, and educated at Port Royal: Nicemon, where he gave the greatest proofs of uncommon abilities and genius. During three years continuance there, he made a moft rapid progress in the Greek and Latin tongues, and in all polite literature. His genius, lying towards poetry, made him particularly fond of Sophocles and Euripides; infomuch that he is faid to have learned these two great authors by heart. He happened upon the Greek romance of Heliodorus," of the Loves of Theagenes and Chariclea," "of VOL. X.

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and was reading it very greedily; when his director fur. prifing him took the book, and threw it into the fire. Racine found means to get another copy, which also underwent the fame fate; and after that a third, which, having a prodigious memory, he got by heart; and then, carrying it to his director, faid, "You may now burn this, as you have burned the two former."

Leaving Port-Royal, he went to Paris, and ftudied logic fome time in the college of Harcourt. The French poetry had taken his fancy, and he had already compofed fome little pieces in it; but it was in 1660, when all the poets were making their utmost efforts upon the marriage of the king, that he first discovered himself to the public. His La Nymphe de la Seine, written upon that occafion, was highly approved by Chapelain; and fo powerfully recommended by him to Colbert, that the minifter fent Racine a hundred pistoles from the king, and fettled a penfion on him, as a man of letters, of 600 livres, which was paid him to the day of his death. The narrowness of his circumstances had put him upon a defign of retiring to Uzes; where an uncle, who was canon regular and vicar general of Uzes, offered to refign to him a priory of his order which he then poffeffed, if he would become a regular and he ftill wore the ecclefiaftical habit, when he wrote the tragedy of Theagenes, which he prefented to Moliere; and that of the Freres Ennemis in 1664, the subject of which was given him by Moliere.

In the mean time, the fuccefs of his ode upon the king's marriage fpurred him to attempt higher things, and carried him at length intirely to the fervice of the theatre. In 1666, he published his tragedy of Alexandra; concerning which Mf. de Valincour relates a fact, which he had from Racine himself. Reading this play to Corneille, he received the highest encomiums from that great writer; but at the fame time was advifed by him to apply himself to any other kinds of poetry, as more proper for his genius, than dramatic. "Corneille, adds Mr. de Valincour, was incapable of low "jealoufy if he spoke so to Mr. Racine, it is certain that "he thought fo.. But we know, that he preferred Lucan to ditions de ce Virgil; from whence he must conclude, that the art of writing excellent verfe, and the art of judging excellently

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"of poets and poetry, do not always meet in the fame "perfon."

Racine's dramatic character embroiled him at this time with the gentlemen of Port-Royal. Mr. Nicole, in his vifionaires and imaginaires, had thrown out occafionally fome poignant strokes against the writers of romance and poets of the theatre, whom he called " the public poifonners, not "of bodies, but of fouls :" des empoisonneurs publics, non des cops mais des ames. Racine, taking himself to be included in this cenfure, was fomewhat provoked, and addreffed a very animated letter to Mr. Nicole; in which he did not. fo much concern himself with the subject of their difference, as endeavour to turn into ridicule the folitaires and religious of the Port-Royal. Meffieurs du Bois and Barbier Daucour having each of them replied to this letter, Racine opposed them in a second as sprightly as the firft. These letters, published in 1666, are to be found in the edition of Racine's works 1728, and alfo in the laft editions of the works of Boileau. In 1668, he published Les Plaideurs, a comedy, and Andromache, a tragedy; which, though it had great fuccefs, was a good deal criticised. The character of Pyrrhus was thought overftrained and too violent; and the celebrated actor Montfleuri had certainly reafon to think that of Oreftes fo, fince the efforts he made in representing it coft him his life. He continued to exhibit from time to time feveral great and noble tragedies; Britannicus, in 1670: Berenice, in 1671: Bajazet, in 1672: Mithridates, in 1673: Iphigenia, in 1675: Phædra, in 1677. During which time, he met with all that oppofition, which envy and cabal are ever ready to set up against a superior genius; and one Pradon, a poet, whose name is not worth remembering, was then employed by persons of the first distinction to have a Phædra ready for the theatre, against the time that Racine's fhould appear.

After the publication of Phædra, he took a refolution to quit the theatre for ever; although his genius was ftill in full vigor, being not more than thirty eight years of age; and he the only perfon, who was capable of confoling Paris for the old age of Corneille. But he had imbibed in his infancy a deep fenfe of religion; and this, though it had been fmothered

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