The works of F. Rabelais, M.D., or, The lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and Pantagruel with a large account of the life and works of the author, particularly an explanation of the most difficult passages in them never before publish'd in any language / done out of French by Sir Tho. Urchard, Kt., and others.

ON The most diverting WORKS OF THE LEARNED D^r. RABELAIS·

WHile some in wise Mens Garbs are mad, Or gravely dull, that's near as bad; Rabelais, a Foe to melancholy, Is Wisdom in the Garb of Folly. Tho' your grave Brutes can never find The Fruit within the prickly Rind. But if none else for Wise must pass, Sure, nothing's wiser than an Ass.

As dull by Nature or Disaster, When Rhimers laugh, 'tis like their Master,

And that's not often! For, we hear, Apollo laughs but once a Year: Scarce can he have so oft occasion, So woful is each Wight's Oblation: Whence, sympathising with their Rhimes, They make us duller than the Times.

But who e'er reads our Doctor's Chronicle Must laugh, though not in sence Ironical. Who always reads it, will appear To laugh indeed but once a year; But that's as once a day feeds Glutton, From Morn to Night, till out-flies Button.

As in kind House, by Mob call'd Bawdy, Old Sinner crawls to Punk that's gawdy, Whom charitable fat old Woman Has taught to be unkind to no Man; He'd play, but cannot, till, by Flogging; Rous'd Limberham keeps briskly jogging. Jirk'd by his Hackney beyond Reason, Yet pleas'd the more, the more she lays on: So I who, ply'd with Rhime each hour, Have Will to laugh, but scarce have Power, Ev'n I, must laugh when I read Rabelais, More pleas'd than Cull, on whom his Drab lays.

Pleas'd ev'n to pain, as well as he, Yet fear lest others laugh at me.

This Simile, you'll cry, 's not good, Nor goes on all Four as it should. But why on all Four should it go, While I its Dad must plod on two? What though i'th' midst of Deed of Pravity, Like new sworn May'r Cull keeps his Gravity? If he laughs not at Face that's upper, Yet Mirth's at t'other down the Crupper; And to please either with a jirk, A dose of Rabelais does the work.

While some Collegiate Farrier's Skill in Curing lies in methodic Killing, And indeed rids Men of all Evil, If 'tis not one to go to th' Devil, You pay not only for his Bill, (Your Pass your Recipe into Hell) But must ev'n pay for the damn'd Poyson, Which for his Sport your Corps he tries on. Well may the Wretches be called Patients, Who must endure their Operations! But Rabelais, learn'd in Kitchin Physic, Ne'er lets those who consult him be sick:

Choice Bills of Fare his only Bills, His Potions Wine, and Mirth his Pills; Playsters of warm Guts, gentle Frictions, His iatraliptical Prescriptions,

Reader

Wouldst thou have all Quacks to forsake thee, And make 'em lean, as they would make thee? Read Rabelais; but, lest Laughing hurt thee, First leak a while, then tightly girt thee; Else, if thou burst not, sure it i••, Thou wilt at least thy self bepiss.

PETER MOTTEUX