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himself to develop and to add to, and in the attacks on the Roman Catholic
Church. According to Jean Paul Richter, Fischart is much superior to
Rabelais in style and in the fruitfulness of his ideas, and his equal in
erudition and in the invention of new expressions after the manner of
Aristophanes. He is sure that his work was successful, because it was
often reprinted during his lifetime; but this enthusiasm of Jean Paul would
hardly carry conviction in France. Who treads in another's footprints must
follow in the rear. Instead of a creator, he is but an imitator. Those
who take the ideas of others to modify them, and make of them creations of
their own, like Shakespeare in England, Moliere and La Fontaine in France,
may be superior to those who have served them with suggestions; but then
the new works must be altogether different, must exist by themselves.
Shakespeare and the others, when they imitated, may be said always to have
destroyed their models. These copyists, if we call them so, created such
works of genius that the only pity is they are so rare. This is not the
case with Fischart, but it would be none the less curious were some one
thoroughly familiar with German to translate Fischart for us, or at least,
by long extracts from him, give an idea of the vagaries of German taste
when it thought it could do better than Rabelais. It is dangerous to
tamper with so great a work, and he who does so runs a great risk of
burning his fingers.

England has been less daring, and her modesty and discretion have brought
her success. But, before speaking of Urquhart's translation, it is but
right to mention the English-French Dictionary of Randle Cotgrave, the
first edition of which dates from 1611. It is in every way exceedingly
valuable, and superior to that of Nicot, because instead of keeping to the
plane of classic and Latin French, it showed an acquaintance with and
mastery of the popular tongue as well as of the written and learned
language. As a foreigner, Cotgrave is a little behind in his information.
He is not aware of all the changes and novelties of the passing fashion.
The Pleiad School he evidently knew nothing of, but kept to the writers of
the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth century. Thus words out
of Rabelais, which he always translates with admirable skill, are frequent,
and he attaches to them their author's name. So Rabelais had already
crossed the Channel, and was read in his own tongue. Somewhat later,
during the full sway of the Commonwealth--and Maitre Alcofribas Nasier must
have been a surprising apparition in the midst of Puritan severity--Captain
Urquhart undertook to translate him and to naturalize him completely in
England.

Thomas Urquhart belonged to a very old family of good standing in the North
of Scotland. After studying in Aberdeen he travelled in France, Spain, and
Italy, where his sword was as active as that intelligent curiosity of his

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