Note 232 — Chapter VII

The title-page of the first book does not contain Sir Thomas Urquhart's name, but on it is his motto ("Mean, speak, and do well"). It runs as follows:—"The first Book of the Works of Mr. Francis Rabelais, Doctor in Physick: Containing Five Books of the Lives, Heroick Deeds, and Sayings of Gargantua and his Sonne Pantagruel. Together with the Pantagrueline Prognostication, the Oracle of the divine Bacbuc, and response of the bottle. Hereunto are annexed the Navigations unto the sounding Isle and the Isle of the Apedefts: as likewise the Philosophical cream with a Limosin Epistle. All done by Mr. Francis Rabelais, in the French Tongue, and now faithfully translated into English. ευνοει εὑλογε καἱ εὑπραττε. London, Printed for Richard Baddeley, within the Middle Templegate. 1653." On the title-page of the second book are the translator's initials, S, T. V. C. (Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie). While on that of the third book we have his name in full: "Now faithfully translated into English by the unimitable pen of Sir Thomas Urwhart, Kt. and Bar. The Translator of the Two First Books. Never before Printed. London: Printed for Richard Baldwin, near the Oxford Arms in Warwick Lane, 1693." Copies of the first and second books of the above date are in the British Museum, but erroneously catalogued—not under Urquhart, but only under C., S. T. V. A second edition of them both seems from the Bodleian Catalogue to have been published in 1664. Both are very rare, it is said, owing to the destruction caused by the fire of London in 1666.