Who money has, will wisdom’s credit gain; Who money has, all earth is his domain; Who money has, praise is his sure reward, Which all afford. Who money has, from nothing need refrain; Who money has, on him is favor poured; And, in a word, Who money has, need never fear attack-- They only are condemned who money lack. Who money has, in every heart does reign; Who money has, all to approach are fain; Who money has, of him no fault is told, Nor harm can hold. Who money has, none does his right restrain; Who money has, can whom he will maintain; Who money has, clerk, prior, by his gold, Is straight enrolled. Who money has, all raise, none hold him back-- They only are condemned who money lack. Francois Rabelais was born in or about 1495, in Chinon, Touraine. Successively, monk, physician and scientist, he is best known as a master of humor and grotesque invention. His romance of Gargantua and Pantagruel is an extravagant, satirical criticism of the follies and vices of the period, burlesquing the current abuses of government and religion. Unable to escape a paternal label, An able writer in the _Foreign Quarterly Review_ speaks of Rabelais as “an author without parallel in the history of literature: an author who is the literary parent of many authors, since without him we should probably have never known a Swift, a Sterne, a Jean Paul, or, in fact, any of the irregular humorists: an author who did not appear as a steadily shining light to the human race, but as a wild, startling meteor, predicting the independence of thought, and the downfall of the authority of ages: an author who for the union of heavy learning with the most miraculous power of imagination, is perhaps without a competitor.” The works of Rabelais abound in learning and serious intent, but the riotous humor and flashing wit are presented with an accompaniment of repulsive coarseness intolerable to the modern mind. This phase, however, was a part of the manners and customs of his time, and to philosophers and students Rabelais will ever be a mine of deep and recondite wisdom and thought. Indicative of his wildly extravagant fancy are the following extracts. _OF THE ECLIPSES THIS YEAR_ This year there will be so many eclipses of the sun and moon, that I fear (not unjustly) our pockets will suffer inanition, be full empty, and our feeling at a loss. Saturn will be retrograde, Venus direct, Mercury as unfixed as quicksilver. And a pack of planets won’t go as you would have them.