From this point Pantagruel sailed straight for Lantern Land, and came to the desired island in which was the Oracle of the Bottle.  On the front of the Doric portal was engraved in fine gold the sentence:  “In Wine, Truth.”  The noble priestess, Bachuc, led Panurge to the fountain in the temple, within which was placed the Divine Bottle.  After he had danced round it three Bacchic dances, she threw a magic powder into the fountain, and its water began to boil violently and Panurge sat upon the ground and waited for the oracle.  First of all a noise like that made by bees at their birth came from the Divine Bottle, and immediately after this was heard the word, “Drink!”

The priestess then filled some small leather vessels with this fantastic water, and gave them to Panurge and Pantagruel, saying:  “If you have observed what is written above the temple gates, you at last know that truth is hidden in wine.  Be yourselves the expounders of your undertaking, and now go, friends, in the protection of that intellectual sphere, the centre of which is in all places and the circumference nowhere, which we call God.  What has become of the art of calling down from heaven, thunder and celestial fire, once invented by the wise Prometheus?  You have certainly lost it.  Your philosophers who complain that all things were written by the ancients, and that nothing is left for them to invent, are evidently wrong.  When they shall give their labour and study to search out, with prayer to the sovereign God (whom the Egyptians named the Hidden and Concealed, and invoking Him by that name, besought Him to manifest and discover Himself to them), He will grant to them, partly guided by good Lanterns, knowledge of Himself and His creatures.  For all philosophers and ancient sages have considered two things necessary for the sure and pleasant pursuit of the way of divine knowledge and choice of wisdom—­the goodness of God, and the company of men.

“Now go, in the name of God, and may He guide you.”

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CHARLES READE

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Charles Reade made his first appearance as an author comparatively late in life.  He was the son of an English squire, born at Ipsden on June 8, 1814, and was educated for the Bar, being entered at Lincoln’s Inn in 1843.  His literary career began as dramatist, and it is significant that it was his own wish that the word “dramatist” should stand first in the description of his works on his tombstone.  His maiden effort in stage literature, “The Ladies’ Battle,” was produced in 1851; but it was not until November, 1852, with the appearance of “Masks and Faces”—­the story which he afterwards adapted into prose under the title of “Peg Woffington”—­that Reade became famous as a playwright.  From 1852 until his death, which occurred on April 11, 1884, Reade’s life is mainly a catalogue of novels and dramas.  Like many of Charles Reade’s