in 
Literature 
and Art. 
339 
alfo was burnt, and copies of either edition are now exceilively rare? 
Bonaventure des Periers felt fo much the weight of the perfecution in 
which he had now involved himfelf, that, in the year 1539, as far as can 
be afcertained, he put an end to his own exiflence. This event catt a 
gloom over the court of the queen of Navarre, from which it feems never 
to have entirely recovered. The fchool of fcepticifm to which Des 
Periers belonged had now fallen into equal difcredit with Catholics and 
Protefiants, and the latter looked upon Marguerite herfelf, who had 
latterly conformed outwardly with Romanifm, as an apoftate from their 
caufe. Henri Eltienne, in his " Apologie pour Heroclote," fpeaks of the 
" Cymbalum Mundi " as an infamous book. 
Bonaventure des Periers left behind him another work more amufing 
to us at the prefent day, and more characteriitic of the literary taftes of 
the court of Marguerite of Navarre. This is a collection of facetious 
llories, which was publifhed feveral years after the death of its author, 
under the title of " Les Contes, ou Les Nouvelles Recreations et Joyeux 
Devis de Bonaventure des Periers." They have fome refemblance in 
ftyle to the Ilories of the Heptameron, but are fhorter, and rather more 
facetious, and are charaoterifed by their bitter fpirit of fatire againft the 
monks and popifh clergy. Some of thefe {tories remind us, in their 
peculiar character and tone, of the " Epiftolae Obfcurorum Virorum," as, 
for an example, the following, whicl1 is given as an anecdote of the cure 
dc Brou  
" This cure had a way of his own to chant the different ollices of the church, 
and above all he disliked the way of saying the Passion in the manner it was ordi- 
narily said in churches, and he chanted it quite ditFer-ently. For when our Lord 
said anything to the Jews, or to Pilate, he made him talk high and loud, so that 
everybody could hear him, and when it was the Jews or somebody else who sp0l(e, 
he spoke so low that he could hardly be heard at all. It happened that a lady of 
rank and importance, on her way to Chateaudnn, to keep there the festival of 
Easter, passed through Brou on Good Friday, about ten o'clock in the morning, 
and, 
 A cheap and convenient edition of the " Cymbalum Mundi," edited by the 
Bibliophile Jacob (Paul Lacroix), was published in Paris in 184.1. I may here 
state that similar editions of the principal French satirists of the sixteenth century 
have been printed during the last twenty-Eve years.