To listen to some devout people, one would imagine that God never laughs; Heine was nearer the mark when he found in Him the divine Aristophanes. God's laughter is sometimes very coarse and unfit for polite ears; He is not satisfied with being Molière, He must needs also be Aristophanes and Rabelais.
Bio: Bathsua Reginald Makin was a proto-feminist, middle-class Englishwoman who contributed to the emerging criticism of woman's position in the domestic and public spheres in 17th-century England.
