8//m $B 313 515 CO O o <^A.& nw/et 'wurfi t n^a/ (Z7U^yfiu*ra& C/4&iA&ri4 66ru/ise>?&tJu' y£>^ {Qatofimui/ *?vi— TfS3 222. V t ol.V. pkiCE ** CJENTS L in ^ K *^' Aug. 31. 1S86. \ "*.■.%> ^ ($10.00 a Ye. FiUlflfl'iuwumiiuiuwj : >iiiiiinuun»inmiM i TH E E LZEVIR LIBRARY ■! [Entered at the Post-Offlce, New York, as second-class mutter.] a \ MOLIER. <® <£ BY K ft WM, H. x PRESCOTT f V « if, (\ NEW YORK *>~j John B.Al den t^V* T'M £ , H,CKGO - AldSn .Book Go. — — ■ii ii «i i« Brilliant Boohs, A few titles taken from our unrivalled list of Choice Stand- ard Works. Cloth binding, unless otherwise specified. ALDEK'S Cyclopedia of Universal Literature. Parts I. to IX., paper covers, each * $0.15 - — The same. Bound Vols., 1 to 3, eaeh 60 RAMBAUD'S HISTORY OF RUSSIA. 2 vols., Maps and 111 us 1.75 GUIZOT'S History of France. 8vo, cloth, 427 Illustrations 8 .40 The same, Pearl st. edition, 427 Illustrations 6.00 History of Civilization , 50 CLASSIC COMEDIES. By Goldsmith, Sheridan, and Jonson 60 FROUDE'S HISTORICAL ESSAYS. The best of his " Short Studies " 50 FAMOUS WARRIORS. By Famous Writers 50 SCOTT'S BEAUTIFUL HOMES. " The Art of Beautifying Suburban Home Grounds," finely Illustrated, beautifully bound 3.00 CHARLES LAMB'S ESSAYS of ELIA, on heavy pap* r. cloth binding 50 Last Essays of Ella, on heavy paper, Hoth binding 50 - — Complete Essays, lighter paper, cloth binding 60 WHAT TOMMY DID. By Emily Huntington Miller 50 MAURICE THOMPSON'S By- Ways and Bird Notes 75 OBITER DICTA. By Augustine Birrell 50 RAWLINSON'S Egypt and Babylon, Illustrated 75 ~— Ancient Religions, Illustrated 75 Seven Great Monarchies, 700 Illustrations and Maps 8.50 History of Egypt, 2 vols., prof usely Illustrated 1.50 PRESCOTT'S (Illustrated) History of Ferdinand and Isabella, 2 vols 2.25 — r The same, one-volume edition 1 .25 - — Conquest of Mexico, 2 vols., Illustrated 2.25 EMERSON. Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson, First Series, 16mo 50 - — The same, small 8vo, half Morocco, marbled edges 80 - — - Nature and Other Addresses 40 BURKE on the Sublime and Beautiful ." 60 HAMERTON. The Intellectual Life 60 - — The same, full Russia, gilt edges 1.20 GRACE GREENWOOD. Stories, 4 vols., ink and gold ornaments, e,v h 75 GREEN'S History of the English People, 5 vols., 16mo 2.50 The same, 12mo, half Morocco, marbled edges, finely illustrated 8.75 AMERICAN Patriotism. Celebrated American Speeches and Papers 75 HERBERT SPENCER. On Education 50 DEQUINCEY'S Confessions of an English Opium-Eater 30 JOHN STUART MILL. On Liberty 30 CHAMBERS'S Cyclopedia of English Literature, 4 vols 2.40 BAPJNG-GOULD'S Curious Myths of the Middle Ages 40 WASHINGTON IRVING'S WORKS, 9 vols., half Morocco 8.00 Caxton Edition 4.75 BENSON J. LOSSING'S Eminent Americans, profusely Illustrated 80 GEIKIE'S Life and Words of Christ 60 ANCIENT CLASSICS for English Readers, 27 vols, in 9, half Russia 6.00 — - Separate Volumes 30 GREAT THOUGHTS from Greek Authors 60 GREAT THOUGHT* from Latin Authors 60 LIBRARY OF SCIENCE, i vols., large octavo, half Russia 9.00 Separate Vols, contain in* best works of Darwin, Sp«n«*r, Huxley, to, gilt edges 2.25 Bible Galierv, quarto, gilt b<£§e*. .-* 2.25 HISTORICAL We^rDER-BO^K, KWilhisfrmtions. Green's England, Schiller's Thirty Years' War, Creasy 's Bajtles* Garlyle's French Revolution, intytf* ** 8 ^- ?.'V*.*:.*.. ..!.£.•. ...J 2.W — - Ttke^JnJ«r,5v^1]J>itiMlu|ttTU5*» ^Vffmssia, red edges 1.75 BANIEL WEBSTER. Wisdom ami •-• 74 MOLIERE. 135 > HKNKY MOOT? •> MOLIERE. The French surpass every other nation, indeed all the other nations of Europe put together, in the amount and excellence of their memoirs. Whence comes this manifest superiority? The important Collection relating to the History of France, commencing as early as the thirteenth century, forms a basis of civil history, more au- thentic, circumstantial, and satisfactory to an in- telligent inquirer than is to be found among any other people; and the multitude of biographies, personal anecdotes, and similar scattered notices, which have appeared in France during the two last centuries, throw a flood of light on the social habits and general civilization of the period in which they were written. The Italian histories (and every considerable city in Italy, says Tira- boschi, had its historian as early as the thirteenth century) are fruitful only in wars, massacres, trea- sonable conspiracies, or diplomatic intrigues, mat- ters that aifect the tranquility of the state. The rich body of Spanish chronicles, which maintain an unbroken succession from the reign of Al- phonso the Wise to that of Philip the Second, are scarcely more personal or interesting in their de- tails, unless it be in reference to the sovereign and his immediate court. Even the English, in their memoirs and autobiographies of the last century, are top exclusively confined to topics of public notoriety, as the only subject worthy of record, or which can excite a general interest in their readers. Not so with the French. The most frivolous details assume in their eyes an im- portance, when they can be made illustrative of an eminent character; and even when they con- cern one of less noto, they become sufficiently in- 136 PItESCOTT'S MISCELLANIES foresting, /as jusfc^fcturi 3of life and manners. Hence, Instead *oi ASibftiiur their hero only as he a^eli¥i3 ^ti. -the: gretit/ theater, they carry us along •w3a> hira.ml&rafti^mejit, or into those so- cial circles where, stripped of his masquerade dress, he can indulge in all the natural gayety of his heart — in those frivolities and follies which display the real character much better than all his premeditated wisdom; those little nothings, which make np so much of the sum of French memoirs, but which, however amusing, are apt to be discarded by their more serious English neigh- bors as something derogatory to their hero. Where shall we find a more lively portraiture of that interesting period, when feudal barbarism began to fade away before the civilized institu-, tions of modern times, than in Philip de Comines' sketches of the courts of France and Burgundy in the latter half of the fifteenth century? Where a more nice development of the fashionable in-, trigues, the corrupt Machiavelian politics which animated the little coteries, male and female, of Paris, under the regency of Anne of Austria, than in the Memoirs of De Eetz? To say no- thing of the vast amount of similar contributions in France during the last century, which, in the shape of letters and anecdotes, as well as memoirs, have made us as intimately acquainted with the internal movements of society in Paris, under all its aspects, literary, fashionable, and political, as if they had passed in review before our own eyes. The French have been remarked for their ex- cellence in narrative ever "since the times of the fabliaux and the old Norman romances. Some- what of their success in this way may be imputed to the structure of their language, whose general currency, and whose peculiar fitness for prose com- position, have been noticed from a very early period. Brunetto Latini, the master of Dante, wrote his Tesoro in French, in preference to his own tongue, as far back as the middle of the thir- teenth century, on the ground "that its speech was the most universal and most delectable of all MOLIERE. 137 the dialects of Europe." And Dante asserts in his treatise "on Vulgar Eloquence/' that "the superiority of the French consists in its adaptation, by means of its facility and agreeableness, to nar- ratives in prose." Much of the wild, artless grace, the naivete, which characterized it in its infancy, has been gradually polished away by fas : tidious critics, and can scarcely be said to have survived Marot and Montaigne. But the lan- guage has gained considerably in perspicuity, precision, and simplicity of construction, to which the jealous labors of the French Academy must be admitted to have contributed essentially. This simplicity of construction, refusing those compli- cated inversions so usual in the other languages of the Continent, and its total want of prosody, though fatal to poetical purposes, have greatly facilitated its acquisition to foreigners, and have made it a most suitable vehicle for conversation. Since the time of Louis the Fourteenth, accord- ingly, it has become the language of the courts, and the popular medium of communication in most of the countries of Europe. Since that period, too, it has acquired a number of elegant phrases and familiar turns of expression, which have admirably fitted it for light, popular narra- tive, like that which enters into memoirs, letter- writing, and similar kinds of composition. The character and situation of the writers themselves may account still better for the suc- cess of the French in this departmant. Many of them, as Joinville, Sully, Comines, De Thou, liochefoucault, Torcy, have been men of rank and education, the counsellors or the friends of princes, acquiring from experience a shrewd perception of the character and of the forms of society. Most of them have been familiarized in those polite cir- cles which, in Paris more than any other capital, seem to combine the love of dissipation and fash- ion with a high relish for intellectual pursuits. The state of society in France, or, what is the same thing, in Paris, is admirably suited to the purposes of the memoir-writer. The cheerful, 138 peescott's miscellanies. gregarious temper of the inhabitants, which min- gles all ranks in the common pursuit of pleasure; the external polish, which scarcely deserts them in the commission of the grossest violence; the influence of the women, during the last two centuries, far superior to that of the sex among any other people, and exercised alike on matters of taste, politics, and letters; the gallantry and licentious intrigues so usual in the higher classes of this gay metropolis, and which fill even the. life of a man of letters, so stagnant in every "other, country, with stirring and romantic adventure; all these, we. say/make, up a rich and varied pan-' orama, that can hardly fail of interest under the hand of the most common artists. Lastly, the vanity of the French maybe consid- ered as anothqr cause of their success in this kind of writing;' a vanity which leads them to dis- close a thousand amusing ' particulars, which the ; reserve of an Englishman, and perhaps his pride, would discard as altogether unsuitable to the pub- lic ear. This vanity, it must be confessed, how- ever, has occasionally seduced their writers, under, the garb of confessions and secret memoirs, tq make such a disgusting exposure of human in- firmity as few men would be willing to admit, even to themselves. The best memoirs of late produced in France, seem to have assumed somewhat of a novel shape. While they arq written with the usual freedom and vivacity, they are fortified by a bpdy of ref- erences and illustrations that attest an unwonted degree of elaboration and research. Such are those of Eousseau, La Fontaine, and Moliere, lately published. The last of these, which forms the subject of our article, is a compilation of all that has ever been recorded of the life of Moliere. It is executed in an agreeable manner, and has the merit of examining,, with more accuracy than has been hitherto done, certain doubtful points in his biography, and of assembling together in a con- venient form what has before been diffused over a great variety of surface. But, however familiar MOLIERE. 130 most of these particulars may be to the country- men of Moliere (by far the greatest comic genius in his own nation, and, in very many respects, inferior to none in any other), they are not so current elsewhere as to lead us to imagine that some account of his life and literary labors would be altogether unacceptable to our readers. Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (Moliere) was born in Paris, January 15, 1022. His father was an up- holsterer, as his grandfather had been before him ; and the young Poquelin was destined to exercise the same hereditary craft, to which, indeed, he served an apprenticeship until the age of four- teen. In this determination his father was con- firmed by the office which he had obtained for himself, in connection with his original vocation, of valet de chambre to the king, wit it the promise of a reversion of it to his son on his own decease.. The youth accordingly received only such a mea- ger elementary education as was usual with the artisans of that day. But a secret consciousness of his own powers convinced him that he was des- tined by nature for higher purposes than that of quilting sofas and hanging tapestry. His occa- sional presence at the theatrical representations of the Hotel de Bourgogne is said also to have awak- ened in his mind, at this period, a passion for the drama. He therefore solicited his father to assist him in obtaining more liberal instruction; and when the latter at length yielded to the repeated entreaties of his son, it was with the reluctance of one who imagines that he is spoiling a good mechanic in order to make a poor scholar. He was accordingly introduced into the Jesuits' Col- lege of Clermont, where he followed the usual course of study for five years with diligence and credit. He was fortunate enough to pursue the study of philosophy under the direction of the celeberated Gassendi, with his fellow-pupils, Chapelle, the poet, afterward his intimate friend, and Bernier, so famous subsequently for his travels in the East, but who, on his re turn, had the mis- fortune to lose the favor of Louis the Fourteenth 140 prescott's miscellanies. by replying to him, that "of all the countries he had ever seen, he preferred Switzerland. " On the completion of his studies in 1641, he was required to accompany the king, then Louis the Thirteenth, in his capacity of valet de cliambrc (his father being detained in Paris by his infirmi- ties), on an excursion to the south of France. This journey afforded him the opportunity of be- coming intimately acquainted with the habits of the court, as well as those of the provinces, of which he afterward so repeatedly availed himself in his comedies. On his return he commenced the study of the law, and had completed it, it would appear, when his old passion for the theatoi revived with increased ardor, and, after some hesitation, he determined no longer to withstand the decided impulse of his genius. He associated ^himself with one of those city companies of players with which Paris had swarmed since the days oi Richelieu — a minister who aspired after the same empire in the republic of letters which he had so long maintained over the state, and whose osten- tatious patronage eminently contributed to develop that taste for dramatic exhibition which has dis- tinguished his countrymen ever since. The consternation of the elder Poquelin, on receiving the intelligence of his son's unexpected determination, may be readly conceived. It blast- ed at once all the fair promise which the rapid progress the latter had made in his studies justi- fied him in forming, and it degraded him to an unfortunate profession, esteemed at that time even more lightly in France than it had been in othc} countries. The humiliating dependance of tin, comedian on the popular favor, the daily exposure of his person to the caprice and insults of an un- feeling audience, the numerous temptations inci- dent to his precarious and unsettled lif',, may furnish abundant objections to this profession in the mind of every parent. But in France, to all these objections were superadded others 1,L a graver cast, founded on religion. The clergy there, alarmed at the rapidly-increasing taste i'or dramatic MOLIERE. 141 exhibitions, openly denounced these elegant recrea- tions as an insult to the Deity; and the pious father anticipated, in this preference of his son, his spiritual no less than his temporal perdition. He actually made an earnest remonstrance to him to this effect, through the intervention of one of his friends, who, however, instead of converting the youth, was himself persuaded to join the com- pany then organizing under his direction. But his family were never reconciled to his proceeding; and even at a later period of his life, when his splendid successes in his new career had shown how rightly he had understood the character of his own genius, they never condescended to avail themselves of the freedom of admission to his theater, which he repeatedly proffered. M. Bret, his editor, also informs us, that he had himself seen a genealogical tree in the possession of the de- scendants of this same family, in which the name of Moliere was not even admitted! Unless it were to trace their connection with so illustrious a name, what could such a family want of a gene- alogical tree! It was from a deference to these scruples that our hero annexed to his patronymic the name of Moliere, by which alone he has been recognized by posterity. During the three following years he continued playing in Paris,. until the turbulent regency of Anne of Austria withdrew the attention of the people from the quiet pleasures of the drama to those of civil broil and tumult. Moliere then quitted the capital for the south of France. From this period, 1046 to 1658, his history presents few particulars worthy of record. He wandered with his company through the different provinces, writ- ing a few farces which have long since perished, performing at the principal cities, and, wherever he went, by his superior talent withdrawing the crowd from every other spectacle to the exhibition of his own. During this period, too, he was busily storing his mind with those nice observations of men and manners so essential to the success of the dramatist, and which were to ripen there until a 112 PRESCOTT'S MISCELLANIES. proper time for their development should arrive. At the town of Pezenas they still show an elbow- chair of Moliero's (as at Montpelier they show the gown of Rabelais), in which the poet, it is said, ensconced in a corner of a barber's shop, would sit for the hour together, silently watching the air, gestures, and grimaces of the village politicians, who, in those days, before coifee-houses were in- troduced into France, used to congregate in this place of resort. The fruits of this study may be easily discerned in those original draughts of char- acter from the middling and lower classes with which his pieces everywhere abound. In the south of France he met with the Prince of ConCi. with whom he had contracted a friend- ship at tne college of Clermont, and who received him with great hospitality. The prince pressed upon him the office of his private secretary; but, fortunately for letters, Moliere was constant in his devotion to the drama, assigning db his reason that "the occupation was of too seiious a com- plexion to suit his taste; and that, though he might make a passable author, he should make a very poor secretary." Perhaps he was influenced in this refusal, also, by the fate of the preceding incumbent, who had lately died of a fever, in consequence of a blow from the fire-tongs, which his highness, in a fit of ill humor, had given him on the temple. However this may be, it was owing to the good offices of the prince that he obtained access to Monsieur, the only brother of Louis the Fourteenth, and father of the cele- brated regent, Philip of Orleans, who, on his re- turn to Paris in 1658, introduced him to the king, before whom, in the month of October fol- lowing, he was allowed, with his company, to perform a tragedy of Corneille's and one of his own farces. His little corps was now permitted to establish itself under the title of the "Company of Mon- sieur," and the theater of the Petit-Bourbon was assigned as the place for its performances. Here, in the course of a few weeks, he brought out his MOLIERE. 143 Eiourdi and Le Depit Amoureux, comedies in verse and in five acts, which he had composed dur- ing- his provincial pilgrimage, and which, although deficient in an artful liaison of scenes and in probability of incident, exhibit, particularly the last, those fine touches of the ridiculous, which revealed the future author of the Tartuffe and the Misanthrope. They indeed found greater favor with the audience than some of his later pieces; for in the former they could only compare hicn wii h the wretched models that had preceded him, while in the latter they were to compare him with himself. In the ensuing year Moliere exhibited his cele- brated farce of Les Precieuses Ridicules; a piece in only one act, but which, by its inimitable sat- ire, effected such a revolution in the literary taste of his countrymen as has been accomplished by few words of a more imposing form, and which may be considered as the basis of the dramatic glory of Moliere, and the dawn of good comedy in France. This epoch was the commencement of that brilliant period in French literature which is so well known as the age of Louis the Four- teenth; and yet it was distinguished by such a puerile, meretricious taste, as is rarely to be met with except in the incipient stages of civilization, or in its last decline. The cause of this melan- choly perversion of intellect is mainly imputable to the influence of a certain coterie of wits, whose rank, talents, and successful authorship had au- thorized them, in some measure, to set up as the arbiters of taste and fashion. This choice assem- bly, consisting of the splenetic Eochefoucault; the belesprit Voiture; Balzac, whose letters afford the earliest example of numbers in French prose; the lively and licentious Bussy; Babutin; Chape- lain, who, as a wit has observed, might still have had a reputation had it not been for his "Pu*- celle;" the poet Benserade; Menage, and others of less note; together with such eminent women as Madame Lafayette, Mademoiselle Scuderi (whose eternal romances, the delight of her own age, have been the despair of every other), and 144 peescott's miscellanies. even the elegant Sevigne, was accustomed to hold its reunions principally at the Hotel de Rambon- illet, the residence of the marchioness of that name, and which, from this circumstance, has acquired such ill-omened notoriety in the history of letters. Here they were wont to hold the most solemn discussions on the most frivolous topics, but especially on matters relating to gallantry and love, which they debated with all the subtility and metaphysical refinement that centuries before had characterized the romantic Courts of Love in the south of France. All this was conducted in an affected jargon, in which the most common things, instead of being called by their usual names, were signified by ridiculous periphrases; which, while it required neither wit nor ingenuity to invent them, could have had no other merit, even in their own eyes, than that of being unin- telligible to the vulgar. To this was superadded a tone of exaggerated sentiment, and a ridiculous code of etiquette, by which the intercourse of these exclusives was to be regulated with each other, all borrowed from the absurd romances of Calprenede and Scuderi. Even the names of the parties underwent a metamorphosis, and Madame de Rambouillet's christian name of Catherine be- ing found too trite and unpoetical, was converted into Ar the nice, by which she was so generally rec- ognized as to be designated by it in Flechier's eloquent funeral oration on her daughter.* These insipid affectations, which French, critics are fond of imputing to an Italian influence, savor quite as much of the Spanish cultismo as of the concetti of the former nation, and may be yet more fairly referred to the same false principles of taste which distinguished the French Pleiades of the six- teenth century, and the more ancient compositions *How comes La Harpe to fall into the error of suppos- ing that Fleehier referred to Madame Montausier by this epithet of Arihenicet The bishop's style in this passage is as unequivocal as usual. See Cours de Litteratarc , etc., tome vi., p. 167. MOLIERE. 145 of their Provencal ancestors. Dictionaries were compiled, and treatises written illustrative of this precious vocabulary; all were desirious of being initiated into the mysteries of so elegant a science: even such men as (Jorneille and Bossuet did not disdain to frequent the saloons where it was stud- ied; the spirit of imitation, more active in France than in other countries, took possession of the provinces; every village had its coterie of precicuses after the fashion of the capital, and a false taste and criticism threatened to infect the very sources of pure and healthful literature. It was against this fashionable corruption that Moliere aimed his wit in the little satire of the "Precieuses Ridicules/' in which the valets of two noblemen are represented as aping their mas- ters' tone of conversation for the purpose of im- posing on two young ladies fresh from the prov- inces, and great admirers of the new style. The absurdity of these affectations is still more strong- ly relieved by the contemptuous incredulity of the father and servant, who do not comprehend a word of them. By this process Moliere succeeded both in exposing and degrading these absurd pre- tensions, as he showed how opposite they were to common sense, and how easily they were to be acquired by the most vulgar minds. The success was such as might have been anticipated on an appeal to popular feeling, where nature must al- ways triumph over the arts of affectation. The piece was welcomed with enthusiastic applause, and the disciples of the Hotel Rambonillet, most of whom were present at the first exhibition, be- held the fine fabric which they had been so pain- fully constructing brought to the ground by a single blow. "And these follies," said Menage to (Jhapelain, "which you and I see so finely crit- icised here, are what we have been so long ad- miring. We must go home and burn our idols." "Courage, Moliere," cried an old man from the pit; "this is genuine comedy." The price of the seats was doubled from the time of the second representation. Nor were the effects of the satire 14G prescott's miscellanies. merely transitory. It converted an epithet of praise into one of reproach; and a femme pre- dense, a style precieux, a ton pricieux, once so much admired, have ever since been used only to signify the most ridiculous affectation. There was, in truth, however, quite as much luck as merit in this success of Moliere, whose production exhibits no finer raillery or better sus- tained dialogue than are to be found in many of his subsequent pieces. It assured him, however, of his own strength, and disclosed to him the mode in which he should best hit the popular taste. "I have no occasion to study Plautus or Terence any longer," said he; "I must hence- forth study the world." The world, accordingly, was his study; and the exquisite models of char- acter which it furnished him will last as long as it shall endure. In 1GG0 he brought out the excellent comedy of the Ecole des Maris, and in the course of the same month, that of the Fdclieux in three acts — composed, learned, and performed within the brief space of a fortnight; an expedition evincing the dexterity of the manager no less than that of the author. This piece was written at the request of Fouquet, superintendent of finances to Louis the Fourteenth, for the magnificent fete at Vaux, given by him to that monarch, and lavishly cele- brated in the memoirs of the period, and with yet more elegance in a poetical epistle of La Fon- taine to his friend De Maucroix. This minister had been intrusted with the principal care of the finances under Cardinal Mazarine, and had been continued in the same office bv Louis the Four- teenth, on his own assumption of the govern- ment. The monarch, however, alarmed at the growing dilapidations of the revenue, requested from the superintendent an expose of its actual condition, which, on receiving, he privately com- municated to Colbert, the rival and successor of Fouquet. The latter, whose ordinary expenditure far exceeded that of any other subject in the kingdom, and Avho, in addition to immenso sums MOLIERE. 147 occasionally lost at play and daily squandered on his debaucheries, is said to have distributed in pensions more than four millions of livres annu- ally, thought it would be an easy matter to impose on a young and inexperienced prince, who had hitherto shown himself more devoted to pleasure thaii business, and accordingly gave in false returns, exaggerating the expenses, and diminishing the actual receipts of the treasury. The detection of this peculation determined Louis to take the first occasion of dismissing his powerful minister; but his ruin was precipitated and completed by the discovery of an indiscreet passion for Madame de la Villiere, whose fascinat- ing graces were then beginning to acquire for her that ascendency over the youthful monarch which has since condemned her name to such unfor- tunate celebrity* The portrait of this lady, seen in the apartments of the favorite on the occasion to which we have adverted, so incensed Louis, that he would have had him arrested on the spot but for the seasonable intervention of the queen- mother, Who reminded him that Fouquet was his host. It was for this fete at Vaux, whose palace and ample domains, covering the extent of three villages, had cost their proprietor the sum, almost incredible for that period, of eighteen million livres, that Fouquet put in requisition all the various talents of the capital, the dexterity of its artists, and the invention of its finest poets. He was particularly lavish in his preparations for the dramatic portion of the entertainment. Le Brun passed for a while from his victories of Alexander to paint the theatrical decorations; Torelli was employed to contrive the machinery; Pelisson furnished the prologue, much admired in its day, and Moliere his comedy of the Fdcheux. This piece, the hint for which may have been suggested by Horace's ninth satire, I ham forte via Sacra, is an amusing caricature of the various bores that infest society, rendered the more vexa- tious by their intervention at the very moment when a young lover is hastening to the place of 148 pbescott's miscellanies, assignation with his mistress. Louis the Four* teenth, after the performance, seeing his master of the hunts near him, M. Soyecour, a personage remarkably absent, and inordinately devoted to the pleasures of the chase, pointed him out to Moliere as an original whom he had omitted to bring upon his canvas. The poet took the hint, and the following day produced an excellent scene, where this Nimrod is made to go through the technics of his art, in which he had himself, with great complaisance, instructed the mischiev- ous satirist, who had drawn him into a conversa- tion for that very purpose on the preceding evening. This play was the origin of the comedie-lallet, afterward so popular in France, The residence at Vaux brought Moliere more intimately in contact with the king and the court than he had before been; and from this time may be dated the particular encouragement which he ever after received from this prince, and which eventually enabled him to triumph over the malice of his enemies. A few days after this magnificent en- tertainment, Fouquet was thrown into prison, where he was suffered to langish the remainder of his days, "which," says the historian from whom we have gathered these details, "he terminated in sentiments of the most sincere piety:"* a ter- mination by no means uncommon in France with that class of persons, of either sex, respectively, who have had the misfortune to survive their for- tune or their beauty. In February, 1G62, Moliere formed a matri- monial connection with Mademoiselle Bejart, a young comedian of his company, who had been educated under his own eye, and whose wit and captivating graces had effectually ensnared the poet's heart, but for which he was destined to perform doleful penance the remainder of his life. The disparity of their ages, for the lady was *IIistoirc de la Vie, etc. , de La Fontaine, par M. Valc- kenaer. Paris, 1824. MOLIERE. 149 hardly seventeen, might have afforded in itself a sufficient objection; and he had no reason to flat- ter himself that she would remain uninfected by the pernicious example of the society in which she had been educated, and of which he himself was not altogether an immaculate member. In his excellent comedy of the Ecole ties Femmes, brought forward the same year, the story turns upon the absurdity of an old man's educating a young woman for the purpose, at some future time, of marrying her, which wise plan is defeated by the unseasonable apparition of a young lover, who in five minutes undoes what it had cost the Veteran so many years to contrive. The pertin- ency of this moral to the poet's own situation shows how much easier it is to talk wisely than to act so. This comedy, popular as it was on its represent- ation, brought upon the head of its author a tem- pest of parody, satire, and even slander^ from those of his own craft who were jealous of his unprecedented success, and from those literary petits-viaitres who still smarted with the stripes inflicted on them in some of his previous per- formances. One of this latter class, incensed at the applauses bestowed upon the piece on the night of its first representation, indignantly ex- claimed, Ills done, parterre! ris dour! "Laugh theu, pit, if you will!" and immediately quitted the theater. Moliere was not slow in avenging himself of these interested criticisms, by means of a little piece en- titled La Critique de V Eeolb des Femmes^ in which he brings forward the various Objections made to his comedy, and ridicules them with unsparing severity, These objections appear to have been chiefly of a verbal nature. A few such familiar phrases as Tarte a la crime. Enfans par Vereille; etc., gave particular offence to the purists of that day, and, in the prudish spirit of French criticism, have since been condemned by Voltaire and La Harpe as cm worthy of comedy; One of the person- ages introduced into the Critique is a marquis, who, 150 prescott's miscellanies. when repeatedly interrogated as to the nature of his objections to the comedy, has no other answer to make than by his eternal Tarte a la ere me. The Due de Feuillade, a coxcomb of little brains but great pretension, was the person generally supposed to be here intended. The peer, unequal to an en- counter of wits with his antagonist, resorted to a coarsei 1 remedy. Meeting Moliere one day in the gallery at Versailles, he advanced as if to embrace him; a civility which the great lords of that day occasionally condescended to bestow upon their inferiors. As the unsuspecting poet inclined him- self to receive the salute, the duke, seizing his head between his hands, rubbed it briskly against the buttons of his coat, repeating, at the same time, Tarte a la creme, Monsieur, tarte a la creme. The king, on receiving intelligence of this affront, was highly indignant, and reprimanded the duke with great asperity. He at the same time encour- aged Moliere to defend himself with his own weapons; a privilege of which he speedily availed himself, in a caustic little satire in one act, entitled Impromptu de Versailles. ' ' The marquis, ? ? he says in this piece, "is nowadays the droll (le plaisant) of the comedy; and as our ancestors always intro- duced a jester to furnish mirth for the audience, so we must have recourse to some ridiculous mar- quis to divert them." It is obvious that Moliere could never have maintained this independent attitude if he had not been protected by the royal favor. Indeed, Louis was constant in giving him this protection; and when, soon after this period, the character of Moliere was blackened by the vilest imputations, the monarch testified his conviction of his inno- cence by publicly standing godfather to his child — a tribute of respect equally honorable to the prince and the poet. The king, moreover, granted him a pension of a thousand livres annually; and to his company, which henceforth took the title of "com- edians of the king," a pension of seven thousand. Our author received his pension, as one of a long list of men of letters, who experienced a similar MOLIEKE. 151 bounty from the royal hand. The curious estimate exhibited in this document of the relative merits of these literary stipendiaries affords a striking evi- dence that the decrees of contemporaries are not unfrequently to be reversed by posterity. The obsolete Chapelain is there recorded "as the great- est French poet who has ever existed;" in consid- eration of which, his stipend amounted to three thousand livres, while Boileau's name, for which his satires had already secured an imperishable existence, is not even noticed ! It should be added, however, on the authority of Boileau, that Chape- lain himself had the principal hand in furnishing this apocryphal scale of merit to the minister. In the month of September, 1665, Moliere pro- duced his 12 Amour Medecin, comedie-baUel, in three acts, which, from the time of its conception to that of its performance, consumed only five days. This piece, although displaying no more than his usual talent for caustic raillery, is remarkable as affording the earliest demonstration of those direct hostilities upon the medical faculty, which he maintained at intervals during the rest of his life, and which he may be truly said to have died in maintaining. In this he followed the example of Montaigne, who, in particular, devotes one of the longest chapters in his work to a tirade against the profession, which he enforces by all the ingenuity of his wit, and his usual wealth of illustration. In this, also, Moliere was subsequently imitated by Le Sage, as every reader of Gil Bias will readily call to mind. Both Montaigne and Le Sage, how- ever, like most other libellers of the healing art, were glad to have recourse to it in the hour of need. Not so with Moliere. His satire seems to have been without affectation. Though an habitual valetudinarian, he relied almost wholly on the temperance of his diet for the re-establishment of his health. "What use do you make of your phy- sician?" said the king to him one day. "We chat together, sire," said the poet; "he gives me his prescriptions; I never follow them, and so I get well." 152 prescott's miscellanies. An ample apology for this infidelity may be found in the state of the profession at that day, whose members affected to disguise a profound ignorance of the true principles of science under a pompous exterior, which, however it might impose upon the vulgar, could only bring them into de- served discredit with the better portion of the community. The physicians of that time are de- scribed as parading the streets of Paris on mules, dressed in a long robe and band, holding their conversation in bad Latin, or. if they condescended to employ the vernacular, mixing it up with such a jargon of scholastic phrase and scientific technics as to render it perfectly unintelligible to vulgar ears. The following lines, cited by M. Taschereau, and written in good earnest at the time, seem to hit oft' most of these peculiarities. "Affcctcr un air pedantesque, Cracker da Grec et du Latin, Longue perruque, habit grotesque, I)e la fourrure et du satin, Tout eel a reuni fait presque Ce qu'on appelle un medecin."* In addition to these absurdities, the physicians of that period exposed themselves to still farther derision by the contrariety of their opinions, and the animosity with which they maintained them. The famous consultation in the case of Cardinal Mazarine was well known in its day; one of his four medical attendants affirming the seat of his disor- der to be the liver, another the lungs, a third the spleen, and a fourth the mesentery. Moliere's raillery, therefore, against empirics, in a profession where mistakes are so easily made, so difficult to be detected, and the only one in which they are irremediable, stands abundantly excused from the censures which have been heaped upon it. Its *A gait and air somewhat pedantic, And scarce to spit but Greek or Latin, A long peruke and habit antic, Sometimes of fur, sometimes of satin, Form the receipt by which 'tis showei.. How to make doctors a la mock. MO LI ERE. 153 effects were visible in the reform which, in his own time, it effected in their manners, if in nothing farther* They assumed the dress of men of the world, and gradually adopted the popular forms of communication; an essential step to improvement, since nothing cloaks ignorance and empiricism more effectually with the vulgar than an affected use of learned phrase and a technical vocabulary. We are now arrived at that period Of Moliere's career when he composed his Misanthrope; a play which some critics have esteemed his masterpiece, and which all concur in admiring as one of the noblest productions of the modern drama. Its literary execution, too, 6f .paramount .importance in the eye of a French critic; is more nicely elabor- ated than in any other of the pieces of Moliere, if we except the Tartwffe, and its didactic dialogue dis- plays a maturity of thought equal to what is found in the best satires of Boileau. It is the very di- dactic tone of this comedy, indeed, which, combin- ed with its want of eager; animating interest, made it less popular on its representation than som& of his inferior pieces. A circumstance which occurred on the first night of its performance may be worth noticing. In the second scene of the first act, a man of fashion, it is well known, is represented as soliciting the candid opinion of AlceHe on a sonnet of his own enditing, though he flies' into ft passion with him, five minutes after, for pronouncing an unfavorable judgment. This sonnet was so artful- ly constructed by Moliere with those dazzling epigrammatic points most captivating to common ears, that the gratified audience were loud in their approbation of what they supposed intended in good faith by the author. How great was their mortification, then, when they heard Alceste con- demn the whole as puerile, and fairly expose the false principles on which it had been constructed. Such a rebuke must have carried more weight wit h it than a volume of set dissertation, on the princi- ples of taste. Rousseau has bitterly inveighed against Molidro for exposing to ridicule the hero of his Misan- 154 PRESCOTT'S 3IISCELLAKIES. tliropc, a high-minded and estimable character. It was told to the Due cle Montausier, well known for his austere virtue, that he was intended as the original of the character. Much offended, he attended a representation of the piece, hut on re- turning, declared that "he dared hardly natter himself the poet had intended him so great an honor." This fact, as has been well intimated by La Harpe, furnishes the best reply to Rousseau's invective. The relations in which Moliere stood, with his wife at the time of the appearance of this comedy gave to the exhibition a painful interest. The levity and extravagance of this lady had for some time transcended even those liberal limits which were conceded at that day by the complaisance of a French husband, and. they deeply affected the happiness of the poet. As he one day communi- cated the subject to his friend Chapelle, the latter strongly urged him to confine her person ; a remedy much in vogue then for refractory wives, and one, certainly, if not more efficacious, at least more gal- lant than the "moderate flagellation" authorized by the English law. He remonstrated on the folly of being longer the dupe of her artifices. "Alas!" said the unfortunate poet to him, "you have never loved!" A separation, however, was at length agreed upon, and it was arranged that, while both parties occupied the same house, they should never meet except at the theater. The respective parts which they performed in this piece corresponded precisely with their respective situations: that of Gelimene, a fascinating, capricious coquette, in- sensible to every remonstrance of her lover, and selfishly bent on the gratification of her own ap- petites; and that of Alceste, perfectly sensible of the duplicity of his mistress, whom he vainly hopes to reform, and no less so of the unworthiness of his own passion, from which he vainly hopes to ex- tricate himself. The coincidences are too exact to be considered wholly accidental. If Moliere in his preceding pieces had hit the follies and fashionable absurdities of the age, in the Tartuffe he flew at still higher game, the most MOLIKBE. 155 odious of all vices, religious hypocrisy. The result showed that his shafts were not shot in the dark. The ilrst three acts of the Tartuffe, the only ones then written, made their appearance at the mem- orable fetes known under the name of "The Plea- sures of the Enchanted Isle/' given by Louis the Fourteenth at Versailles, in 1664, and of which the inquisitive reader may^ind a circumstantial narra- tive in the twenty-fifth chapter of Voltaire's history of that monarch. The only circumstance which can give them a permanent value with posterity is their having been the occasion of the earliest exhibition of this inimitable comedy. Louis the Fourteenth, who, notwithstanding the defects of his education, seems to have had a discriminating perception of literary beauty, was fully sensible of the merits of this production. The Tar tuff es, however, who were present at the exhibition, deeply stung by the sarcasm's of the poet, like the foul birds of night whose recesses have been suddenly invaded by a glare of light, raised a fearful cry against him, until Louis even, Avhose solicitude for the interests of the Church was nowise impaired by his own personal derelictions, complied with their importunities for imposing a prohibition on the pubic performance of the play. It was, however, privately acted in the presence of Monsieur, and afterward of the great Conde. Copies of it were greedily circulated in the societies of Paris; and although their unanimous suffrage was an inadequate compensation to the author for the privations he incurred, it was sufficient to quicken the activity of the false zealots, who, un- der the mask of piety, assailed him with the grossest libels. One of them even ventured so far as to call upon the king to make a public example of him with fire and fagot; another declared that it would be an olfence to the Diety to allow Moliere, after such an enormity, "to participate in the sac- raments, to be admitted to confession, or even to enter the precincts of a church, considering the anathemas which it had fulminated against the authors of indecent and sacrilegious spectacles!"' 156 prescott's miscellanies. Soon after his sentence of prohibition, the king attended the performance of a piece entitled Scar- amouclie Hermit e, a piece abounding in passages the most indelicate and profane. "What is the reason," said he, on retiring, to the Prince of Conde, "that the persons so sensibly scandalized at Moliere's comedy take no umbrage at this?" ''Be- cause," said the prince, "the latter only attacks religion, while the former attacks themselves:" ah answer which may remind one of a remark of Baykf in reference to the Decameron, which having beeri placed on the Index on account of its immorality; was, however, allowed to be published in an edition 5 which converted the names of the ecclesiastics into those of laymen: "a concession," says the philoso- pher, "which shows the priests to have been much more solicitous for the interests of their own order than for those of heaven." Louis, at length convinced'of the interested mo^ tives of the enemies of the Tartuffe, yielded to! the importunities of the public and removed his prohibition of its performance. It accordingly was represented, for the first time in public, iri August, 1667, before an overflowing house, ex- tended to its full complement of five acts, but with alterations of the names of the piece, the principal personages in it, and some of its most obnoxious passages. It was entitled The Impos- tor, and its hero was styled Panulfe. On the second evening of the performance, however, an interdict arrived from the president of the Parlia- ment against the repetition of the performance, and, as the king had left Paris in order to join his army in Flanders, no immediate redress was to be 1 obtained. It was not until two year's later, 1669< that the Tartuffe, in its present shape, was finally allowed to proceed unmolested in its representa- tions. Ifc is scarcely necessary to add, tha-t tkese were attended with the most brilliant Biiccess which its author could have anticipated, and to which the intrinsic merits of the piece, and the unmerited persecutions he had undergone, go well entitled him. "Forty-four successive rep re- MOLIERE. l&{ sentations were scarcely sufficient- to satisfy tlie eager curiosity of the public: and his grateful company forced upon Moliere a double saare of the profits during every repetition of its perform- ance for the remainder of his life. Posterity has confirmed the decision of his contemporaries, and it still remains the most admired comedy of the French theater, and will always remain so, says a native critic, "as long as taste and hypo- crites shall endure in France." We have been thus particular in our history of these transactions, as it affords one of the most interesting examples on record of undeserved persecution with which envy and party spirit have assailed a man of letters. No one of Mo- liere's compositions is determined by a more direct moral aim; nowhere has he stripped the mask from vice with a more intrepid hand; no- where has he animateo' his discourses with a more sound and practical piety. It should be added, in justice to the French clergy of that period, that the most eminent prelates at the court ac- knowledged the merits of this comedy, and were strongly in favor of its representation. It is generally known that the amusing scene in the first act, where Dorine enlarges so elo- quently on the good cheer which Tartuffe had made in the absence of his host, was suggested to Moliere some years previous in Lorraine, by a cir- cumstance which took place at the table of Louis the Fourteenth, whom Moliere had accompanied in his capacity of valet cle chambre. Perefixe, bishop of llhodez, entering while the king was at his evening meal, during Lent, was invited by him to follow his example; but the bishop de- clined on the ground that he was accustomed to eat only once during the days of vigil and fast. The king, observing one of his attendants to smile, inquired of him the reason as soon as the prelate had withdrawn. The latter informed his master that he need be under no apprehensions for the health of the good bishop, as he himself had assisted at his dinner on that day, and then 158 frescott's miscellanies. recounted to him the various dishes which had been served up. The king, who listened with becoming gravity to the narration, uttered an exclamation of "Poor man!" at the specification of each new item, varying the tone of his exclam- ation in such a manner as to give it a highly comic effect. The humor was not lost upon our poet, who has transported the same ejaculations, with much greater effect, into the above-men- tioned scene of his play. The king, who did not at first recognize the scource whence he had derived it, on being informed of it, was much pleased, if we may believe M. Tascherean, in finding himself even thus accidentally associated with the work of a man of genius. In 1G68 Moliere brought forward his Avurv, and in the following year his amusing comedy of the B our (j co is Gentilhomnie, in which the folly of unequal alliances is successfully ridiculed ahd exposed. This play was first represented in the presence of the court at Chambord. The king maintained during its performance an inscrutable physiognomy, which made it doubtful what might be his real sentiments respecting it. The same deportment was maintained by him during the evening toward the author, who was in attend- ance in his capacity of valet cle chambre. The quick-eyed courtiers, the counts and marquises, who had so often smarted under the lash of the poet, construing this into an expression of royal disapprobation; were loud in their condemnation of him, and a certain duke boldly affirmed "that he was fast sinking into his second childhood, and that, unless some writer soon appeared, French comedy would degenerate into mere Ital- ian farce." The unfortunafe poet, unable to catch a single ray of consolation, was greatly de- pressed during the interval of H\e days which preceded the second representation of his piece; on returning from which, the monarch assured him that "none of his productions had afforded him greater entertainment, and that, if he had delayed expressing his opinion on the preceding MOLIERE. 159 night, it was from the apprehension that his judgment might have been influenced by the excellence of the acting." Whatever we may think of this exhibition of royal caprice, we must admire the suppleness of the courtiers, one and all of whom straightway expressed their full con- viction of the merits of the comedy, and the duke above mentioned added, in particular, that ''there was a vi$ comica in all that Moliere ever wrote, to which the ancients could furnish no parallel!" What exquisite studies for his pencil must Moliere not have found in this precious assembly ! We have already remarked that the profession of a comedian was but lightly esteemed in France at this period. Moliere experienced the incon- veniences resulting from this circumstance even after his splendid literary career had given him undoubted claims to consideration. Most of our readers, no doubt, are acquainted with the anec- dote of Belloc, an agreeable poet of the court, who on hearing one of the servants in the royal household refuse to aid the author of the Tartujje in making the king's bed, courteously requested "the poet to accept his services for that purpose." Madame Campan's anecdote of a similar courtesy on the part of Louis the Fourteenth is also well known, who, when several of these functionaries refused to sit at table with the comedian, kindly invited him to sit down with him, and, calling in some of his principal courtiers, remarked that "he had requested the pleasure of Moliere's com- pany at his own table, as it was not thought quite good enough for his officers." This rebuke had the desired effect. However humiliating the re- flection may be, that genius should have, at any time, stood in need of such patronage, it is highly honorable to the monarch who could raise himself so far above the prejudices of his age as to confer it. It was the same unworthy prejudice that had so long excluded Moliere from that great object and recompense of a French scholar's ambition, 160 prescott's miscellanies. a seat in the Academy; a body affecting to main- tain a jealous watch over the national language and literature, which the author of the Misan- ikrope and the Tartuffe, perhaps more than any other individual of his age, had contributed to purify and advance. Sensbile of this merit, they at length offered him a place in their assembly, provided he would renounce his profession of a player, and confine himself in future to his liter- ary labors. But the poet replied to his friend Boileau, the bearer of this communication, that "too many individuals of his company depended on his theatrical labors for support to allow him for a moment to think of it;" a reply of infinitely more service to his memory than all the academic honors that could have been heaped upon him, This illustrious body, however, a century after his decease, paid him the barren compliment (the only one then in their power) of decreeing to him an eloge, and of admitting his bust within their walls, with this inscription upon it: "Nothing is ^^anting to his glory: he was wanting to ours, ' ' The catalogue of Academicians contemporary with JVioliere, most of whom now rest in sweet oblivion, or, with Ootin and Ohapelain, live only in the satires of Boileau, shows that it is as little in the power of academies to confer immortality on a writer as to deprive him of it. We have not time to notice the excellent com- edy of the Femmes Savantes, and some inferior pieces, written by our author at a later period of his life, and must hasten to the closing scene. He had been long affected by a pulmonary com- plaint, and it was only by severe temperance, as we have before stated, that he was enabled to preserve even a moderate degree of health. At the commencement of the year 1673, his malady sensibly increased. At this very season he com- posed his Malacle Imaginaire — the most whimsical, and, perhaps, the most amusing of the composi- tions in which lie has indulged his raillery against the faculty. On the seventeenth of February., MOLIEUE. 1(11 being the day appointed for its fourth representa- tion, his friends would have dissuaded him from appearing in consequence of his increasing indis- position; but he persisted in his design, alleging "that more than fifty poor individuals depended for their daily bread on its performance. ' ; His life fell a sacrifice to his benevolence. The ex- ertions which he was compelled to make in play- ing the principal part of Argan aggravated his distemper, and as he was repeating the wprd/wro in the concluding ceremony, he fell into a convul- sion, which he vainly endeavored to disguise from the spectators under a forced smile. He was im- mediately carried to his house in the Rue de Richelieu, now No. 34. A violent fit of cotiirlir ing, on his arrival, occasioned the rupture of a blood-vessel; and seeing his end approaching, he sent for two ecclesiastics of the parish of St, Eustace, to which he belonged, to administer to him the last offices of religion. But these worthy persons refused their assistance; and before a third, who had been sent for, could arrive, Mo- liere, suffocated with the effusion of blood, had expired in the arms of his family. liar! ay de Champvalon, at that time archbishop of Paris, refused the rites of sepulture to the de- ceased poet because he was a comedian, and had had the misfortune to die without receiving the sacraments. This prelate is conspicuous, even in the chronicles of that period, for his bold and in- famous debaucheries. It is of him that Madame de Sevigne observes, in one of her letters: "There are two little inconveniences which make it diffi- cult for anv one to undertake his funeral oration — his life and his death. " Father Gaillard, who at length consented to underake it, did so on the condition that he should not be required to say anything of the character of the deceased. Thy remonstrance of Louis the Fourteenth having in- duced this person to remove his interdict, he pri- vately instructed the curate of St. Eustace not to allow the usual service for the dead to be recited at the interment. On the day appointed for this 1G2 fiiESCOTT's MISCELLANIES. ceremony, a number of the rabble assembled be^ fore the deceased poet's door, determined to op- pose it. "They knew only/' says Voltaire* "that Moliere was a comedian, but did not know that he was a philosopher and a great man." They had, more probably, been collected together by the Tartuffes, his unforgiving enemies. The widow of the poet appeased these wretches by throwing money to them from the windows. Iii the evening, the body, escorted by a procession of about a hundred individuals, the friends and in* timate acquaintances of the deceased poet, each of them bearing a flambeau in his hand, was quietly deposited in the cemetery of St. Joseph, without the ordinary chant, or service of any kind. It was not thus that Paris followed to the tomb the remains of her late distinguished comedian, Talma. Yet Talma was only a com- edian, while Moliere, in addition to this, had the merit of being the most eminent comic writer whom France had ever produced. The different degree of popular civilization which this differ- ence of conduct indicates may alford a subject of contemplation by no means unpleasing to the philanthropist. In the year 1792, during that memorable period in France when an affectation of reverence for their illustrious dead was strangely mingled with the persecution of the living, the Parisians re- solved to exhume the remains of La Fontaine and Moliere, in order to transport them to a more honorable place of interment. Of the relics thus obtained, it is certain that no portion belonged to La Fontaine, and it is extremely probable that none did to Moliere. Whosoever they may have been, they did not receive the honors for which their repose had been disturbed. With the usual fickleness of the period, they were shamefully transferred from one place to another, or abandoned to neglect for seven years, when the patriotic conservator of the Monumens Francis succeeded in obtaining them for his collection at the Petits Awjudinx. On the suppression of MOLIERE. 1C3 this institution in 1817, the supposed ashes of the two poets were, for the last time, transported to the spacious cemetery of Pere de la Ohaise, where the tomb of the author of the Tattuffe is desig- nated by an inscription in Latin, which, as if to complete the scandal of the proceedings, is grossly mistaken in the only fact which it pretends to record, namely, the age of the poet at the time of his decease. Moliere died soon after entering upon his fifty- second year. He is represented to have been somewhat above the middle stature, and well pro- portioned; his features large, his complexion dark, and his black, bushy eyebrows so flexible as to admit of his giving an infinitely comic expres- sion to his physiognomy, lie was the best actor of his own generation, and, by his counsels, formed the celebrated Baron, the best of the suc- ceeding. He played all the range of his own characters, from Alceste to Sganarelle, though he seems to have been peculiarly fitted for broad comedy. He composed with rapidity, for which Boileau has happily complimented him: "Rare et sublime esprit, dont la fertile vein Ignore en ecrivant le travail et la peine." Unlike in this to Boileau himself, and to Racine, the former of whom taught the latter, if we may credit his son,