and possesses no other interest than what can be produced by whimsical interest, the tricks of an ingenious valet, "From top to toe the Geta now in vogue," upon an ill-tempered and avaricious father, in behalf of a giddy and extravagant son. There is no severe strain of morality in such a plot; but it is absurd to suppose, that either parents will become dishonest, or sons disobedient, because they see Scapin and Leandre cheat old Argante. It would be as reasonable to suppose, that a peasant would go home and beat his wife, because Punch, in the puppet-show, cudgels Joan. This comedy is one of adventure and intrigue, with little pretension to delineation of character. But Molière's exquisite skill in dialogue could not be suppressed or concealed. We doubt if, with his utmost efforts, he could have been absolutely dull, without the assistance of a pastoral subject and heroic measure. The phrase, Que diable alla-t-il faire dans cette galère? will live as long as the French language. "Psyche" may be omitted as a subject totally unfitted for Molière's genius; we are even tempted to say, it could not be the work of the author of the "Misanthrope," with its brilliant associates in fame. Non omnia-the highest genius has its natural bounds. "La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas," which next appears, turns entirely upon the oddities, absurdities, and affectations of the provincial noblesse, who had, at that time, manners and habits of thinking extremely ridiculous in the eyes of the more polished society of the court, Molière must have been completely acquainted with these ludicrous points in the character of this class of society, as he had resided in so many different parts of France, at the head of his wandering troop. Accordingly he has presented us with the rural Dowager, who is deeply incensed that a man of quality at court, whose family is not, perhaps, above two hundred years old, should dare to compare his gentility with that of her deceased husband, who had lived all his lifein the country, kept a pack of hounds, and signed himself Count, in every bill, bond or acquittance. The clownishness of the poor lady's servants is humorously contrasted with her vain attempts to make them keep up the appearances she thinks suitable to her rank. It is, perhaps, the piece of Molière's in which foreigners feel the comic point least forcibly; but it was followed by one, the interest of which is vivid and unimpaired by the course of time. This is "Les Femmes Savantes," acted on IIth March, 1672; it was directed against a new female foible which had sprung up in the world of fashion, after the explosion of that of the Hôtel de Rambouillet. Always ambitious of exclusive distinction, as they dared no longer render themselves conspicuous by the jargon of romance, they ladies. Molière, "the Contemplator," as his friends called him, did not suffer this new species of pedantry to elude his vigilance. In fact it was of the same genus, though of different species from that which he had formerly assailed successfully; for modish affectation possesses as many heads as the fabled hydra, of which "One still bourgeons where another falls;" and the satirist, on his part, deserved the praise due to a moral Hercules. Out of a fashion or humour, which to an ordinary man would have but afforded a few scenes, Molière has found sufficient interest to fill up five acts of one of his best regular comedies. The Abbé Cotin—a personage who, affecting to unite in himself the rather inconsistent characters of a writer of poems of gallantry and a powerful and excellent preacher, had obtained in the satires of Boileau a painful immortality-was also distinguished in "Les Femmes Savantes" as one of the leading beaux-esprit of the day, a poet à la mode, who, with equal truth and modesty, had the assurance to claim for himself the title of the Father of French Epigram. His dramatic name was originally Tricotin, which, as too plainly pointing out the individual, was softened into Trissotin. The following are the colours with which Molière has painted the unfortunate academician, for such Cotin had the honour to be. "Monsieur Trissotin M'inspire au fond de l'âme un dominant chagrin. Je vis, dans le fatras des écrits qu'il nous donne, Cet indolent état de confiance extrême, Qui le rend en tout temps si content de soi-même, The coxcombry of Trissotin is most pleasantly contrasted with the severe, grave, and more formal folly and presumption of Vadius, a pedant of heavier pretensions, founded upon his scholarship. The effect produced by the introduction of this brace of pretenders to the heroines, upon whom their supposed merits produce the same effect as the fashionable brilliancy of Mascarille and Jodelet in "Les Précieuses Ridicules," is extremely comical; nor is the behaviour of the two originals to each other less so, since, after dispensing the necessary degree of mutual flattery, a mistake of the pedant in criticising a madrigal of which Trissotin was the author, sets them together by the ears, and produces a scene of quarrelling as ridiculous as that of mutual flattery which preceded it. of a man who understands Greek, dismiss their female domestic because she does not understand the delicacies of French grammar, and wellnigh cashier a lacquey, not for dropping a chair, but because he does not know the consequence of any derangement from the centre of gravity, is well contrasted with the foible of the Father of the Family, a man not devoid of good sense, and extremely fond of vindicating his title to be obeyed, so long as his wife is absent, but submitting, on all occasions, when, he is called upon to maintain his rights by courageous perseverance against the will of his helpmate. This play has been always considered one of Molière's most powerful, as it is one of his most regular comedies. The last of this great author's labours was at once directed against the faculty of medicine, and aimed at its most vulnerable pointnamely, the influence used by some unworthy members of the profession to avail themselves of the nervous fears and unfounded apprehensions of hypochondriac patients. Instead of treating imaginary maladies as a mental disease, requiring moral medicine, there have been found in all times medical men, capable of listening to the rehearsal of these brain-sick whims as if they were real complaints, prescribing for them as such, and receiving the wages of imposition, instead of the honourable reward of science. On the other hand, it must be admitted, that the faculty has always possessed members of a spirit to condemn and regret such despicable practices. There cannot be juster objects of satire than such empirics, nor is there a foible more deserving of ridicule than the selfish timidity of the hypochondriac, who, ungrateful for the store of good health with which nature has endowed him, assumes the habitual precautions of an infirm patient. Molière has added much to the humour of the piece by assigning to the "Malade Imaginaire" a strain of frugality along with his love of medicine, which leads him to take every mode that may diminish the expense of his supposed indisposition. The expenses of a sickbed are often talked of, but it is only the imaginary valetudinarian who thinks of carrying economy into that department; the real patient has other things to think of. Argan, therefore, is discovered taxing his apothecary's bill, at once delighting his ear with the flowery language of the Pharmacopoeia, and gratifying his frugal disposition by clipping off some items and reducing others, and arriving at the double conclusion, first, that if his apothecary does not become more reasonable, he cannot afford to be a sick man any longer; and secondly, that as he has swallowed fewer drugs by one-third this month than he had done the last, it was no wonder that he was not so well. The inference "Je le dirai à Monsieur Purgon, afin qu'il mette ordre à cela," is irresistibly comic. It is scarcely an overstrained circumstance that an original, at marrying his daughter to a young cub of a medical student, who is to be dubbed doctor in a few days. He is directed to this choice, both by the honour in which he holds the faculty, and the desire to possess the necessary medical advice within his own family, which he is obliged to purchase at so dear a rate. A second wife, the stepmother of the destined bride, soothes her husband in this as well as hisother humours. The match is opposed, and finally with success, by the inclinations of Angéliqué, the daughter, and the intrigues of her lover, Cléante, seconded by Toinette, a fille de chambre of the same brisk lively humour which the author loved to draw. Thomas Diafoirus, the young candidate for the privilege of killing or curing, is an admirable portrait of its particular class. Pedantry is never more ridiculous than when associated with youth, upon which it sits so awkwardly. There is a stage anecdote about the representation of the characters, worth. the remark of more than one manager. An actress of his troop, of considerable pretensions, had married an inferior comedian named Beauveau, who had been at one time à candle-shuffer in the theatre. The parts of Toinette and Thomas Diafoirus were intrusted to this couple. Molière made so many critical objections to the lady's performance that she lost all patience. "You say all this to me," said she, "and not a word to my husband,"Heaven forbid f should attempt to instruct him," said Molière, "nature has given Monsieur Beauveau an instinctive comprehension of the part, which I should spoil in attempting to mend it.” Argan is at last persuaded, that the surest and cheapest way of securing himself against the variety of maladies by which he is beset, will be to become a doctor in his own proper person. He modestly represents his want of preliminary study, and of the necessary knowledge even of the Latin language; but he is assured that by merely putting on the robe and cap of a physician, he will find himself endowed with all the knowledge necessary for exercising the profession. What," says the patient, "will merely putting on the habit enable me to speak scholarly upon diseases?" "Assuredly, reply his advisers, "under such a garb gibberish becomes learning, and folly Wisdom." This leads to the interlude which concludes the piece, being the mock ceremonial of receiving a physician into the Esculapian college, couched in macaronic Latinity, which was afterwards introduced by Foote in the farce where Dr Last makes a figure so distinguished. Another of these interludes we may barely mention as containing one of those flashes of humour of which Molière was so lavish, that they are to be found in his most trifling productions. Such certainly is a dance in which Polichinelle (Punch, namely) is pursued in the dark by the officers of justice (archers), and puts them though this is even childishly farcical, what can be more truly comic than the exclamation of the archers when they rally on the unfortunate jester : 66 Faquin, maraud, pendard, impudent, téméraire, As the "Malade Imaginaire" was the last character in which Molière appeared, it is here necessary to say a few words upon his capacity as an actor. He bore, according to one contemporary, and with justice, the first rank among the performers of his line. He was a comedian from top to toe. He seemed to possess more voices than one, besides which every limb had its expression;-a step in advance or retreat, a wink, a smile, a nod, expressed more in his action, than the greatest talker could explain in words in the course of an hour. He was, says another contemporary, neither corpulent nor otherwise, rather above the middle size, with a noble carriage and well-formed limbs; he walked with dignity, had a very serious aspect, the nose and mouth rather large, with full lips, a dark complexion, the eyebrows black and strongly marked, and a command of countenance which rendered his physiognomy formed to express comedy. A less friendly pen (that of the author of "L'Impromptu de l'Hôtel de Condé") has caricatured Molière as coming on the stage with his head thrown habitually back, his nose turned up into the air, his hand on his sides with an affectation of negligence, and (what would seem in England a gross affectation, but which was tolerated in Paris as an expression of the superbia quæsita meritis) his peruke always environed by a crown of laurels. But the only real defect in his performance arose from a habitual hoquet, or slight hiccup, which he had acquired by attempting to render himself master of an extreme volubility of enunciation, but which his exquisite art contrived on almost all occasions successfully to disguise. Thus externally fitted for his art, there can be no doubt that he, who possessed so much comedy in his conceptions of character, must have had equal judgment and taste in the theatrical expression, and that only the poet himself could fully convey what he alone could have composed. He performed the principal character in almost all his own pieces, and adhered to the stage even when many motives concurred to authorize his retirement. We do not reckon it any great temptation to Molière, that the academy should have opened its arms to receive him, under condition that he would abandon the profession of an actor; but the reason which he assigned for declining to purchase the honour at the rate proposed, is worthy of being mentioned. "What can induce you to hesitate?" said Boileau, charged by the Academicians with the |