the assumed name of Jean Baptiste Poquelin, who was born at Paris on the 15th of January 1622. His father, Jean Poquelin, exercised the vocation of topisier, and subsequently that of tapissier valet-de-chambre to Louis XIII. Young Poquelin, who seems to have been designed for the same trade, received originally a somewhat meagre education, and remained connected with his father's shop till he was fourteen years of age. Nothing is known respecting the boyhood of Molière till the year 1637, when his father succeeded in securing the reversion of his office for his eldest son Jean Baptiste; then in his fifteenth year. It has been customary to fill up this long blank in the early life of the great dramatist by an apocryphal story of a fond grandsire extorting occasional permission to take young Poquelin to witness the theatrical performances at the Hôtel de Bourgogne. Unfortunately, however, it turns out, on more accurate inquiry, that this benevolent old gentleman died just four years after his grandson's birth. Whether or not the slumbering genius of Molière was awakened by the indifferent specimens of the histrionic art which he beheld at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, it is at least certain that in the year 1637 he became a student at the college of Clermont, now known as that of Louis le Grand. During his five years' residence at this institution he enjoyed the private instruction of Gassendi, one of the first philosophers of his age, and numbered among his fellow-students such men as Chapelle, Bernier, Cyrano de Bergerac, Hessaut, and Condé's brother, the Prince de Conti, afterwards known as the liberal patron of letters and the friend of Molière. His relation to Gassendi, however, is the principal matter of interest at this period. The influence exerted over the expanding genius of the future dramatist by the teaching of this illustrious man must have been at once powerful and abiding; and in the withering scorn and fearless satire with which Molière afterwards assailed the vices, and unmasked the hypocrisy of his age, one can detect the hand of a man who in his early years was a favourite pupil of a philosopher who made bold to challenge the authority of Aristotle, and to enter the lists with Descartes. If Molière distinguished himself in philosophy at the college of Clermont, he gained a name for classical learning hardly less eminent. It was here he attained to that intimate acquaintance with the Latin dramatists which he afterwards turned to so good account in his compositions for the stage.

On the completion of his collegiate course, Molière commenced the study of law, which he prosecuted with more or less regularity during the three following years. It is difficult to say whether or not Molière had resolved upon any definite plan of life previous to this time; at all events, a circumstance occurred just when he had reached his twenty-third year which proved the turning-point in his history. It so happened that one Madeleine Béjart, a provincial actress of some celebrity, visited Paris in 1645, when "a young fellow named Molière," as old Tallemant des Réaux drily informs us, finding greater attractions in this interesting lady than he had yet discovered in the dull pages of Cujas and Trebonian, renounced his legal studies, followed the charmer to the provinces, and subsequently joined her troupe. Thus it was that Jean Baptiste Poquelin, or as he now called himself Molière, was led, whatever may have been his previous leanings, to assume a profession which from that hour became the business of his life. During the year which inaugurated his dramatic career Molière endeavoured to establish himself at Paris in connection with the Théâtre Illustre, which had been originated by a society of young men of good family, who considered themselves possessed of a talent for declamation. Failing in this attempt, Molière betook himself to the provinces, and soon found himself a member of the same company with the previous object of his admiration, Madeleine Béjart. Little is known respecting his provincial life, which occupies a space of not less than twelve years (1646-1658), except what is exceedingly meagre and fragmentary. During the greater part of that time Molière was the chief of a company of strolling players who spent their time in amusing the citizens of Nantes, Vienne, Bordeaux, Lyons, Pézenas, Béziers, Grenoble, and Rouen. From the outset Molière resolved to combine the profession of actor and author, and endeavour, while he built up his fame, to secure his fortune. He accordingly assumed the function of author by converting certain Italian pieces into acting plays for his company, and which were characterized more by the faults of the Italian theatre than by the genius of Molière. His first regular production was the Étourdi, a comedy in five acts, which was represented at Lyons in 1653, where it met with so much success that the principal performers belonging to another troupe permanently attached themselves to the fortunes of Molière. His play, although it surpassed the comedies of Scarron and Scudéri, which preceded it, was nevertheless much inferior to Molière's subsequent productions. It is made up of a number of isolated incidents and intrigues, which succeed each other certainly, but display very little inherent connection. Yet, amid all these defects, it gave marked evidence, in its spirited dialogue, ready repartee, and felicitous flow of language, of very decided advancement in stage composition. This piece was afterwards "revised and polished" by Dryden into his Sir Martin Marall. (See Downes's Roscius Anglicanus, p. 38, 1789.) Reinforced by the recent valuable accession to his company, Molière repaired to Béziers, where his former class-fellow, the Prince de Conti, was holding the states of Languedoc. Here the rising player received the distinguished patronage of his noble friend, and his company was called upon to put forth all their energies to furnish entertainment to the prince, the assembly, and the city. The Dépit Amoureux was acted here for the first time in 1656. As a whole, it is inferior to the Étourdi; yet it met with decided success. So greatly was the prince delighted with the genius of the dramatist, that it is said he offered to make him his secretary,—a distinction which Molière respectfully declined, remarking, "I am a tolerable author, but I should make a very bad secretary." Fortunately for the glory of the French drama, Molière had the courage to be faithful to his genius, a resolution which did as much honour to the player as the handsome offer did to the prince.

Having continued for some time his strolling performances in the south of France, Molière approached the capital, attracted by the hope of better fortune and greater Molière, fame. After assiduous efforts he succeeded, through the influence of De Conti, in obtaining permission to give a theatrical entertainment before their majesties and the court. This was a trying position for the strolling player, but he trusted to his genius, and it proved all-sufficient. Accordingly, on the 24th day of October 1658, his company played Corneille's tragedy of *Nicomede* before this august assemblage, at a theatre erected at the guard-hall of the old Louvre. Molière, who felt that his company was inferior in tragedy to the *troupe royale* of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, who were present, came forward after the performance, and adroitly observed that he and his actors were but feeble copies of those first-rate models, and hoped that his majesty, who had graciously tolerated their rustic ways, would allow them to play one of the little comic pieces which had gained their author some reputation in the provinces. The king granted the request, and the adventurous provincials represented a one-act farce, now lost, called the *Docteur Amoureux*, with so much success that they were desired by royalty to remain at Paris, and received permission to assume the title of *Troupe de Monsieur*, the king's brother, and to play alternately with the Italian comedians at the Petit-Bourbon Theatre. So this author-actor, with his squat, ungainly figure, coarse features, and melancholy countenance, finds that his reception by the fastidious public of Paris has not been inferior to that given him by the provinces. There was a fascination in Molière's person despite all its natural defects. Every limb and muscle of that awkward figure had something to say for itself; and, as a contemporary remarked of him, "he is an actor every inch of him, from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet." How he entertained the public at the Petit-Bourbon during the succeeding year is not known. It is certain, however, that he produced his celebrated *Précieuses Ridicules* in November 1659, which had such an extraordinary success that, though the prices of admission were trebled on the second day, the piece had a run of four months. The fame of Molière and genuine French comedy began alike with this play. Its author was hailed enthusiastically from the parterre with "Courage! courage! Molière, voilà la vraie comédie." If not designed as a satire upon all the ladies or précieuses connected with the famous Hôtel de Rambouillet, a literary circle which could boast of some of the most eminent men of the age as its supporters, this play was certainly meant to heap ridicule upon that class of précieuses who perverted alike good taste and correct feeling by the elaborate affectation of their talk, and the mock refinement of their sentiments. The characters and manners of this class were portrayed with extraordinary power and boldness; and it was with no small consternation that these absurd coteries found themselves thus ruthlessly impaled before the public by this comic censor, who kept all Paris laughing at their follies for four months in succession. The public now saw what was in store for them when Molière chose, as he modestly phrased it, "étudier le monde." His next piece, *Scaramouche ou le Coq Imaginaire*, was given to the public on the 28th of May 1660, and met with a success more than equal to its merits, having been acted forty times in succession.

The beginning of 1661 found Molière installed in his new theatre, the *Salle du Palais Royale*. Whether or not it was owing to the associations connected with the past history of this place that Molière felt induced to appear as a tragic author, he at all events produced a heroic comedy termed *Don Garcie de Navarre; ou le Prince Jaloux*, in 1661, imitated from the Italian, which proved an utter failure, and was the source of loud jubilation to his enemies. Molière withdrew it, and afterwards transferred some of its lines to the *Misanthrope*. On the 24th June 1661 he made another attempt, in his *École de Maris*, to retrieve his fallen reputation, and met with the most brilliant success. He owed the fundamental idea of this piece to Terence in his *Adelphi*, and some of the details he borrowed from Boccaccio and Lopez de Vega. During the same year he was engaged by the unfortunate Fouquet to compose a comedy for the celebrated fête which the superintendent of finance gave to Louis XIV. at Vaux, a few days before that monarch arrested and imprisoned for life the minister who entertained him. Molière had only five days to execute his task, and at the end of that time he produced *Les Fâcheux*, a piece which introduces us to the most provoking set of "bores" that ever afflicted mortal. The materials are of the slendest, having been designed to be acted during the intervals of a ballet; but such a lecture on the follies of character and manners as it contains Molière alone could read. An event occurred on the 20th of February 1662, just two days after the appearance of *Les Fâcheux*, which was not destined to increase the happiness of the dramatist. He became united to Armande Béjart, a sister of that Madeleine Béjart, with whose charms the young lawyer Jean Baptiste Poquelin had been smitten some twenty years before. The envenomed tongue of slander laboured industriously to circulate the calumny that Molière's wife was the daughter of his former mistress; and the chef of the Hôtel de Bourgogne kindly improved upon the scandal by submitting to the king that Molière's death would leave his wife at once fatherless and a widow. His majesty, however, showed his appreciation of these malicious reports by condescending, in February 1664, together with Henrietta of England, Duchess of Orleans, to be the sponsors of Molière's child. Much of the loathsome scandal regarding this affair has been swept away by the unequivocal testimony of certain legal documents which had escaped detection till 1821. But the worst trial of all awaited the much-wronged dramatist, in the imprudent coquetry of his wife, which served not a little to embitter the remainder of his domestic life. He pursued his labours, however, with unmitigated ardour, although he had by this time drawn down upon himself a host of assailants. The parties whose ridiculous conceits and absurd follies he had so ruthlessly exposed, too wise to express the rankling pain which the arrows of the censor had inflicted, now set themselves up as guardians of the purity of the national morals and of the national language. His next three plays aggravated the animosity of his enemies a hundred-fold. The *École des Femmes* appeared on the 26th December 1662; the *Critique de l'École des Femmes*, an energetic defence of the former, on the 5th January 1663; and the *Improptu de Versailles* in October 1663. In the first of these he was accused by the pseudo-religious party of Paris of turning religion into burlesque,—a class which he drove almost frantic by sending home the satire with tenfold force and power in his *Critique*. Nor did his *Improptu* tend to conciliate his enemies. On the contrary, the cutting and merciless exposure which it contained of the envious rivals whom his genius had eclipsed, drew down upon him the *troupe* of the Hôtel de Bourgogne like a nest of hornets. His next piece, *La Princesse d'Elide*, executed at a signal from the king, who stood constantly by him, was composed in haste to garnish a splendid fête of Louis at Versailles in May 1664; and while it afforded little scope for Molière's comic powers, belonging as it did to the gorgeous and romantic drama, it nevertheless was received with great applause. It also appears that the first three acts, or rough sketch, of the celebrated *Tartuffe* were presented on the sixth day of the entertainment, and the piece was regarded by the king as "fort divertissante;" yet he saw reason to forbid its public representation. Molière's next production of the same year was *Le Marriage Forcé*, a one-act comedy, with a bold and simple plot, but full of inimitable wit and ridicule, chiefly directed against the sophists of the Sorbonne. In the *Festin de Pierre*, which came out in 1665, Molière de- Molière, picted with extraordinary satirical power the character of an incorrigible hypocrite and libertine in Don Juan, borrowed from a Spanish story, which has furnished material for the creative genius of Molina, Mozart, and Byron. Some critics of this work went so far as to invoke the spiritual censure and the doom of the civil magistrate on the author; but the king supported him, and not only allowed his company to assume the title of Troupe du Roi, but also bestowed upon them a pension of seven thousand livres, in addition to the thousand livres (L40) previously granted Molière as a crown pension. L'Amour Médicin, which appeared at the royal command in September 1665, was produced in five days, and was a declaration of war against a new and influential body of enemies. In this piece he directed his polished satire against the quackery and pedantry then prevalent among the medical faculty of Paris. After the lapse of nine months, an unusual term of repose for Molière's muse, caused partly by his own illness and partly by the death of the queen-mother, the 4th of June 1666 brought a day to be remembered in the annals of the drama. It was then that the Misanthrope was first acted at the Palais Royal. This piece is universally accounted by French critics as the most correct in point of style of all Molière's compositions, and not a few regard it as his chef d'œuvre. It was in this play he introduced the passage from a translation of Lucretius which he is said to have executed and afterwards committed to the flames. It was received but coldly at first by the Parisian public, and its author was compelled to heighten its attractiveness by attaching to its representation the lively farce of La Médecin Malgré lui, founded on an old fabliau, and afterwards translated into English by the celebrated novelist Henry Fielding, under the title of The Mock Doctor.

Passing over Melicerte, the Pastorale Comique, and Le Sicilien, which appeared about this time at St Germain, as slim in material and rather dull in detail, we come to the most remarkable of all Molière's performances. Hitherto it had been more the aim of his satire to chastise folly than to unmask and brand vice. Three years before we saw the rude outline of the Tartuffe sketched at Versailles, Scruples as to the probable reception of the piece induced the king to interdict its representation. Alterations were made in the play at the desire of royalty, and Molière used all his efforts to tone down the colouring, and remove any semblance of personal allusion. On the departure of Le Grand Monarque to pursue his conquests in Flanders, permission was obtained by Molière to represent this long suppressed Tartuffe at the Palais Royal. This piece accordingly made its appearance on the 5th of August 1667, and produced a most extraordinary sensation. In the depth and power of its composition it was felt to outstrip all previous attempts at comedy which France had known. It was received with the most triumphant and deafening applause; and yet twenty-four hours did not elapse before the premier président interdicted a second representation, and the archbishop had exhausted his thunders of excommunication by the week's end against all who should act, read, or listen to, in public or private, the said comedy of Tartuffe. The Jesuits at first supposed it was a satire upon the austerity of the obnoxious Jansenists; while the latter sought their revenge in giving currency to the notion that Le Tartuffe was but a postscript to the Provinciales of Pascal. The truth is, it was not religion of any form which Molière ridiculed; it was the insincere professors of religion. Where religion is in a healthy state, the exposure of the vice of hypocrisy will always be hailed with applause rather than received with censure. Satire, although a dangerous weapon, is, when employed in good faith and honest purpose, often the only effective means of assailing a crime equally odious in the sight of God and man. Such thorough-paced hypocrites are not to be moved by ordinary means; they are touched and shamed by ridicule alone." Yet Molière's purpose, as is too often the case, was doomed to be misunderstood; and even such men as Bossuet and Bourdaloue, fearing lest the keen blade which smote down so mercilessly the subtle hypocrite, might glance back and wound the simple, joined with not a little intemperance in the hue and cry raised against the audacious moral censor. Molière, however, fearlessly held on his way; and if the intrigues and petulence of a so-called religious faction influenced his royal patron to confirm the interdict, Molière lived to have his revenge. The fame of the Tartuffe soon found its way across the Channel, and by the industry and taste of the unfortunate actor Matthew Medburn, the play-goers of the British metropolis learned early to applaud the genius and admire the courage of this indomitable French comedian. (See the Roscius Anglicanus, p. 27.) Clamour and controversy were still raging when the Amphitryon, a questionable drama taken from Plautus, came out with its inexhaustible stock of keen wit and inimitable humour. Voltaire tells us, the first time he read it he tumbled off his chair, convulsed with laughter, and nearly broke his neck! This play, together with George Dandin and L'Avare, appeared during 1668. George Dandin was a successful exposure of the mischief done by unequal marriages, especially by the union of impoverished aristocrats with wealthy parvenus. The general conception of L'Avare was taken from Plautus, but adapted to modern society with a degree of truth and fidelity which none but a Molière could command. The delineation of the miser, although one of the author's most successful attempts, was less favourably received than usual, owing, it is said, to its being written in prose. It has since, however, received ample justice. The highest compliment paid to the truth of the piece was by a miser himself, who was, it is said, so pleased with the excellent lessons of economy which it contained, that he actually paid the cost of admission to witness the performance. This play was transferred to the British stage, as The Miser, by Henry Fielding. Since the proscription of Le Tartuffe, Molière had been urgent in his endeavours to obtain for it a fair hearing. After repeated opposition and discouragement, his efforts were crowned with success, and the Troupe du Roi performed on the 5th February 1669 Le Tartuffe, ou l'Imposteur, to the great horror of the bigots, who ceased not to invoke the nether fires to consume the wicked dramatist. Passing over the clever farce of Monsieur de Pourceynac (1669), and the satire on astrology of Les Amants Magnifiques (1670), we come to a masterpiece of comic art in Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, first presented before the court at Chambord on 14th October 1670. This play, though defective in construction, continues to be one of the most popular of Molière's compositions. It exposes in an exceedingly amusing manner the ridiculous absurdities into which a man is led who would force his way into a higher sphere than his own, with no other qualification but the weight of his purse. In this relation the ignorant pomposity of Monsieur Jourdain, and the pretentious pedantry of his fashionable instructors, will continue to afford matter for genuine laughter as long as the piece is known. The Fourberies de Scapin, Psyché, and La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas, appeared in 1671, none of them demanding very special mention, with the exception of some exceedingly amusing pieces of dialogue in the Fourberies. It is in one of these that the variegous father utters the celebrated phrase, "Que diable alla-t-il-faire dans cette galère?" with such passionate importunity and ludicrous effect. The following year brought a richer specimen of Molière's art in Les Femmes Savantes, acted on the 11th March 1672, consisting of a regular comedy in five acts, which has always been considered one of his most powerful productions. The object of the dramatist's ridicule on this occasion was the scientific airs and learned Molière.

dignity which the exploded coteries of the précieuses now affected, instead of the romantic jargon in which they had formerly indulged.

We now come to speak of the Malade Imaginaire, a piece possessing the melancholy interest of being Molière's last. This play appeared in February 1673, and consisted of a powerful and pungent satire upon those unworthy members of the medical faculty who were accustomed to take advantage of the unfounded apprehensions of their patients. Molière had always been of a delicate constitution, and had for many years been liable to pulmonary affections, which, during the composition of this his last work, increased greatly in violence. His friends attempted to dissuade him from appearing in the character of Argan when the piece came to be represented, as the exertion of voice and person called forth on such an occasion would tend to increase the severity of his malady. But Molière who had sacrificed personal comfort so often for the benefit of those dependent on him, could not forget even in the hour of death "those fifty people who must want their daily bread if the spectacle is put off." He had accordingly appeared as Argan, the Malade Imaginaire, for the fourth time; and before the conclusion of the piece, through which he had laboured with great pain, his cough overcame him, and being threatened with choking, he was carried off the stage and conveyed to his own house. The clergy were summoned, but in vain: it was the author of Le Tartuffe who was dying, and the last offices of religion must be withheld. Two poor Sisters of Charity, who in past days had never come to his door in vain, try to smooth the pillow of the dying man with their words of peace. His cough soon returned with increased violence, and having burst a blood-vessel, he died apparently of suffocation on the 17th of February 1673, in the fifty-second year of his age. The cunning hand is now stiff, and the inventive brain cold, yet bigotry must have its revenge. Ecclesiastical sepulture was refused the comedian's remains by Harlay, Archbishop of Paris, a man who, after a life of licentiousness, himself died of debauchery. How could the dust of a poor comedian, who wore out his life in the cause of truth and virtue, find respect at the hands of such a Tartuffe as this? Yet such is a specimen of Molière's most malignant foes. The interdict was revoked, however, by the private orders of the king, after tearful importunities on the part of Molière's poor unfortunate widow, who, forgetful of all her follies now, tried to atone, by her sorrowing anxiety for the honour of the dead, for the many wrongs she had done the living. It was nevertheless with great difficulty that the remains of one of the truest men France had known were ultimately got interred in the cemetery of Saint Joseph. Of Molière's three children, only one, a daughter, born in 1665, survived him. She eloped with a widower twelve years after her father's death, and died without issue in 1723.

We know nothing respecting the character of Molière that is not greatly to his honour; and those who have been loudest in their censures of the poet have failed to find a flaw in the character of the man. Numerous anecdotes of unquestionable authenticity abundantly prove him to have been an honest, generous, true-hearted man. He seems to have had a genuine love of truth, an utter scorn of whatever was false or mean, a genial, kindly nature, and a heart full of unostentatious benevolence. Baron, a distinguished pupil of Molière's, requested on one occasion some pecuniary aid from his master on behalf of an unfortunate actor whom Molière had known in the provinces. "How much does he want?" asks Molière. "Four pistoles," was the reply. "Here they are," says Molière, "and twenty besides, that I wish you to give him; for I want him to feel it is to you he owes his relief." Witness also his clinging to his craft lest his retirement should damage his troupe, when the Academy proposed to receive him on condition of his dropping the title of "actor." His well-known practice of reading his pieces while in manuscript to his shrewd old housekeeper, Laforet, affords an admirable illustration of the amiable simplicity of his character. That he continued this custom so scrupulously, from the mere desire of trying the effect of his compositions on the good dame, is not at all likely. The success of his profession placed him in a position of comparative opulence, and he was indefatigable in his acts of charity. He did not only rest satisfied with aiding the unfortunate; he is said to have quietly sought out objects for his liberality among needy sufferers of the humblest rank. No change of fortune could alter the original simplicity of his character. The king treated him constantly with respect, and even with familiarity; and not a few of the haughty noblemen of the court, forgetting the accidents of birth in the presence of genius, diligently sought his society. Yet amid all these flattering marks of distinction, Molière preserved the native purity of his heart and the simplicity of his manners. His hours of leisure he enjoyed in the society of the most distinguished literary men of the age; and he counted among his friends La Fontaine, Boileau, Chapelle, and Racine. In society he was very reserved, being characterized by a thoughtful modesty, which gained for him the sobriquet of "The Contemplator."

The most distinguished critics among Molière's countrymen have been unanimous in assigning him the highest place among the comic authors of France; and Voltaire does not hesitate to pronounce him the most eminent writer of comedy of any age or country. This judgment the majority of English critics have also learned to indorse; and even with the extraordinary comic powers of Shakspeare before them, feel it their duty to vindicate for Molière the very highest place of any who has ever distinguished himself in this department of literature. The comic scenes of the great English dramatist are introduced more to relieve the severity of his tragedy, than with the view to make comedy his ultimate aim; and even in the Merry Wives of Windsor, his nearest approach to a regular comedy, he rises at times, by the uncontrollable soaring of his genius, into a region of poetry entirely beyond that sphere where vice is satirized and folly rendered ridiculous. Molière, again, hardly ever introduces a single piece of poetical imagery to ornament his dramas. He wrote constantly to the understanding, and not to the imagination. You search in vain almost for any touch of the sublime in his compositions; and even when he becomes serious, he seldom parts company with the hardest common sense. Yet there is no comic author who has depicted character as Molière has done,—keeping steadily fixed before him the grand end of his art. His observation was so penetrating, and his glance so keen, that no veil could hide vice from his detection, or cover the foibles of men from the fire of his wit. His insight into human nature is powerful and penetrating; his delineations are characterized by great truth and simplicity; and his language stands unrivalled for force and naïveté. The scenes from which Molière painted represent follies of a former date; yet so profound was his knowledge of the human heart, that while apparently ridiculing an accidental folly, or branding a particular vice, he was at the same time steadily directing his satire against those outstanding follies and vices which are peculiar to man at all times and in all places. And here Molière ceases to be merely the comic writer of France. His works, like those of all men of true genius, become the property of universal humanity. His comic power was of the very highest order, and his wit of the purest kind; his laughter is always hearty, and his pleasantry always innocent. In exposing the more serious forms of vice, his satire occasionally assumes a gravity almost too staid for the ordinary notions of comedy; for virtue, with Molière, never ceases to be sacred, and the keenest shafts of his satire are directed against its enemies. His verses, while remarkable for freedom and fluency, are said to have been polished with great care. He has been charged with deficiency in the development of his plots; with not only precipitating the dénouement, but with bringing it about without a sufficient regard to probability. It must be admitted that Molière always takes greater interest in the unfolding of character than in following out the complicities of intrigue. Situation and incident seem always to have held a subordinate place in his estimation. His most striking situations were not his own; yet he compensated by originality of execution for what he had borrowed in design. It signified very little to Molière what was the mere form which his drama assumed; his unrivalled power in portraying individual character, and his genuine comic genius, won for him success alike in regular comedy and in comedie-ballet. There is perhaps no instance on record in which such a constant and determined warfare against vice and folly was sustained by means of wit and satire alone, without any assistance either from sublimity or pathos. Molière was a genuine reformer; and the author of Tartuffe and the author of the Lettres d'un Provincial take their places together as the two most valiant defenders of the truth during the seventeenth century in France.

Of the numerous editions of Molière's works which have been published, the following are the most valuable:—That of Lagrange and Vinot, Paris, 1682, in 8 vols., 12mo.; and that of Didot, Paris, 4 vols., 8vo (edition Lefèvre), 1854, with notes, historical and critical, and life by Lagrange, who was an actor in Molière's troupe. A complete translation of the comedies of Molière, printed with the original French, by James Miller and Henry Baker, appeared about 1750.

For the most valuable information respecting the life and works of Molière, see Vie de Molière, par M. Taschereau, new edition, Paris, 1864; Notes Historiques sur la Vie de Molière, par M. Bazin, Paris, 1851; also an able essay on The Life and Genius of Molière in the Cambridge Essays for 1855, by Mr C. K. Watson.