He is fit to be
perpetual
church warden.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v16 to v20 - Phi to Qui
)
## p. 10140 (#568) ##########################################
10140
S. WEIR MITCHELL
I moved away horror-stricken, and with swift steps went down
the hill and regained Jack's quarters.
Of the horrible scene at noon on the 2d of October I shall
say very little. A too early death never took from earth a more
amiable and accomplished soldier. I asked and had leave to
stand by the door as he came out. He paused, very white in his
scarlet coat, smiled, and said, “Thank you, Wynne; God bless
you! ” and went on, recognizing with a bow the members of the
court, and so with a firm step to his ignoble death. As I had
promised, I fell in behind the sad procession to the top of the
hill. No fairer scene could a man look upon for his last of earth.
The green range of the Piermont hills rose to north. On all
sides, near and far, was the splendor of the autumn-tinted woods,
and to west the land swept downward past the headquarters to
where the cliffs rose above the Hudson. I can see it all now
the loveliness of nature, the waiting thousands, mute and pitiful
I shut my eyes and prayed for this passing soul. A deathful
stillness came upon the assembled multitude. I heard Colonel
Scammel read the sentence. Then there was the rumble of the
cart, a low murmur broke forth, and the sound of moving steps
was heard.
It was over. The great assemblage of farmers and
soldiers went away strangely silent, and many in tears.
The effort I so earnestly desired to make for the capture of
Arnold was afterward made by Sergeant Champe, but failed, as
all men now know. Yet I am honestly of opinion that I should
have succeeded.
Years afterward, I was walking along the Strand in London,
when, looking up, I saw a man and woman approaching. It was
Arnold with his wife. His face was thin and wasted, a counte-
nance writ over with gloom and disappointment. His masculine
vigor was gone. Cain could have borne no plainer marks of vain
remorse. He looked straight before him. As I crossed the way,
with no desire to meet him, I saw the woman look up at him; a
strange, melancholy sweetness in the pale, worn face of our once
beautiful Margaret. Her love was all that time had left him;
poor, broken, shunned, insulted, he was fast going to his grave.
Where now he lies I know not. Did he repent with bitter tears
on that gentle breast? God only knows. I walked on through
the crowded street, and thought of the words of my great chief,
“There is a God who punishes the traitor. ”
## p. 10141 (#569) ##########################################
S. WEIR MITCHELL
10141
[The following poems are all copyrighted by S. Weir Mitchell, and are re-
printed by permission of the Century Company, publishers. ]
LINCOLN
C"
HAINED by stern duty to the rock of State,
His spirit armed in mail of rugged mirth,
Ever above, though ever near to earth,
Yet felt his heart the cruel tongues that sate
Base appetites, and foul with slander, wait
Till the keen lightnings bring the awful hour
When wounds and suffering shall give them power.
Most was he like to Luther, gay and great,
Solemn and mirthful, strong of heart and limb.
Tender and simple too; he was so near
To all things human that he cast out fear,
And, ever simpler, like a little child,
Lived in unconscious nearness unto Him
Who always on earth's little ones hath smiled.
DREAMLAND
U"
PANCHOR! l'p anchor!
Set sail and away!
The ventures of dreamland
Are thine for a day.
Yo, heave ho!
Aloft and alow
Elf sailors are singing
Yo, heave ho!
The breeze that is blowing
So sturdily strong
Shall fill up thy sail
With the breath of a song.
A fay at the mast-head
Keeps watch o'er the sea;
Blown amber of tresses
Thy banner shall be ;
Thy freight the lost laughter
That sad souls have missed,
Thy cargo the kisses
That never were kissed.
And ho, for a fay maid
Born merry in June,
## p. 10142 (#570) ##########################################
10142
S. WEIR MITCHELL
Of dainty red roses
Beneath a red moon.
The star-pearls that midnight
Casts down on the sea,
Dark gold of the sunset,
Her fortune shall be.
And ever she whispers,
More tenderly sweet,
“Love am I, love only,
Love perfect, complete.
The world is my lordship,
The heart is my slave;
I mock at the ages,
I laugh at the grave.
Wilt sail with me ever
A dream-haunted sea,
Whose whispering waters
Shall murmur to thee
The love-haunted lyrics
Dead poets have made
Ere life had a fetter,
Ere love was afraid ? »
Then up with the anchor!
Set sail and away!
The ventures of loveland
Are thine for a day.
SONG
From Francis Drake)
I
WOULD I were an English rose,
In England for to be:
The sweetest maid that Devon knows
Should pick and carry me.
To pluck my leaves be tender quick,
A fortune fair to prove,
And count in love's arithmetic
Thy pretty sum of love.
Oh, Devon's lanes be green o'ergrown,
And blithe her maidens be;
But there be some that walk alone,
And look across the sea.
## p. 10143 (#571) ##########################################
10143
MARY RUSSELL MITFORD
(1787-1855)
He best description of Miss Mitford is given by Mrs. Browning
in a letter to Mr. Horne, where she speaks of her as “our
friend of Three Mile Cross, who wears her heart upon her
sleeve' and shakes out its perfume at every moment. ” And indeed,
like the sun, Miss Mitford shone upon the just and the unjust: her
flowers, her dogs, her servants, neighbors and friends, her devoted
mother, and her handsome, graceless father, all shared alike her
sunny sweet-heartedness.
Mary Russell Mitford was born at Alres-
ford, in the town of Wither, England, De-
cember 16th, 1787, and began her career as
a writer in 1810, publishing then her first
volume, Miscellaneous Poems. In read-
ing the account of her life given in her
own letters, edited by Mr. L'Estrange, it is
impossible not to be touched by the reve-
lation of her pathetically cheerful struggle
to support her parents, as well as provoked
by her unfailing devotion to her good-for-
nothing father. Indeed, so deeply does her
love for him impress the reader, that at MARY R. MITFORD
last it comes near to protecting him from
criticism. Squandering first his own fortune, Dr. Mitford married
Miss Russell, a devoted woman, ten years his senior, whose friends
he proceeded to offend, and whose fortune he promptly dissipated.
At the first touch of pecuniary embarrassment he moved from Alres-
ford to Lynn Regis, where for one year they lived in the greatest
luxury. In Recollections of a Literary Life' Miss Mitford says:
“In that old historical town [Lynn Regis] I spent the eventful year
when the careless happiness of childhood vanished, and the troubles
of the world first dawned upon my heart.
Nobody told
me, but I felt,
I knew, I can't tell how, but I did know
that everything was to be parted with, and everybody paid. ” Then
follows a description of chests being carried away in the night by
faithful servants, and of a dreary journey for herself and her mother,
and of the first touch of dreadful poverty. Settled in lodgings in
London, this incredible father took his little daughter to buy a lottery
•
.
## p. 10144 (#572) ##########################################
10144
MARY RUSSELL MITFORD
»
ticket; she selected one whose added numbers made her age — ten
years — and would have none other. This ticket was bought, and
drew for Dr. Mitford twenty thousand pounds. Once more with a
fortune, he bought a place near Reading, — Bertram House, — and sent
his daughter, of whom he was excessively proud, to school in Lon-
don. It was while at Bertram House that Miss Mitford published her
first volume, following it in 1811 by Christine,' and other smaller
things. In 1820 they move from Bertram House into a tiny cot-
tage at Three Mile Cross, and from this time on it is one long
struggle for money. From this place are written Miss Mitford's most
charming letters, in which we read of her difficulties about her trage-
dies, and how, because of these difficulties, she took up another line
of work as less harassing, and began to write short sketches of the
life about her: sketches which Campbell refused as too light,- which
the world put next to Lamb's Essays, - and which, collected, made
(Our Village.
Between 1823 and 1828 three of her plays, Julien,' Foscari,' and
(Rienzi,' were put upon the stage by Macready and Kemble; “Our
Village' had an enormous success, and Miss Mitford was toasted
and made much of by all the world of London. But as her father
"played a very fine hand at whist,” she could never be very long
away from Three Mile Cross and her writing-table; and she goes
back quite cheerfully to a daily task of from seven to twelve hours
writing. Her work is most voluminous: including plays, poems, 'Dra-
matic Scenes,' (Stories of American Life,' — of which she could not
have known very much, — 'Stories for Children,' and in 1835 another
collection of sketches, called Belford Regis. ' Besides all this, she
contributed to newspapers, magazines, Amulets' and 'Forget-me-nots. '
and edited from 1838 to 1841 Finden's Tableaux; finishing her work
in 1852–4 with Recollections of a Literary Life,' and Atherton and
Other Tales. Driven by want and harassed by debt, she could not
produce much that would live; but the careful reader of Miss Mit-
ford's letters will never criticize Miss Mitford's failures. At Three
Mile Cross, after much ill health, her mother died, and later her
« beloved father); and here she lived until in 1850 the little house
began to fall to pieces; and she moved to Swallowfield, not very far
away, there to finish her life.
Miss Mitford tells us that she delighted in that sort of detail
which permits so intimate a familiarity with the subject of which it
treats,” — and she gives it to us in her work. She describes a cow-
slip ball so accurately that one smells the cowslips and helps her
to tie it; she makes us intimately acquainted with the spreading
hawthorn”; the shower pelts us in wetting her, and we change our
clothes too- or we long to do so— in order to sit down with her near
the fire. She loses her walking-stick, and we go back with her over
((
## p. 10145 (#573) ##########################################
MARY RUSSELL MITFORD
10145
»
the whole expedition to find it; it is a personal loss, and we are
much relieved when the children bring it home again. Frost comes;
and we are out under the solemn white avenue, looking at the “land-
scape of snow,” at the frozen weeds, and becoming friendly with the
little bird tamed by the cold, —“perched in the middle of the hedge,
nestling as it were among the cold bare boughs, seeking, poor pretty
thing, for the warmth it will not find. ” Then the description of the
thaw, not much more than a paragraph, - a dismal thaw, the dreari-
ness of which she fights against quite palpably, stopping so abruptly
that one is sure that she found it too forlorn to dwell upon safely.
But through all the sunny charm of her work, she is conscious of
the shadow of the hopeless struggle she is making; one knows that
she did not dare to tread too heavily on the thin ice of her happi-
ness, and one steps lightly along with her, and makes a conscious
effort to forget the father and his endless folly. When at last she is
alone in the world, and has to move from Three Mile Cross, she
says: “It was a great grief to go. I had associations with those old
walls which endeared them to me more than I can tell. There I
had toiled and striven, and tasted of as bitter anxiety, of fear and
of hope, as often falls to the lot of women. There in the fullness
of age I had lost those whose love had made my home sweet and
precious. ” And one longs to step back fifty years and maul that
delinquent father; not so much, perhaps, because he was selfish, as
because she loved him so. But in the next paragraph her invincible
cheerfulness again comes to the front, and we begin to like Swallow-
field almost as much as Three Mile Cross. A brave soul was Miss
Mitford; and a strange contrast to her beloved young friend” Eliza-
beth Barrett, who in the depth of ease and luxury nursed the one
grief of her life, as if it were the only specimen of sorrow in the
world. A brave and sturdy soul; and her reward is immortality for
the flower that sprang from her heroic self-abnegation-immortality
for her humble home, Our Village. '
THE NEIGHBORHOOD
From Our Village)
O"
F All situations for a constant residence, that which appears
to me most delightful is a little village far in the country;
a small neighborhood, not of fine mansions finely peopled,
but of cottages and cottage-like houses, "messuages or tene-
ments,” as a friend of mine calls such ignoble and nondescript
XVII-635
## p. 10146 (#574) ##########################################
10146
MARY RUSSELL MITFORD
dwellings, with inhabitants whose faces are as familiar to us as
the flowers in our garden; a little world of our own, close-packed
and insulated like ants in an ant-hill, or bees in a hive, or sheep
in a fold, or nuns in a convent, or sailors in a ship; where we
know every one, are known to every one, interested in every one,
and authorized to hope that every one feels an interest in us.
How pleasant it is to slide into these true-hearted feelings from
the kindly and unconscious influence of habit, and to learn to
know and to love the people about us, with all their peculiarities,
just as we learn to know and to love the nooks and turns of the
shady lanes and sunny commons that we pass every day. Even
in books I like confined locality, and so do the critics when they
talk of the unities. Nothing is so tiresome as to be whirled
half over Europe at the chariot-wheels of a hero, to go to sleep
at Vienna and awaken at Madrid; it produces a real fatigue, a
weariness of spirit. On the other hand, nothing is so delightful
as to sit down in a country village in one of Miss Austen's deli-
cious novels, quite sure before we leave it to become intimate
with every spot and every person it contains; or to ramble with
Mr. White over his own parish of Selborne, and form a friendship
with the fields and coppices, as well as with the birds, mice,
squirrels, who inhabit them; or to sail with Robinson Crusoe to
his island, and live there with him and his goats and his man
Friday; — how much we dread any new-comers, any fresh import-
ation of savage or sailor! we never sympathize for a moment in
our hero's want of company, and are quite grieved when he gets
away; - or to be shipwrecked with Ferdinand on that other love.
lier island, - the island of Prospero, and Miranda, and Caliban,
and Ariel, and nobody else, none of Dryden's exotic inventions,-
that is best of all. And a small neighborhood is as good in sober
waking reality as in poetry or prose; a village neighborhood, such
as this Berkshire hamlet in which I write, - a long, straggling,
winding street at the bottom of a fine eminence, with a road
through it, always abounding in carts, horsemen, and carriages,
and lately enlivened by a stage-coach from B- to S—, which
passed through about ten days ago, and will I suppose return
some time or other. There are coaches of all varieties nowa.
days; perhaps this may be intended for a monthly diligence, or a
fortnightly fly. Will you walk with me through our village,
courteous reader? The journey is not long. We will begin at
the lower end, and proceed up-hill.
.
## p. 10147 (#575) ##########################################
MARY RUSSELL MITFORD
10147
The tidy square red cottage on the right hand, with the long
well-stocked garden by the side of the road, belongs to a retired
publican from a neighboring town; a substantial person with a
comely wife; one who piques himself on independence and idle-
ness, talks politics, reads newspapers, hates the minister, and
cries out for reform. He introduced into our peaceful village
the rebellious innovation of illumination on the queen's acquittal.
Remonstrance and persuasion were in vain: he talked of liberty
and broken windows-So we all lighted up. Oh! how he shone
that night with candles, and laurel, and white bows, and gold
paper, and a transparency (originally designed for a pocket-
handkerchief) with a flaming portrait of her Majesty, hatted and
feathered, in red ochre. He had no rival in the village, - that
we all acknowledge; the very bonfire was less splendid; the little
boys reserved their best crackers to be expended in his honor,
and he gave them full sixpence more than any one else. He
would like an illumination once a month; for it must not be
concealed that, in spite of gardening, of newspaper reading, of
jaunting about in his little cart, and frequenting both church
and meeting, our worthy neighbor begins to feel the weariness
of idleness. He hangs over his gate, and tries to entice passen-
gers to stop and chat; he volunteers little jobs all round, smokes
cherry-trees to cure the blight, and traces and blows up all
the wasp-nests in the parish. I have seen a great many wasps
in our garden to-day, and shall enchant him with the intelli-
gence. He even assists his wife in her sweepings and dustings.
Poor man! he is a very respectable person, and would be a very
happy one if he would add a little employment to his dignity.
It would be the salt of life to him.
Next to his house, though parted from it by another long
garden with a yew arbor at the end, is the pretty little dwelling
of the shoemaker, a pale, sickly-looking, black-haired man, the
very model of sober industry. There he sits in his little shop
from early morning till late at night. An earthquake would
hardly stir him: the illumination did not. He stuck immov-
ably to his last, from the first lighting up, through the long
blaze and the slow decay, till his large solitary candle was the
only light in the place. One cannot conceive anything more
perfect than the contempt which the man of transparencies and
the man of shoes must have felt for each other on that evening.
There was at least as much vanity in the sturdy industry as in
## p. 10148 (#576) ##########################################
10148
MARY RUSSELL MITFORD
on
the strenuous idleness, for our shoemaker is a man of substance:
he employs three journeymen,- two lame and one a dwarf, so
that his shop looks like an hospital; he has purchased the lease
of his commodious dwelling, - some even say that he has bought
it out and out; and he has only one pretty daughter, a light,
delicate, fair-haired girl of fourteen, the champion, protectress,
and playfellow of every brat under three years old, whom she
jumps, dances, dandles, and feeds all day long. A very attractive
,
person is that child-loving girl. I have never seen any one in
her station who possessed so thoroughly that undefinable charm,
the lady-look. See her on a Sunday in her simplicity and her
white frock, and she might pass for an earl's daughter. She likes
flowers, too, and has a profusion of white stocks under her win-
dow, as pure and delicate as herself.
The first house the opposite side of the way is the
blacksmith's: a gloomy dwelling, where the sun never seems to
shine; dark and smoky within and without, like a forge. The
blacksmith is a high officer in our little State, — nothing less
than a constable; but, alas! alas! when tumults arise, and the
constable is called for, he will commonly be found in the thick-
est of the fray. Lucky would it be for his wife and her eight
children were there no public-house in the land: an inveterate
inclination to enter those bewitching doors is Mr. Constable's
only fault.
Next to this official dwelling is a spruce brick tenement,
red, high, and narrow; boasting, one above another, three sash-
windows, the only sash-windows in the village; with a clematis
on one side and a rose on the other, tall and narrow like itself.
That slender mansion has a fine, genteel look. The little parlor
.
seems made for Hogarth's old maid and her stunted footboy; for
tea and card parties,- it would just hold one table; for the rus-
tle of faded silks, and the splendor of old china; for the delight
of four by honors, and a little snug, quiet scandal between the
deals; for affected gentility and real starvation. This should have
been its destiny; but fate has been unpropitious: it belongs to a
plump, merry, bustling dame, with four fat, rosy, noisy children,
the very essence of vulgarity and plenty.
Then comes the village shop, like other village shops, multi-
farious as a bazaar: a repository for bread, shoes, tea, cheese,
tape, ribands, and bacon; for everything, in short, except the one
particular thing which you happen to want at the moment, and
## p. 10149 (#577) ##########################################
MARY RUSSELL MITFORD
10149
will be sure not to find. The people are civil and thriving, and
frugal withal; they have let the upper part of their house to two
young women (one of them is a pretty blue-eyed girl) who teach
little children their ABC, and make caps and gowns for their
mammas, - parcel schoolmistress, parcel mantua-maker. I believe
they find adorning the body a more profitable vocation than
adorning the mind.
Divided from the shop by a narrow yard, and opposite the
shoemaker's, is a habitation of whose inmates I shall say noth-
ing. A cottage, - no, a miniature house, with many additions,
little odds and ends of places, pantries, and what not; all angles,
and of a charming in-and-outness; a little bricked court before
one half, and a little flower-yard before the other; the walls, old
and weather-stained, covered with hollyhocks, roses, honeysuckles,
and a great apricot-tree; the casements full of geraniums (ah,
there is our superb white cat peeping out from amongst them);
the closets (our landlord has the assurance to call them rooms)
full of contrivances and corner-cupboards; and the little garden
behind full of common flowers, - tulips, pinks, larkspurs, peo-
nies, stocks, and carnations, - with an arbor of privet, not unlike a
sentry-box, where one lives in a delicious green light, and looks
out on the gayest of all gay flower-beds. That house was built
on purpose to show in what an exceeding small compass comfort
may be packed. Well, I will loiter there no longer.
The next tenement is a place of importance, — the Rose inn;
a whitewashed building, retired from the road behind its fine
swinging sign, with a little bow-window room coming out on one
side, and forming, with our stable on the other, a sort of open
square, which is the constant resort of carts, wagons, and return
chaises. There are two carts there now, and mine host is serving
them with beer in his eternal red waistcoat. He is a thriving
man and a portly, as his waistcoat attests, which has been twice
let out within this twelvemonth. Our landlord has a stirring
wife, a hopeful son, and a daughter, the belle of the village; not
so pretty as the fair nymph of the shoe-shop, and far less ele-
gant, but ten times as fine; all curl-papers in the morning, like a
porcupine, all curls in the afternoon, like a poodle; with more
flounces than curl-papers, and more lovers than curls. Miss
Phæbe is fitter for town than country; and to do her justice,
she has a consciousness of that fitness, and turns her steps town-
ward as often as she can.
## p. 10150 (#578) ##########################################
10150
MARY RUSSELL MITFORD
In a line with the bow-window room is a low garden-wall,
belonging to a house under repair,- the white house opposite the
collar-maker's shop, with four lime-trees before it, and a wagon-
load of bricks at the door. That house is the plaything of a
wealthy, well-meaning, whimsical person, who lives about a mile
off. He has a passion for brick and mortar; and being too wise to
meddle with his own residence, diverts himself with altering and
re-altering, improving and re-improving, doing and undoing here.
It is a perfect Penelope's web. Carpenters and bricklayers have
been at work these eighteen months, and yet I sometimes stand
and wonder whether anything has really been done. One exploit
in last June was, however, by no means equivocal. Our good
neighbor fancied that the limes shaded the rooms, and made
them dark (there was not a creature in the house but the work-
men), so he had all the leaves stripped from every tree. There
they stood, poor miserable skeletons, as bare as Christmas, under
the glowing midsummer sun. Nature revenged herself in her
own sweet and gracious manner: fresh leaves sprang out, and at
early Christmas the foliage was as brilliant as when the outrage
was committed.
Next door lives a carpenter, “famed ten miles round, and
worthy all his fame;" — few cabinet-makers surpass him, with his
"
excellent wife, and their little daughter Lizzy, the plaything and
queen of the village; a child of three years old according to the
register, but six in size and strength and intellect, in power and
in self-will. She manages everybody in the place, her school-
mistress inciuded; turns the wheeler's children out of their own
little cart, and makes them draw her; seduces cakes and lolly-
pops from the very shop window; makes the lazy carry her, the
silent talk to her, the grave romp with her; does anything she
pleases; is absolutely irresistible. Her chief attraction lies in her
exceeding power of loving, and her firm reliance on the love
and indulgence of others. How impossible it would be to dis-
appoint the dear little girl when she runs to meet you, slides her
pretty hand into yours, looks up gladly in your face, and says,
“Come! ” You must go: you cannot help it. Another part of
her charm is her singular beauty. Together with a good deal
of the character of Napoleon, she has something of his square,
sturdy, upright form, with the finest limbs in the world, a com-
plexion purely English, a round laughing face, sunburnt and rosy,
large merry blue eyes, curling brown hair, and a wonderful play
## p. 10151 (#579) ##########################################
MARY RUSSELL MITFORD
10151
of countenance. She has the imperial attitudes too, and loves
to stand with her hands behind her, or folded over her bosom;
and sometimes, when she has a little touch of shyness, she
clasps them together on the top of her head, pressing down her
shining curls, and looking so exquisitely pretty!
There is still one house round the corner, ending in a pict-
uresque wheeler's-shop. The dwelling-house is more ambitious.
Look at the fine flowered window-blinds, the green door with the
brass knocker, and the somewhat prim but very civil person who
is sending off a laboring man with sirs and curtsies enough for
a prince of the blood. Those are the curate's lodgings- apart-
ments, his landlady would call them; he lives with his own fam.
ily four miles off, but once or twice a week he comes to his neat
little parlor to write sermons, to marry, or to bury, as the case
may require. Never were better or kinder people than his host
and hostess; and there is a reflection of clerical importance about
them, since their connection with the Church, which is quite edi-
fying,-a decorum, a gravity, a solemn politeness. Oh, to see the
worthy wheeler carry the gown after his lodger on a Sunday,
nicely pinned up in his wife's best handkerchief! or to hear him
rebuke a squalling child or a squabbling woman! The curate is
nothing to him.
He is fit to be perpetual church warden.
We must now cross the lane into the shady rope-walk. That
pretty white cottage opposite, which stands straggling at the end
of the village in a garden full of flowers, belongs to our mason,
the shortest of men, and his handsome, tall wife: he, a dwarf
with the voice of a giant,- one starts when he begins to talk as
if he were shouting through a speaking-trumpet; she, the sister,
daughter, and granddaughter of a long line of gardeners, and no
contemptible one herself. It is very magnanimous in me not to
hate her; for she beats me in my own way,- in chrysanthemums,
and dahlias, and the like gauds. Her plants are sure to live:
mine have a sad trick of dying; perhaps because I love them
not wisely, but too well," and kill them with over-kindness.
How pleasantly the road winds up the hill, with its broad
green borders and hedge-rows so thickly timbered !
How finely
the evening sun falls on that sandy excavated bank, and touches
the farm-house on the top of the eminence!
We are now on the very brow, close to the Hill-house. On
the outer edge of the paling, hanging over the bank that skirts
the road, is an old thorn - such a thorn! The long sprays cov-
ered with snowy blossoms, so graceful, so elegant, so lightsome,
>
(
## p. 10152 (#580) ##########################################
10152
MARY RUSSELL MITFORD
and yet so rich! There only wants a pool under the thorn to
give a still lovelier reflection, quivering and trembling, like a tuft
of feathers, whiter and greener than the life, and more prettily
mixed with the bright blue sky. The road winding down the
hill with a slight bend, like that in the High Street at Oxford;
a wagon slowly ascending, and a horseman passing it at full trot.
Half-way down, just at the turn, the red cottage of the lieuten-
ant, covered with vines, the very image of comfort and content;
farther down, on the opposite side, the small white dwelling of
the little mason; then the limes and the rope-walk; then the vil-
lage street, peeping through the trees, whose clustering tops hide
all but the chimneys, and various roofs of the houses, and here
and there some angle of the wall; farther on, the elegant town
of B-, with its fine old church towers and spires: the whole
view shut in by a range of chalky hills; and over every part of
the picture, trees so profusely scattered, that it appears like a
woodland scene, with glades and villages intermixed. The trees
are of all kinds and all hues, chiefly the finely shaped elm, of so
bright and deep a green, the tips of whose high outer branches
drop down with such a crisp and garland-like richness, and the
oak, whose stately form is just now so splendidly adorned by the
sunny coloring of the young leaves. Turning again up the hill,
we find ourselves on that peculiar charm of English scenery, a
green common, divided by the road; the right side fringed by
hedge-rows and trees, with cottages and farm-houses irregularly
placed, and terminated by a double avenue of noble oaks; the
left, prettier still, dappled by bright pools of water, and islands
of cottages and cottage gardens, and sinking gradually down to
the cornfields and meadows, and an old farm-house with pointed
roofs and clustered chimneys, looking out from its blooming
orchard, and backed by woody hills. The common is itself the
prettiest part of the prospect; half covered with low furze, whose
golden blossoms reflect so intensely the last beams of the setting
sun, and alive with cows and sheep, and two sets of cricketers:
one of young men, surrounded by spectators, some standing, some
sitting, some stretched on the grass, all taking a delighted inter-
est in the game; the other, a merry group of little boys, at a
humble distance, for whom even cricket is scarcely lively enough,
shouting, leaping, and enjoying themselves to their hearts' con-
tent. But cricketers and country boys are too important persons
in our village to be talked of merely as figures in the landscape.
They deserve an individual introduction - an essay to themselves.
## p. 10153 (#581) ##########################################
10153
MOLIÈRE
(1622–1673)
BY BRANDER MATTHEWS
M
SOLIÈRE, the greatest of modern comic dramatists, was a Paris-
ian by birth,— like those other typical Frenchmen, Villon
and Voltaire, Boileau and Regnard. He was born in 1622,
probably in the house now No. 96 Rue St. Honoré, and probably on
January 15th or a day or two earlier. His real name was Jean
Baptiste Poquelin, « Molière » being a stage name assumed when he
left his father's house. His father was a prosperous tradesman, an
upholsterer, - one of the eight of that craft holding a royal appoint-
ment (valet de chambre tapissier du roi), which required him to be in
attendance on the King three months of the year to see that his
Majesty's furniture was always in fit condition. His mother, appar-
ently a woman of both character and culture, died when Molière was
but ten; and the next year his father married again, only to lose
this second wife before Molière was fifteen.
As the son of a flourishing burgher, Molière received an excellent
education. In 1636, being then fourteen, he was sent to the Collège
de Clermont, one of the leading educational institutions of Paris, con-
ducted by the Jesuits and attended by the youth of the best families
of France. He seems to have stayed there five years, acquiring the
humanities and getting well schooled in philosophy. He may or may
not have been a pupil of Gassendi; and he may or may not have
attempted a translation of the great poem of Lucretius: many of
the legends of his life that have come down to us will not withstand
skeptical scrutiny. That he studied law is certain; and it is possible
even that he was admitted to the bar.
In the mean time he had been assured of the succession to his
father in the royal appointment; and it is more than probable that
he was in attendance on Louis XIII. , as his father's substitute, in
June 1642, when Cinq-Mars was arrested. Before the end of the next
year, however, the son of the royal upholsterer had left his paternal
home, had thrown in his lot with a group of strolling actors, and had
assumed the stage name of “Molière,” which he was to render for-
ever illustrious. The French drama was beginning its most glorious
period,— Corneille's “Cinna) and (Horace) and Le Menteur' (The
## p. 10154 (#582) ##########################################
10154
MOLIÈRE
Liar) having followed one another in rapid succession. The influence
of the Spanish theatre was making itself felt; and even more potent
perhaps was the example set by the brisk and bustling performances
of the Italian comedians; while the robust farces of the French them-
selves lost nothing of their comic force when represented by the
broadly humorous followers of Gros Guillaume and Gautier Garguille.
At the head of the company that Molière joined was Madeleine
Béjart, a charming woman and a capable actress. For two or three
years the “Illustre Théâtre ” (as the troupe called itself) made in-
effectual efforts to get a foothold in Paris. At last, in 1646, it gave
up the fight in the capital and betook itself to the provinces, where
it remained for twelve years. The record of Molière's wanderings is
fragmentary, but it is known that in 1648 he was at Nantes, Limoges,
Bordeaux, and Toulouse; in 1650 at Narbonne; in 1653 at Lyons; in
1654 at Montpellier; in 1657 at Dijon and Avignon; and in 1658 at
Rouen. From Scarron's 'Roman Comique) we can get some idea of
the life of the vagabond comedians in those days, and of the kind
of adventure likely to befall them.
From Rouen the journey to Paris was easy; and Molière was at
last able to secure the patronage of Monsieur, the younger brother of
the young King, Louis XIV. He had left the city of his birth little
more than a raw recruit of the stage. He returned to the capital the
most accomplished comedian of his time, a dramatist whose earlier
comic plays had already met with warm popular appreciation, and a
manager surrounded by a homogeneous company of skilled comedi-
ans, all devoted to him and all having high confidence in his ability.
As a writer of plays Molière had begun modestly with farces on the
Italian model, but with a fuller flavor of humor, more like that in
the old French folk-tales. Most of these 'prentice trifles are lost,
although the author probably worked into his more mature pieces all
that was valuable in them. The strongest of the plays produced in
the provinces was 'L'Étourdi' (The Blunderer), brought out in Lyons
in 1653, and still often acted in Paris to-day after two centuries and
a half.
At this time Molière was only thirty-six, and he was unusually
well equipped for the comic drama. He had begun with a solid train-
ing in philosophy; and he had gained a thorough knowledge of the
theatre and a wide acquaintance with mankind. It is fair to assume
that through his father he had had an insight into the middle class;
that through his father's workmen he had been able to get an under-
standing of the artisan; and that through his father's royal appoint-
ment he had had opportunities of observing the courtiers. In the
course of his wanderings he had been brought in contact with the
peasants and also with the inhabitants of the provincial towns. On
## p. 10155 (#583) ##########################################
MOLIÈRE
10155
his return to the capital he was to become intimate with Boileau,
Chapelle, and other men of letters; and he was to have occasion for
closer observation of the court.
The long years of strolling in the provinces had not only trained
the company to an incomparable perfection in comedy, but had also
brought financial prosperity. The actors of the troupe owned in com-
mon rich costumes, scenery, and properties; and some of them had
severally money out at interest. Molière returned to the capital
almost a rich man; and he was able to enlarge his fortune by his
successful management in Paris. As it happened, the first appear-
ance of the company before the King, in theatre erected in the
Louvre, was almost a failure (October 24th, 1658). The play was
Corneille's Nicomède,' a tragedy; and Molière and his companions
were more at home in comedy. Moreover, Molière was natural in his
histrionic method; and the custom of the day required that tragedy
should be interpreted in toplofty fashion. At the conclusion of the
serious play, Molière, who was an easy and adroit speaker, came for-
ward with a neatly turned compliment to the King, and asked per-
mission to add to the programme one of the little farces they had
often acted in the country. This little farce was Le Docteur Amou-
reux' (The Doctor in Love), and it made the King laugh heartily.
The royal permission was given for the company to establish itself
in Paris; and Molière was at first allowed the use of a theatre in the
Petit Bourbon, where he and his companions appeared on the nights
not already reserved for the Italian comedians. There were then two
other theatres in Paris: one at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, where was
the company specially patronized by the King, and the other in the
Marais. Molière seems to have tried to establish his company as a
rival in tragedy of the actors of the Hôtel de Bourgogne; but he met
with no popular approval till he returned to comedy, in the acting
of which he and his comrades were really superior. In November
1658 he brought out the Étourdi,' already successful at Lyons and
elsewhere, and at once equally successful in Paris. The Étourdi) is
a long farce on the Italian model, with traditional characters, but
having a vivacity and a verve all Molière's own. It was followed by
another comic play, also already performed in the provinces,—the
Dépit Amoureux' (The Lovers' Quarrel), which became instantly as
popular as its predecessor; in a condensed form it still holds the
stage in France.
It is doubtful whether his next piece was absolutely new, or
whether it also had been tried during his wanderings outside of the
capital. It is not doubtful that this little one-act comedy was made
of richer material than any of its predecessors, and that it contained
a promise of the finer works to follow it shortly. The Précieuses
## p. 10156 (#584) ##########################################
10156
MOLIÈRE
man
Ridicules? (November 18th, 1659) was the title of the little play
(The Affected Ladies); and it was a piquant and telling satire upon
the affectations of literary culture then prevalent. Although some-
what farcical in its plot and in its details, it was truly a picture of life.
There is a legend that an aged spectator at its final performance
cried out, “Take courage, Molière, this is good comedy! And yet one
of those satirized had influence enough to have the new play inter-
dicted; but the interdiction was soon lifted, and the second perform-
ance took place a fortnight after the first. When the King returned
to Paris the play was acted before him to his great satisfaction; and
it helped to establish Molière in the royal favor, -- a point of great
importance in those days, when the King arrogated to himself all the
functions of government.
The good-will of the monarch was doubly valuable to a
like Molière, who was going to speak his mind freely on the stage
in one play after another, boldly to assault hypocrisy and vice, and
unhesitatingly to make many enemies. His next piece, however,
(Sganarelle) (May 28th, 1660), had no ulterior purpose; its object was
merely to make the spectators laugh. Molière was shrewd always in
the management of his theatre, ever ready to give his audiences an-
other play of a kind they had already approved. But a few months
after the production of Sganarelle, it looked for a little while as
though Molière might have no theatre to manage. Without notice
the theatre in the Petit Bourbon was maliciously demolished, and
the company was left without a stage on which to act. Then the
King assigned to Molière and his comrades the large theatre in
the Palais Royal which Richelieu had built for the performance of a
play of his own.
This theatre had to be repaired; and not until January 1661 was
it that Molière was able to begin his season there. His first new
play on this new stage was a failure. Don Garcie de Navarre)
(February 4th, 1661) is the dullest of Molière's works, — the one in
which he is seen to least advantage. It was a heroic comedy on the
Spanish model; and the artificial plot gave small scope to Molière's
humor or to his knowledge of his fellow-man. He took the defeat
hard; he acted the play more than once before the King; and he
ventured to revive it two years later. But the appeal was decided
against him, and he never repeated the blunder.
The earlier pieces which had pleased the Parisian public were but
humorous trifles when compared with the best of his later works;
and now with his next play he entered on a second stage of his devel-
opment as a dramatist. L'École des Maris) (The School for Hus-
bands), June 24th, 1661, was not dependent chiefly upon its intrigue
as the others had been: it was essentially a study of character,-
## p. 10157 (#585) ##########################################
MOLIÈRE
10157
>
a little hard, it may be, but unfailingly amusing and not without
sympathy. Not long after, Molière improvised in a fortnight's time
a comedy-ballet, Les Fâcheux (The Bores), August 17th, 1661, pre-
pared especially for the series of magnificent entertainments with
which Fouquet splendidly feasted the King at Vaux only a few
days before the downfall of the superintendent. It is told that the
King himself suggested to Molière the original of one type of bore
neglected by the author; and that this royal hint was instantly seized,
a new character being added to the play before it was next per-
formed.
Molière availed himself of his father's place as valet de chambre
tapissier of the King to keep in closer contact with the court than
would ordinarily be possible to an actor or a dramatist. He insisted
on performing the duties of the office, in spite of the protest of those
of his fellow officials who did not wish to associate with a comedian.
There is little or no warrant for the legend that Louis XIV. himself
once rebuked these contemners of the actor by inviting Molière to
share his own supper; and yet the picturesque scene has been painted
both by Ingres and by Gérome. There is no doubt, however, that Louis
XIV. did esteem Molière highly, certainly finding him most ingen-
ious in the invention of the ballets in which the young King liked to
figure, and possibly even appreciating dimly the abiding merits of the
great dramatist. Louis XIV. had many faults, but a lack of discern-
ment was not among them. It is recorded that the King once asked
Boileau who was the rarest of the literary geniuses illuminating his
reign, and that Boileau responded by naming Molière, - a little to the
monarch's surprise, it may be, but without eliciting a royal contra-
diction.
In February 1662, Molière married Armande Béjart, a younger
sister of the leading lady of the company. Molière was then forty
years of age; as author, actor, manager, he was a very busy man,
with incessant demands on his time; he had the fits of abstraction
and the occasional moodiness and melancholy which are often char-
acteristic of genius. His wife was scant twenty; she was beautiful,
charming, and fond of admiration; she became a brilliant actress;
she seems to have had rather a narrow intelligence. That such a
marriage should be happy would have been little short of a miracle.
That there were in time disagreements between husband and wife is
indisputable; and it is undeniable that Molière was intensely jealous.
No passion occurs and reoccurs in his plays more often than jealousy:
and none is more feelingly analyzed. That the most of the brutal
charges brought against the young wife are but slanders, is highly
probable. When she bore him a son, Louis XIV. accepted to be god.
father.
a
## p. 10158 (#586) ##########################################
10158
MOLIÈRE
The first play produced by Molière after his marriage was
'L'École des Femmes) (The School for Wives), December 26th, 1662;
a companion to 'L'École des Maris,' somewhat more careless in its
structure but distinctly deeper in its insight. His enemies pretended
prudishly to be shocked at one or two of the scenes of this delicate
comedy, and even to discover in one speech a parody of a sermon.
Most wittily did the author defend himself. He brought out on the
stage (La Critique de L'École des Femmes) (The Criticism of the
School for Wives), June ist, 1663; a comedy in one act which is little
more than a conversation in a drawing-room, and in which certain
foolish characters bring forward all the charges made against the
piece, only to be answered completely by certain clever characters.
The King sided with Molière; conferring upon him a pension of a
thousand livres annually as “an excellent comic poet,” and inviting
him to appear again before the court. In a week, Molière improvised
L'Impromptu de Versailles? (The Impromptu of Versailles), October
14th, 1663, taking the spectators behind the curtain and showing them
a rehearsal of his own company, in the course of which he found
occasion to mimic the actors of the Hôtel de Bourgogne who had
attacked him, and to hit back sharply at others of his enemies.
For the King's pleasure once more Molière wrote the lively
comedy-ballet of Le Mariage Forcé) (The Forced Marriage), January
29th, 1964; with a farcical plot interrupted adroitly by eight dances, in
one of which the young monarch himself figured as an Egyptian.
When a series of sumptuous entertainments were given at Versailles
in the spring, Molière was again ready not only with "La Princesse
d'Élide) (May 8th, 1664), one of the less interesting of his comedies,
but also with the first three acts of Tartuffe (May 12th, 1664), the
strong five-act comedy which is perhaps his masterpiece. The some-
what sombre theme might have made (Tartuffe seem a little out of
place in so gay a festivity; but the earlier acts were frankly amusing,
and the monarch's guests found pleasure in the performance even if
they could not suspect the serious purpose of the whole work, which
is the most powerful onslaught on religious hypocrisy ever attempted
on the stage. Those whom the play assaulted were able to prevent
its being produced in Paris for several years; and Molière set out to
make friends for his work by reading it aloud in the drawing-rooms
of leading members of the court, and even by acting it again and
again at the houses of the princes of the blood.
In the mean while he returned to the attack; and in "Le Festin
de Pierre) (The Stone Guest), February 16th, 1665, he gave to the
legendary figure of Don Juan a meaning and a power not to be found
in the preceding plays on the same subject in Spanish, in Italian,
and in French. Perhaps he was attracted to the subject because
## p. 10159 (#587) ##########################################
MOLIÈRE
10159
-
the spectacular element in the story was certain to prove effective
on the stage; perhaps he thought that under cover of the spectacu-
lar he might the more easily let fy his burning shafts of irony and
satire. The supernatural element in Don Juan,' as in Hamlet'
and in Faust,' is kept subordinate to the philosophical. In Moli-
ère's hands the gallant and graceful hero is not only a type of the
eternal lover, but also a rival of lago in cynical villainy. The play
is founded upon a Spanish drama, and yet it might be called the
most original of Molière's works,- the most vigorous, the boldest.
Those who had chosen to take offense at L'École des Femmes,' and
who had been indignant at (Tartuffe,' were up in arms at once
against Don Juan. The King was besought to interdict the dan-
gerous drama; and again Louis XIV. stood Molière's friend. He
refused the interdiction, and took Molière and his company under the
royal patronage, allotting them an annual pension of six thousand
livres.
Not content with having the prudes and the hypocrites against
him, Molière now took for his target the abuses of the contemporary
practice of medicine. In a little comedy L'Amour Médecin' (Love
as a Physician), September 15th, 1665, —
- a return to his earlier and
more farcical manner, — he put on the stage five types of the doctor
of that time, suggested each of them more or less by a living prac-
titioner of the art. The author was then ill himself, worn and har-
assed, with difficulties at home and disputes abroad. Yet there was
no falling-off in the next play, Le Misanthrope) (The Misanthrope),
June 4th, 1666, which indeed French critics have generally held to
be his masterpiece, but which has never pleased the playgoing pub-
lic so much as others of his comedies. Its movement is slow, and
its action is barely adequate to sustain its five acts. In subject it
has a fundamental resemblance to (Timon of Athens,' not one of
Shakespeare's most highly esteemed plays. It is a manly protest
against the empty conventionalities of civilization, — the shams, the
gauds, the trifles, the insincerities of which modern society so often
seems to be made up. Its tone is lofty and its morality is austere.
But there is some truth in the charge that the observer and the
philosopher in Molière had got the better of the dramatist when he
wrote 'Le Misanthrope. The dramatist came promptly to the rescue
of the philosopher; and a brisk and rollicking farce, Le Médecin
malgré Lui(The Physician in Spite of Himself), August 6th, 1666, was
added to the bill to increase the drawing power of the more serious
comedy.
Like Shakespeare, Molière was an excellent man of business; and
he felt it to be his duty always to keep his company supplied with
plays of a kind already proved to be popular. So although he had
## p. 10160 (#588) ##########################################
1016о
MOLIÈRE
>
begun by imitating the lively farces of the Italians (L'Étourdi, for
example), and had then risen to the comedy of character (L'École
des Femmes'), and finally had attained to the sublime height of
(Le Misanthrope, he went back unhesitatingly to his earlier manner
again and again; and no more thought it unworthy of himself to
write frank farces like 'Le Médecin malgré Lui' after (Tartuffe than
Shakespeare did to compose the Merry Wives of Windsor) after the
Merchant of Venice. )
It was
one of these lighter plays, - not a
farce this time, but an airily comic love tale — that he next brought
forth: Le Sicilien' (The Sicilian), February 1667. Then a single
performance of “Tartuffe) took place (August 5th, 1667); but further
performances were promptly forbidden by the authorities, the King
being then with the army in Flanders. Nothing daunted, Molière
bided his time. A very free version of a comedy of Plautus, Amphi-
tryon? (January 13th, 1668), came next; followed by another broad
farce, though with a tragic suggestion if we choose so to take it,
(Georges Dandin' (July 1oth, 1668); and in rapid succession a second
comedy, more or less derived from Plautus, L'Avare' (The Miser),
September 9th, 1668. The royal permission was finally granted for
the public performance in Paris of Tartuffe (February 5th, 1669):
and that great comedy-drama achieved a triumph which endures to
this day. Like “Hamlet” in England, Tartuffe) in France is the
most effective of theatrical masterpieces, repaying the best efforts of
the best actors, and yet so dramatic in itself that it satisfies a large
audience even when done by a scratch company anywhere and any-
how. A little later in the year came one of the briskest and most
bustling of his farces, M. de Pourceaugnac) (September 17th, 1669).
Molière continued to vary his style; and no dramatist was ever
more versatile or more fertile in inventing new forms. He devised
for the court a comedy-ballet, Les Amants Magnifiques) (The Mag-
nificent Lovers), February 10th, 1670; and toward the end of the year
he brought out 'Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (The Tradesman Turned
Gentleman), October 23d, 1670; one of the best of his comedies, full
of fresh fun, and inspired by the wholesome coinmon-sense which
was always one of Molière's most marked characteristics. With Les
Fourberies de Scapin' (The Tricks of Scapin), May 24th, 1671, there
was again a return to the more primitive farce, boisterous perhaps,
but indisputably laughter-provoking. A little earlier in the year he
had collaborated with Corneille in the dialogue of Psyché) (January,
1671), Quinault writing the lyrics which Lulli set to music. And
before the twelve months were out he was ready with yet another
comedy-farce, La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas) (The Countess of Escar-
bagnas), December 20, 1671, rich with his ample knowledge of pro-
vincial characteristics.
## p. 10161 (#589) ##########################################
MOLIÈRE
10161
He was coming now to the close of his career; and he rose again
to the level of high comedy in "Les Femmes Savantes) (The Learned
Ladies), March uth, 1672, which disputes with “Tartuffe,' 'Don Juan,'
and 'Le Misanthrope, the honor of being considered his finest and
sanest work. In its theme, this, the last of his great plays, is very
like the Précieuses Ridicules,' in which he first revealed the power
of social satire; affectation of every sort was abhorrent to him always
affectation and insincerity and hypocrisy. When he beheld these
things his scorn burned hot within him, and he delighted in scourg-
ing them.
The last months of Molière's life were saddened by the death
of his old companion and sister-in-law, Madeleine Béjart, and by the
death of his only son. His health, never strong, became feebler; and
in the summer of 1672 the theatre had to be closed unexpectedly
more than once, because Molière was not well enough to act. And
yet through all these trials he kept his good-humor and his gentle
serenity, although he — like most other great humorists — was essen-
tially melancholy. It was under these conditions that he wrote his
last play, Le Malade Imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid), February
Toth, 1673. He himsel of course, was the imaginary invalid, being
then worn out with his own illness. The fourth performance of the
new play took place on the 17th; and Molière was seized with a fit
of coughing on the stage, and burst a blood-vessel. They conveyed
him to his own house in the Rue de Richelieu, on the site of the
building now numbered 38 and 40; and here he died “not more than
half an hour or three quarters after the bursting of the said vessel,
so his faithful friend and fellow actor, Lagrange, recorded in the
register or private diary, which is an invaluable document for the
details of Molière's life.
The bitter hostility which had long delayed the performance of
(Tartuffe,' and which had unceasingly pursued Molière during the
last years of his life, not shrinking from obtrusion into his family
relations, was not relaxed after his death. Permission for Christian
burial was at first denied. It is told that the widow threw herself at
the King's feet and implored a royal mandate, overruling the ecclesi-
astical authorities. At last the funeral was authorized; and it took
place on the evening of the fourth day. The procession was very
simple, the priests not intoning the usual psalms. The interment took
place in the cemetery which was behind the chapel of St. Joseph,
in the Rue de Montmartre.
The inventory taken after his demise gives the list of Molière's
stage costumes and of the books that composed his library. Among
these was a Bible, a Plutarch, a Montaigne (but no Rabelais, oddly
enough), a Terence (but no Plautus), a Lucian, a Horace, a Juvenal,
XVII-636
## p. 10162 (#590) ##########################################
10162
MOLIÈRE
and two hundred and forty volumes of unnamed French, Italian, and
Spanish plays. He left a fortune of about forty thousand livres.
Four years after his death his widow married an obscure actor named
Guérin. The only child of Molière to survive him was a daughter,
who married a M. de Montalant, and who died without issue in 1723,
half a century after her illustrious father.
Molière was only fifty-one when he died, and all of his more
important plays had been written during the final fourteen years of
his life. He had served a long apprenticeship in the provinces, mas-
tering all the mysteries of his art, and heaping up a store of obser-
vations of human nature; and after his return to Paris, his genius
ripened swiftly. While the novelists have often flowered late in life,
the dramatists have usually begun young; but Molière was forty-two
when he wrote “Tartuffe,' forty-three when he followed it with Don
Juan,' forty-four when he produced Le Misanthrope, forty-eight
when he brought forth (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme,' and fifty when
he made fun of the Femmes Savantes. ' Perhaps a part of the
deeper insight and the wider vision of these plays, when compared
with those of all other comic dramatists, is due to the relative matur-
ity of Molière when he composed them. The personal and poetic
burlesques of Aristophanes do not belong in the same category; and
the belauded comedies of Menander are lost to us. Some of the
comic plays of Plautus and of Terence survive for purposes of com-
parison, - as a result of which the best criticism of to-day is in
accord with La Fontaine's declaration on the morrow of Molière's
death, that the great French comic dramatist had surpassed both of
the great Latin comic dramatists.
For us who speak English, and who hold Shakespeare as a stand-
ard by which the men of every other language must be measured,
it is impossible not to set the author of Hamlet' over against
the author of Tartuffe. In many ways the two men were alike.
Dramatists, they were both actors, Shakespeare being probably not
prominent in that profession, while Molière certainly excelled all his
contemporaries. They were both managers; and both of them were
shrewd men of affairs, governing their private fortunes with skill.
Legend relates that Shakespeare wrote the Merry Wives of Wind-
sor) on a hint of Queen Elizabeth's, and that Molière augmented the
Fâcheux' on a hint of King Louis's. Each of them kept the most
of his plays in manuscript while he was alive; and after they were
dead, the plays of each were published by the pious care of survir-
ing comrades. They were both of them surpassingly original; and
yet neither often took the trouble to invent a plot, preferring to
adopt this ready-made, more or less, and rather to expend his strength
upon the analysis of emotion and the creation of character.
