256 



MOLESKIN 



MOLIERE 



Moleskin. Sec Ft SHAN. 



Molcsnortll. MBS (Man,' Louisa Stewart). 

 novelist and jMipular writer for the young, was 

 born of Scotch parentage at Rotterdam, and her 

 childhood was passed in Manchester ami Scotland, 

 and partly in Switzerland. She has since lived a 

 g<M>d deal' abroad. She Iwgan to write when very 

 \ouiig, and her first attempts were published when 

 she was only sixteen. She was most carefully 

 educated under the superintendence of a very cul- 

 tivated and accomplished ther, and she owed 



much to the instruction and direction of the Rev. 

 William Gaskell. husband of the novelist, himself 

 a perfect master of literary style. Her first com- 

 plete works were written under the Hum tie jilinm 1 

 of Ennis Graham, when she was about twenty-four. 

 These were novels entitled Lover ami lluslmnd, 

 She teat You HI/ mill He was Old, X"t inthout 

 Thorns, Cicely, and several years later Bathtroovrt 

 Rectory and 'Mas Boiicerie. When she was almut 

 thirty she began to write for children and was at 

 once successful, ami has since held foremost rank 

 in this department. Her children are invariably 

 natural and childlike, they think, speak, and act 

 like real children, and she has command of an easy 

 and graceful How of language, which carries the 

 reader pleasantly onward. Her children'* stoi ii-s, 

 which now number more than two dozen volumes, 



arrangement with the supply of furniture. The 

 son was welleducated. though the precise details 

 of his educSTTon are very uncertain. He is sup- 

 posed to have studied under the Jesuits at the 

 College de Clemiont. under Gassendi the philo- 

 sopher, and under the regular teachers of law. 

 He may have lieon called to the bar. His mother, 

 who had sonic property, died when he was ten years 

 ild, and thus when lie came of age he received 

 share of her fortune- at once, In-coming his own 

 master. He declined to follow till bis fathers busi- 

 ness (though it is said that he had alieady as his 

 representative attended Louis XIII. on a royal 

 progress as valet tapissier), hired a tennis court, 

 ind embarked in theatrical affairs with the Kejart 

 family and others, under the style and title of 

 /:///',,*trc Tltffttre (1643-46). Tins first venture 

 lasted for over three years in Paris and failed. The 

 company then proceeded to the provinces and had a 

 sufficient amount of success to keep it going for 

 twelve years, from 1646 to 1658, and to enable its 

 manager to return triumphantly to the capital at 

 the end of that time. 



All the pains which have been spent on Molicre's 

 history have failed to elaborate any connected or 

 detailed history of these long \\'aiulerj<ihre. u ' 



include Tfll .!/- it 



(1875), Carrots (1876), 



Tapestry Room (1879), Herr Baby (1881), Rectory 

 Children ( I8UO), The Green Casket ( 1890), Children 

 of the Castle (1890). She has also contributed 

 largely to the better class juvenile magazines. 



Molfs>vorth. SIR WILLIAM, the 'liberator and 

 regenerator of Britain's colonial empire,' was born 

 in London. 'J.'M May 1810, of an old Cornish family, 

 the Molesworths of Penearrow, near Bodmin. He 

 succeeded as eighth baronet in 1823; studied 

 at Cambridge, at Edinburgh, and in Germany ; 

 made the tour of Europe; and sat in parliament 

 for East Cornwall 1832-37, for Leeds 1837-41, and 

 for Southwark from 1845 till his death on 22d 

 October ls.V>. having accepted office in 1853 as 



First C missioner of Public Works under the 



Earl of Alicrdeen, and in 1855 as Colonial Secretary 

 under 1'almerston. He was the intimate friend of 

 Bentham and James Mill, and was regarded as Un- 

 parliamentary representative of the ' philosophical 

 Radicals,' whose organ, the Westminster Review, 

 he purchased in 1H:5, and merged with it the 

 I.-m'ln,i lieview, started a year before by him and 

 Roebuck. A great admirer of Hohbes, he edited 

 hi- complete works ( 16 vols. 1839-45) at a cost of 

 6000 ; liut he will chiefly lie remembered as having 

 drawn attention to the abuses connected with the 

 transportation of criminals, and as having pointed 

 out tne maladministration of the colonial ollice, 

 investigated the natural relations between the 

 imperial government and the colonial de|M-ndencies, 

 and expounded the true principles of colonial self- 

 government. 



MoHVlla. a seaport and cathedral city of 

 Southern Italy, on the Adriatic, 16 miles by rail 

 N\V. of Itari. ' Pop. 29,697. 



MolltrrfJKAN BAPTISTE POQUELIN, who took 

 thi- -tage name lor iea-ons not apparent, and every 

 point in whose imperfectly known life has been the 

 subject of elaliorate disquisition ) was liorn at 1'aris, 

 probably in the Rue St Honore, and early in the 



1022. The house is not certain, and the exact 



ate is unknown, though it appears to have been 

 almut the middle of January. His father 

 I'oquelin, his mother Marie Cressc, and the family 

 came from Iteauvais, then- U-ing no proofs of the 

 Senti-li origin which used to lie asHcrtcd. Poouelin, 

 the lather, was a unlmtantial Iradi-sman and ni/cf 

 tapissier de chambre du roi, an ollice combining the 



;, 



We 



hear most of the troupe at L\< ms and in Languedoc ; 

 but its range must have been considerable, since 

 i far northwards as Rouen. The 

 (said to have lieen Moliere's school- 

 fellow) took it under his protection for a time, 

 and 1'ezenas, near his Languedocian seat of I^a 

 Grange, is one of the fixed points of Moliere's bio- 

 graphy. When, Conti having taken to Catholic 

 Methodism, his protection failed, IfoHen suc- 

 ceeded in obtaining that of the kings brother, 

 Philip|ie d'Oi leans, so that his troupe liecame the 

 servants of Monsieur. He was now in haste to 

 return to 1'aris, where he at once received marks 

 of royal favour, played liefore the king on October 

 24, KiJH, and organised, first in the I'etit HourUin, 

 then, on its demolition, in the 1'alais Royal, a 

 regular theatre in competition with, if not in 

 opposition to, those of the H6tel de Ikmrgogne and 

 the Marais. 



During his sojonrn in the provinces Moliere had 

 acquired considerable experience at. a, comic writer. 

 Most of his work hail been in a style hot Tar 

 removed from that of the old farces, ami of this we 

 have only two relics in La Jalousie tin Ititrlmnilli 

 and Le Medecin Volant. But he had also written 

 L'fjoiinlt and the Dtpit Aiinnireiir, and it. is more 

 than probable that some of his still greater work 

 was at least on the stocks before his return to 

 1'aris. As a theatie_imuiftnir- he had to give 

 tragedy as well as comedy : he is said to have 

 mistaken as to his own powers of tragic 

 '. and he had to depend for his tragedies 

 others. Corneille's .Y, <,,,/,. with which he 

 opened, was not a success: and though the oilier 

 great tragedian of the day, Racine, was a per- 

 sonal fritnd of Moliere's, their connection as 

 manager and author was, not at all by Molicre's 

 fault, brief and unfortunate. But he did not 

 tarry long before showing the immense resources 

 which he possessed in his own talent as a comic 

 writer. /.. - I'," > "M-s Hiiliciilrx, the first essay of 

 la Inmiie conn-die,' as a famous story has it, dates, 

 as far as publication is concerned, from November 

 1659 ; and from that time to his death on February 

 17, 1673, no year passed without one, and few \ ems 

 without more than one, of the greatest achievements 

 in their own particular line that the world has 

 seen. Except in one respect, the history of Moliere 

 during these fourteen busy years is the history of bis 

 work as an author, an actor, ami a manager. Hut 

 the one exception is-the-fflfisT important Incident 

 of his life. In the spring of 1662 (perhaps on 



