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MO LI E RE. 



. pourtray characters by the repeated expression of their 

 * opinions and principles. In this respect he sometimes 

 reminds us of our own Ben Jonson, and his imitators 

 Cartwright and Randolph, in their less happy mo- 

 ments, when they substitute hard and abstracted ideas 

 of human character for its natural development, and 

 for the amusing business of comedy. The " Misan- 

 trope" was, accordingly, too spiritual in its touches for 

 the Parisian audiences, and it was not so kindly re- 

 ceived as his pieces of broader humour. In recom- 

 pense, it has since received the suffrages of the more 

 philosophical class of French critics, and it has unques- 

 tionably some fine traits of character-painting, amidst 

 the superabundance of its opinionative discussion. One 

 philosopher, J. J. Rousseau, has, with his accustomed 

 singularity, objected to it on the grounds of its moral 

 tendency. " It is a piece (he says) which holds vir- 

 tue up to ridicule. This paradox was worthy of the 

 writer who would have sent back human nature to 

 barbarism as to a golden age. The misanthrope Al- 

 ceste, Moliere's hero, he observes, is a man of recti- 

 tude, sincerity, and genuine worth ; and yet he is made 

 to appear ridiculous." All this is sophistry. Alceste, 

 it is true, is represented as an honest man, whose 

 "failings lean In virtue's side;" but still, with all his 

 worth, he has failings, and they are legitimate objects 

 of ridicule. The misanthrope's love of trutli and plain 

 dealing is carried, as Rousseau's sometimes were, to 

 spleen and rudeness ; as, for instance, when he has the 

 cruelty to tell a poor vain poet to his face, that his 

 verses are execrable. His posiliveness in maintaining 

 this point is made entertainingly extravagant, when, 

 on being told that he is to be taken before a court of 

 the marshals of France, he offers to prove that any man 

 deserves to be hanged for making such verses. Here 

 the virtue of sincerity is not, as Rousseau alleges, held 

 up to derision ; but the misdirection of the virtue. We 

 are not made to laugh fit the misanthrope's love of 

 truth but at his putting himself into a passion about 

 a trifle, which neither called for his sincerity, nor jus- 

 tified his ill temper. The scene is therefore neither 

 immoral nor irrational. But still Rousseau will insist 

 that Moliere has degraded the picture of a good man 

 at the expense of consistency of character. He ought, 

 he says, to have made him furious only against public 

 vices, and not against the personal traits of wickedness 

 of which he is the victim. The plain answer to this 

 is, that it is most natural for a man to feel indignant 

 at the vices which immediately affect his own happi- 

 ness. Moliere certainly might have made his hero a 

 public-spirited misanthrope; but unfortunately there 

 are so few men-haters of this description, who are be- 

 lieved to be sincerely abstracted from all considerations 

 of their own interest, that a misanthrope insensible to 

 personal injuries would not have been, probably, re- 

 ceived as a very natural character. He might have 

 made him, if he had liked, a perfect and a wise being ; 

 but where would have been then the scope for comedy? 

 Where would have been the failings to instruct us? 

 And if he meant to paint a misanthrope, with what 

 consistency could he exhibit a wise and perfect being? 

 Such a man, if he existed, would not hate his species, but 

 regard their errors with the very soul of compassion. 



His " Tartuffe," is esteemed by his countrymen as 

 the masterpiece of his works, and of their national 

 drama. We must own that, to our taste, some others 

 of his comedies, such as " Le Hutirgeois Gentilhomme," 

 "L'EcoledesFemme,"&c. and "LeMalade Imaginaire," 

 which bring " laughter shaking both her sides," seem 

 to possess a more veritable tone of humour than the ex- 



hibition of so dark a villain as Tartuffe. We are not Mollrre. 

 deterred from avowing this preference by the common r " 

 remark, that the first and last of these pieces in parti- 

 cular, incline to broad farce, and give us rather cari- 

 catures of transient follies in the manners of society 

 than draughts of permanent resemblance to human 

 nature. But though the ludicrous images in these co- 

 medies may be bold and broad, we are not aware that 

 they are unnatural ; on the contrary, though they are 

 heightened sketches of follies, which never meet us so 

 glaringly in real society, we believe they seize the ve- 

 ritable, essential, and permanent traits of the ridiculous 

 in human character. The absurdities and frailties of 

 the species may be thus shewn, like playful or perni- 

 cious insects through a magnifying glass, but their 

 stings and gambols and propensities are, by that means, 

 only shewn to us more distinctly. With respect to the 

 Tartuffe, the fault of its conclusion, by a resource sup- 

 posed illegitimate in the drama, has been a thousand 

 times noticed, namely, the order from supreme autho- 

 rity which arrests the villain, when he is at theheighth 

 of his triumph, and conducts ^him to a terrible punish- 

 ment. The gravity of the scene, we confess, seems to 

 us a greater departure from comic effect than the means 

 employed for the denouement ; and in what we have 

 said of the Tartuffe, we only mean that it is less exhi- 

 larating than the other comedies which have been men- 

 tioned. As an effort of skill and ingenuity, it is won- 

 derful, for the art with which he throws a risible in- 

 terest over the exhibition of such dark traits of atrocity 

 as those of Tartuffe, and with which he amuses us bv 

 the success of a knave, all the time we are impatient 

 for his detection. The subject was difficult, but Mo- 

 liere had to encounter other difficulties than those of 

 his subject. His exposure of the vice of hypocrisy in 

 Tartuffe alarmed not only hypocrites, but some of the 

 weak and well meaning devout. Whether we are to 

 reckon Louis XIV., and his immediate advisers on this 

 point, among the real or pretended devotees, it is cer- 

 tain that his Majesty, for some time, laid his veto on 

 the representation of the comedy. The three first acts 

 of TartufFe had been represented, after the feles of 

 Versailles, in 1604', in presence of the King and the 

 Queen-mother and consort. Louis declared, that, for 

 his own part, he had nothing to say against the co- 

 medy ; but he forbade its being represented in public, 

 till it should be examined by persons capable of esti- 

 mating its moral tendency. The bigots availed them- 

 selves of this circumstance to raise a clamour against 

 the piece ; though, for the most part, they were little 

 acquainted with its contents. A pious curate, in a book 

 which he presented to the king, decided that the au- 

 thor deserved to be burnt alive, and upon his own pri- 

 vate authority awarded that punishment to Moliere. 

 Some of the higher clergy, however, having had the 

 moderation to hear the comedy read, were pleased to 

 judge of it more charitably. A verbal permission for its 

 representation was obtained from the king. The poet 

 softened some expressions, which had appeared offen- 

 sive; he gave it the title of " L'Imposteur," and dis- 

 guised the person of his hypocrite under the appear- 

 ance of a man of fashion, giving him a small hat, bushy 

 locks, a sword, and a laced suit of clothes. In this 

 state Tartuffe was risked on the stage in lCo'7, and 

 was received with applauses ; but next day an order 

 was sent to suspend its representation ; and though, at 

 Moliere's instance, two gentlemen, " LaThorilliere," and 

 " La Grange," repaired to the camp before Lille, where 

 the King then was, and presented a memorial in fa- 

 vour of the piece, it was not till two years later that 



