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M"liere. his Majesty gave an authentic permission for its being 

 ' again brought on the stage. When it became fully 

 known, the hypocrites were confounded and the poet 

 was justified, with regard to the dangers to the cause 

 of morality which were supposed to be apprehend- 

 ed from the play of Tartuffe. We omit to give the 

 particular dates or names of his numerous pieces. " La 

 Malade Imaginaire" was the last of his compositions. 

 The day on which it was to be represented for the third 

 time, he felt himself more indisposed than usual with a 

 complaint in his chest, to which he had been subject 

 for a long time, and which had brought on an almost 

 incessant cough. He makes an allusion ta this infirmi- 

 ty, which must have often interfered with his acting, 

 when Frosine says in " theAvare" to Harpagon, apart 

 which Moliere played, " Cela n'est rien, votre fluxion 

 ne vous sieil point ma), et vous avez grace a toupir." 

 (L'Avare, act 2. scene 6) His wife and friends in- 

 treated him to defer the representation of " Le Malade 

 Imaginaire" till his health should be somewhat rein- 

 stated ; but he answered, " What then must become of 

 so many poor people who depend upon its representa- 

 tion for their bread ? I should reproach myself for hav- 

 ing neglected a tingle day to have supplied them with 

 necessaries." He accordingly exerted himself on the 

 stage with unusual spirit, in performing this comedy ; 

 but in the third act he was seized with a convulsion 

 fit, which he vainly attempted to disguise to the spec- 

 tators by a forced laugh. He was carried home to his 

 house in the Rue de Richelieu, where his cough aug- 

 mented exceedingly, and brought on a vomiting of 

 blood that ended in suffocation. He expired on the 

 1 7th February, 1 673, aged 53 supported by two wo- 

 men of the religious sisterhood, who used to come to 

 Paris in time of Lent, for the purposes of charity. 

 Harlai, the Archbishop of Paris, a man of dissolute 

 moral*, but desirout of pleasing the rigorists of the Ro- 

 man church, refused him Christian burial ; but the King 

 interposed, and the prelate, after pretending to invr-ti- 

 gate the character of Moliere, and to be satisfied with the 

 account? which he received of his religion and probity, 

 allowed that he should be interred privately in a chapel of 

 the parish <>t St. I-'.uttache. Another story is told of the 

 King having sent for the curate of the same parish, who, 

 like his superior, had scruples about the right of a play- 

 er to be buried in consecrated earth. " To what depth 

 is your ground consecrated.'" the King is said to have 

 inquired. To the depth of four feet," answered the 

 clergyman. " Well then," replied Louis, " lit Moliere 

 be buried six feet deep; " and he added, as he turned his 

 back upon the cure, " let me hear no more about this 

 business." The bigotry of the populace impeded even 

 the obscure funeral honours which were allowed to be 

 paid to him, for they collected in great crowds before 

 the door of his house on the day on which his corpse 

 was brought out. Such was the return which his coun- 

 try made to the man whom Racine himself pronounced 

 to be the greatest of his age. His wife, on hearing the 

 refutal of the clergy to allow him Christian burial, is 

 said to have exclaimed with tears in her eyes, " France 

 grudge* a lamb to liim to mhom Greece mould have erected 

 altart !~ The saying was just and pathetic. It is only 

 to be regretted, that the wife who spoke it, was not, if 

 we may trust the general report, worthy of Moliere. 

 He is said to have been himself the victim of the most 

 us of matrimonial distress, which he paints so 

 facetiously in comedy. The populace, whom his wi- 

 I to respect his remains, followed him de- 

 cently to h< grave; where he was quietly deposited by 

 the light of on hundred flambeaus, which his friends 



carried to the ceremony. His widow afterwards mar- Moliere. 

 ried a comedian of the name of Gnerin. She was the *"~Y"""* 

 daughter of Madame Bezart, with whom he made his 

 first theatrical excursion to Lyons, and with whom, it 

 seems to be confessed by his biographers, that he had 

 had a connexion before he was married to the daugh- 

 ter. The exasperated envy of some of his literary op- 

 ponents accused him of espousing his own daughter in 

 this Mademoiselle Bezart; but the calumny is sufficient- 

 ly refuted by distinct evidence, that she was born be-' 

 fore Moliere became acquainted with her mother. Mo- 

 liere was in his person above the middle size, of a noble 

 carriage, handsome limbs, and an exceedingly expres- 

 sive countenance. His walk was slow his air serious. 

 He had a high nose, a large mouth, a dark com- 

 plexion, and very black, thick, and flexible eye-brows, 

 which made his physiognomy very striking in comedy. 

 He was not, probably, a first rate performer, owing to 

 the weakness of his voice; but from the prominent - 

 parts which he took in his own comedies, he must have 

 been a considerable one, and by no means incapable of 

 doing justice to the characters which his imagination 

 so strongly conceived. We- are told by the French 

 actress, who gives this minute description of his ap- 

 pearance, that he was fond of talking (i7 aimoil fort a 

 haraiiguer) and that, when he read his pieces to his fel- 

 low-actors, he always wished them to bring their chil. 

 dren, in order that he might draw hints from their na- 

 tural movements. The same person adds, that he was 

 mild, courteous, and kind in his general intercourse. 

 He was not envious : to be sure he had little occasion- 

 to be so. When the " Pltrideurt," a comedy by Racine, 

 with whom he was at that time on bad terms, had lost 

 possession of the stage, he was the first to assert its 

 merit, and to bring it back to popularity. In company 

 that pleased him, his conversation was very pleasant ; 

 but, as the contrary oftencr happened, he was apt to be 

 absent and melancholic in society, and consoled him- 

 self with secretly remarking the traits and manners 

 of those about him, in order to store them up as 

 hints for comedy. Many anecdotes of his benevolence 

 are recorded. His friend Baron one day mentioned to 

 him the case of a man whom extreme poverty prevent- 

 ed from waiting on him. His name was Mondorge, 

 " I know him," said Moliere. " He was a comrade of 

 mine in Languedoc, and an honest man. How much 

 do you think I should give him .-" " Four pistoles," said 

 Baron, after some hesitation. " Here, then/' replied 

 Moliere, " are four pistoles for me/ and here are twenty 

 more which you shall give him from yourself.'' Mon- 

 dorge was introduced to him : Moliere received him 

 with open arms, and gave him also a magnificent dress-, 

 which enabled him to perform a tragedy. A beggar 

 once asked our poet for charity, and he gave him a 

 piece of gold. The mendicant brought it back, saving 

 he supposed it was a mistake. " In what a hole has 

 virtue hid herself!" exclaimed Moliere, and gave ano- 

 ther gold piece to the poor man, telling him there was 

 no mistake. His death, as we have seen, was occasion- 

 ed by an impulse of benevolence. A high niche in the 

 temple of modern genius is confessedly to be assigned 

 to this writer, but whether he is to be ranked among 

 the few first rate comic poets who bear the palm in uni- 

 versal literature ancient and modern, is a question still 

 agitated between the schools of French and German 

 criticism. Voltaire has named him the father of true 

 comedy ; and as far as the French stage is concerned, 

 nobody will dispute the assertion. According to La 

 Harpe, he is the first of philosophical moralists ; co- 

 medy and Moliere arc synonymous terms, and his pieces 



