598 



M O L I E R E. 



Molitrt. 



are schools of instruction for the world. Chamfort calls 

 him the most amiable teacher of human nature since 

 Socrates, and affirms that Julius Caesar, who called 

 Terence a half Menander, would have denominated 

 Menander a half Moliere. Unhappily Julius Caesar's 

 opinion about Moliere is not to be collected with preci- 

 sion, and we know too little of Menander to institute 

 a fair comparison. But it is easier to compare Moliere 

 with the poets of antiquity whose subjects he has adopt- 

 ed ; and, whatever may be the result of the compari- 

 son, it is a respectable trait in his literary character, 

 that he had sufficient knowlege and taste to apply to 

 classical sources for enriching his drama. He brought 

 indeed to the vocation of a dramatic writer, the most 

 eminently useful and creditable advantages. Though 

 born in middling life, he had opportunities of studying 

 the manners of the court. He had studied Spanish and 

 Italian comedy, and he was able to draw from Plautus 

 and Terence the attic salt and true tone of comic cha- 

 racter. He possessed an inexhaustible fund of gaiety 

 congenial with the best models from which he drew his 

 resources ; and even those who ascribe to him scarcely 

 more than the merit of farce and caricature in comedy, 

 acknowledge that he designs amusing caricatures with 

 the firmest and happiest traits. They acknowledge, 

 for instance, that even in farcical creation, the vain- 

 glorious soldier of Plautus is less ably pourtrayed than 

 the Bourgeois Gentilhomme of Moliere. The German 

 writers, and even Dacier among the French, accuse him, 

 however, of having, for the most part, spoilt the simple 

 comic conceptions of the ancients, by accommodating 

 them to modern manners, and by making the plots 

 more artificial. We must recollect, that if this was a 

 fault in Moliere it was not easily avoided. By simply 

 translating the plays of Plautus and Terence, he could 

 not have pleased a modern audience had he given his 

 classical drama in its naked simplicity. He has bor- 

 rowed the idea of his " Avare" from the Aulularia of 

 Plautus. Instead of a simple miser, he has given us a 

 miser in love. On this charge it has been remarked, 

 that the morale of the piece is not improved but spoilt, 

 because if an old amorous dotard should go to the theatre 

 and see the piece represented, he might say to himself, 

 I care little for this satire, for I am not a miser, and if 

 a miser, who happened not to be in love, should go to 



see it, he might, with equal justice say, " Very true, I M.iiere. 

 am fond of money ; but I thank my stars, I am not in -v-*' 

 love." We perceive nothing conclusive in this argu- 

 ment against the propriety of Moliere doubling comic 

 effect by the conception of an amorous miser; and if it 

 was not an improvement on classical simplicity, it was 

 at least an agreeable variety acquired by departing 

 from it. In like manner we can read his Amphytrion 

 without diminished admiration of Plautus ; but still ac- 

 knowledging that Moliere has made some departures 

 from the original of considerable skill and felicity. The 

 same cannot certainly be said of his Fourbcries de Sea- 

 pin, where the Phormio of Terence is by no means al> 

 tered for the better. The French seem to consider his 

 reputation as chiefly established on his " Ecole det 

 Fentmet," " Tarluffe," " Misanirope," and " Femmes Sa~ 

 vanles." The two last, we conceive, have too little 

 amusing action to rank in the very highest class of co- 

 medies. But the Tartuffe, in spite of the objection of 

 its too grave incidents, is a master-piece of deep drawn 

 character. The Ecole des Femmes is certainly inimit- 

 able for its comic force, rapidity of movement, and for 

 lively and original ideas. The Bourgeois Gentilhomme 

 may perhaps be too farcical in the last acts, when the 

 hero gives his daughter to the son of the Grand Turk, 

 and becomes a Mamamouchi. But Monsieur Jourdain 

 and his wife, and the cool-blooded courtier Dormine, 

 with the whole contents of the three first acts, form a 

 treat for the risible faculties, which, we believe, no 

 production of the stage ever surpassed. The court of 

 Louis the .XIV. was so deplorably dull as not to un- 

 derstand the humour of the piece when it was first 

 acted ; but the King had a better taste, and told Moliere, 

 that he had never laughed so heartily in his life. The 

 Court was converted to his opinion, and for once we 

 can look on the authority of Louis the XIV. without 

 regretting that it was arbitrary.- The French Academy, 

 for some time before the death of Moliere, wished to 

 persuade him to give up the life of a comedian, that 

 he might become a member of their society. After his 

 decease, they voted him a public eloge, and placed his 

 bust in their hall, with this inscription, expressive of 

 regret that he had not become an academician, 



" Rten ne manque a sa glcnreil manque ci la notrt." 



MOLLUSCA. 



Molluscs. 1 HE history of the great division of animals to which 

 ~~ i"" the term MOLLUSCA is now exclusively confined, was 

 History, investigated in a very imperfect manner by the earlier 

 naturalists. They attended merely to the characters 

 furnished by the external appearance, and consequent- 

 ly formed their systematical divisions without regard 

 to the natural affinities of the animals affinities which 

 can only be traced by an examination of the structure 

 and functions of all the organs. 



Lionceus. The first general attempt at classification, worthy of 

 notice, appears in the twelfth edition of the Syslema 

 Naturce of Linnaeus. In this work, all the animals 

 which were considered by the ancients as Exanguine- 

 ous, and termed by the more recent naturalists, Inver- 

 tebral, were, with the exception of insects, included in 

 his sixth and last class, which he denominated Vcrmes, 

 and assigned to it the following distinguishing charac- 

 ters Cor, uniloculare, inauritum ; Sanie frigida. 

 Spiracula obscura. Maxlllw multifarise, variz variis. 

 Penes varii hermaphroditis Androgynis. Sensus : 

 Tentacula (caput nullum, vix oculi, non aures, nares). 



Tegmenta calcarea aut nulla, nisi spinae. Fulcra: 

 nulli Pedes aut Pinnae. This class of vermes was 

 again divided into four orders Inlestina, animalia 

 simplicia, absque artubus, nuda. Molluscs, animalia 

 simplicia, nuda (absque testa inhabitata), artubus in- 

 structa. Testacea, animalia Mollusca, simplicia, domo, 

 saspius calcarea, propria obtecta. Lithophyta, animalia 

 Mollusca, composita. Corallium calcareum, fixum, 

 quod inaedificarunt animalia affixa. Zoophyta, animalia 

 composita, efflorescentia. Stirps vegetans, metamor- 

 phosi transiens inflorens animal. The second and third 

 orders, Mollusca and Testacea, include the animals to 

 which our attention is to be directed in this article. 



This systematical arrangement of Linnrcus, while it 

 contributed greatly to enlarge the number of species, 

 had a tendency to divert the attention from the exa- 

 mination of their structure. The external form was 

 exclusively employed to furnish the distinguishing 

 characters, and was therefore chiefly regarded by 

 the student, in reference both to genera and species. 

 The relation between the external appearance, and the 



Molluici. 



