BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

JEAN BAPTISTE POQUELIN ("Molière" was the name he adopted on joining the stage) was born in Paris in 1622. Although destined for the profession of his father, a well-to-do upholsterer, "tapissier valet de chambre du Roy," he was educated in the very best school then accessible, the "Collège de Clermont.' But neither the earnest wishes of his parents, nor the study of philosophy and law, to which he subsequently devoted himself, could divert young Poquelin from what he early felt to be his unmistakable vocation -the stage. His first attempts at stage-managing in Paris having, however, entirely failed, he started on a provincial tour (1646-58), in which, as far as we can judge from the scanty sources of information available, he seems to have been fairly successful. Into this period fall his first attempts at play-writing: le Medecin volant, la Jalousie du Barbouillé, le Dépit amoureux, and a few other farces, unfortunately lost. Emboldened by the success he achieved in the provinces, especially in Lyons, where he and his troupe performed his first regular five-act comedy in verse, L'Etourdi, Molière reappeared in Paris, courted and gained the favour and patronage of the young king, Louis XIV. There, as early as 1659, he won fame by Les Précieuses ridicules, in which he showed up the pedantic talk and affected airs of the then fashionable literary circles of learned ladies; but it was in L'Ecole des Maris (1661) that his consummate mastery in the faithful delineation of character for the first time fully asserted itself.1 Leaving the beaten track of the conventional comedies after the Italian pattern, the interest of which centres in intricate plots, thrilling incidents, and racy dialogues, he strikes out a new path by a series of masterpieces, in which he holds up the mirror to nature. In L'Ecole

1 For a full estimate and analysis of the principal plays of Molière we must, once for all, refer the student to the Introductions and Arguments contained in the separate volumes published, or to be published, in this

series.

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.

des Femmes (1662) he mercilessly lays bare the folly of such illassorted marriages as he himself had just contracted. His Don Juan, ou le Festin de Pierre (1655), but especially his Tartufe, the most scathing exposure of the odious vice of hypocrisy ever penned, and which, in spite of the opposition of a powerful cabal, was finally performed in 1669, brought down upon him the unrelenting hatred of the bigots of his time. Into Molière's domestic troubles again we must look for the inspiration of Le Misanthrope (1666), considered by many as his chef-d'œuvre. In Le Médecin malgré lui he once more directs the formidable artillery of his inexhaustible wit against the ignorant leeches and apothecaries of his age-a favourite theme, which from first to last he never tired of handling.1

In the intervals of the interminable Court festivities, to which Molière richly contributed his share by writing and acting L'Impromptu de Versailles (1663), Le Mariage forcé (1664), M. de Pourceaugnac (1669), Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1670), La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas (1671)-plays written, studied, and rehearsed, most of them, at a few days' notice-he ever and anon followed his own inspiration by the production of some of the best of his plays: Amphytrion, L'Avare (for the plots of which the Roman playwright, Plautus, was laid under contribution), Georges Dandin (1668), Les Fourberies de Scapin (1671), and Les Femmes Savantes (see Introduction).

His death was a fitting close to a career of unremitting activity; he was acting the principal character-the part he usually reserved for himself of his last comedy, Le Malade Imaginaire (1673), a biting satire on doctors, when he was seized with a sudden fit of convulsions, and had to be carried home, where he died within a few hours. He was then fifty-one years old, a year and a half younger than Shakspeare at his death.

1 Le Médecin volant, le Docteur amoureux, and a few other farces, date from his provincial tour. L'Amour médecin and M. de Pourceaugnac were written in the hey-day of his glory, and Le Malade Imaginaire is the last play he wrote and acted.

WE have purposely brought our notice within the shortest possible compass, in order to reserve a fair share of our limited space for adequate estimates of Molière's genius from the master hands of some of the most distinguished French critics.

INTRODUCTION.

THE FRENCH DRAMA BEFORE MOLIÈRE.

(See also Introduction to Corneille's Cid, p. vii., in this series.)

"Au moment où Corneille parut, trois genres d'ouvrages dramatiques défrayaient le théâtre: la tragédie, imitée des anciens : la tragi-comédie, imitée des Espagnols: la farce, imitée de l'italien. Quelques pièces pourtant s'intitulent comédies.' Les intrigues de la tragi-comédie en font la matière; la farce en fait l'assaisonnemeut.

"Pour ne parler que de ces premières ébauches de comédies, au lieu de caractères, on y trouve des situations; au lieu des ridicules de la nature, des ridicules exagérés ou imaginaires; au lieu de personnages, les types de certaines professions: un docteur, un capitan, un juge; au lieu de la vraisemblance dans l'action, tout l'esprit de l'auteur employé à y manquer. Ce ne sont que rencontres impossibles, confusions de noms, générosités tombées du ciel; pardons où l'on attendait des vengeances; cachettes dans les murailles, derrière les tapisseries; aparté pour unique moyen des effets de scène; un mélange grossier de traditions grecques et latines, espagnoles et italiennes; et, pour la part de la France, de gros sel gaulois : la seule chose qui ait quelque saveur dans cet amalgame.

"Les situations, presque toujours les mêmes, tournent autour de quelque amour qui, d'amour défendu, devient légitime. Le premier cavalier venu, et la première dona jeune et jolie, sont les héros de ce roman. On ne songeait pas à leur donner des caractères; l'intérêt, dans ces sortes de pièces, ne consiste pas dans la contrariété du caractère et de la passion, mais dans les complications qui séparaient les deux amants. Les auteurs commençaient par imaginer une suite et une confusion singulière d'incidents : c'était là l'invention. Ils y jetaient des personnages de convention, lesquels n'appartenaient aux situations et n'en dépendaient par le lien d'aucun caractère marqué. Rien n'est vraisemblable;