MOLIERE.

(His singular Death.)

His last comedy was Le Malade Imaginaire. It

was acted for the fourth time on the seventeenth of February, 1673, and he died the same day. The chief person represented in Moliere’s last play, is a sick man who pretends to be dead. Moliere represented that person, and consequently was obliged in one of his scenes to act the part of a dead man. It has been said by a great many people, that he expired in that [part of his play, and that when he was to make an end of it, in order to shew that it was only a feint, he could neither speak nor get up, being actually dead. This singularity was looked upon as very wonderful, and afforded the poets plentiful matter for witty conceits and ingenious allusions; which, in all probability was the reason why that story was so much credited. Nay, some gave a serious turn to their thoughts, and made many moral reflections upon that incident. But the truth is, Moliere did not die in such a manner; he had time enough, though very sick, to make an end of his part, as it appears from this passage of his life. “The seventeenth of February, 1673, On which Le Malade Imaginaire was acted a fourth time, he was so much troubled with his defluxion, that he had much ado to act his part; he made an end of it in great pain, and the spectators were sensible that he was very far from being what he acted: for indeed when the comedy was over he went home, and was scarcely got to bed, when his continual cough increased so violently, that one of the veins of his lungs broke. He no sooner found himself in that condition, but he bent all his thoughts upon heavenly things; and immediately he lost his speech, and in half an hour’s time was stifled by the great quantity of blood that ran out of his mouth.” Life of Moliere prefixed to his works. I make use of the Brussels edition, 1694. ⁸⁹ I must however inform the reader that if some other writers are to be credited, Moliere was not able to hold out till the play was over. “Moliere died in a very surprising manner. He had been indisposed for a long time; which was ascribed to the trouble his wife gave him, but more still to his great application. One day being to act Le Malade Imaginaire, a new piece at that time, and the last he had made, he was taken very ill before he began it, and had nearly put it off on account of his illness. Nevertheless, considering the great number of spectators, and being unwilling to send them away, he strained himself, and acted his part almost to the end, without perceiving that his illness increased upon him. But when he came to that part of the play, wherein he counterfeited a dead man, he happened to be so weak, that it was thought he was really dead, and they had much ado to make him stand up. They advised him to go to bed, but he chose rather to make an end; and the play being far advanced, he thought he could go through it without much prejudice to himself. But his zeal for the public was attended with a sad consequence to him; for as he was speaking of rhubarb and senna, in the ceremony of the physicians, some blood came out of his mouth, at which the spectators, and his friends being very much frighted, he was immediately carried home, and his wife followed him into his chamber, pretending to be very much afflicted. But every thing they did to relieve him proved ineffectual, and he died in a few hours, having lost all his blood, which came out of his mouth in great plenty.” See the book intitled, “ La fameuse Comedienne, ou Histoire .de la Guerin, auparavant femme & veuve de Moliere, pag. 38, 39. ⁹⁰ The poets, as I have already said, took hold of that occasion to shew their wit: they banded about a great many small pieces; but of all those that were made upon Moliere’s death, none was better approved than these four Latin verses; which they have thought fit to preserve.

Roscius hic situs est tristri Molierus in urnà.
Cui genus humanum ludere, ludus erat.
Dum ludit mortem, mors indignata jocantem
Corripit, & mimum fingere sæva negat.

Here Moliere lies, the Roscius of his age,
Whose pleasure, while he liv’d, was to engage
With human nature in a comic strife,
And personate her actions to the life.
But surly death, offended at his play,
Would not be jok’d with in so free a way.
He, when he mimick’d him, his voice restrain’d,
And made him act in earnest what he feign’d.

I add a French epitaph to the above Latin verses.

Cy git qui parut sur la scene
Le singe de la vie humaine,
Qui n’aura jamais son égal,
Qui voulant de la mort, ainsi que de la vie,
Etre l’imitateur dans une comedie,
Pour trop bien reussir, y reussit fort mal;
Car la mort en etant ravie,
Trouva si belle la copie,
Qu’elle en fit un original.

Within this melancholy tomb confin’d,
Here lies the matchless ape of human kind;
Who while he labour’d with ambitious strife
To mimic death as he bad mimick’d life,
So well, or rather ill perform’d his part,
That death delighted with his wond’rous art,
Snatch’d up the copy to the grief of France,
And made it an original at once.

His dramatic excellence.

Many are of opinion that the plays of Moliere exceed or equal the noblest performances of that kind in ancient Greece and Rome. Mr Perrault displeased many people by contradicting those who say, that no modern author can be compared with Homer and Virgil, Demosthenes and Cicero, Aristophanes and Terence, Sophocles and Euripides. This dispute has occasioned on both sides several books

which contain very good things; but we have not seen hitherto, the answer to Mr Perrault’s parallel, nor do we know when it will come out. I think I may say that among the productions of the pen, there are few things wherein so many people have acknowledged the superiority of our age, as in the comic pieces. Perhaps the reason of it is, that the beauties and niceties of Aristophanes are not known to all those who are sensible of Moliere’s wit and charms; for it ought to be granted, that in order to pass a right judgment upon the comic poets of Greece, it were necessary to be thoroughly acquainted with the faults of the Athenians. There is a ridicule common to all times and people, and a ridicule peculiar to certain ages and nations. Some scenes of Aristophanes which appear dull to us, perhaps wonderfully pleased the Athenians, because they knew the fault he ridiculed; perhaps it was a fault altogether unknown to us, a ridicule consisting in some particular facts, and in a transient and common taste of that time, of which we can have no notion, though we are able to read the originals. These obstacles do not permit us to admire that poet according to his merit, neither in Greek nor in Latin, nor in the French versions, though never so faithful and polite. Moliere is not liable to this inconveniency; we know what he aims at, and easily discover whether he describes well the ridicule of the age we live in; when he succeeds in any thing, it cannot escape us. Nay, he seems to be more copious than Aristophanes and Terence, as to those thoughts and nice railleries of which all ages and polite nations are sensible. This is a very considerable prerogative, for it cannot be said that our age has not a true relish of the fine passages of the Latin poets. If you shew some thoughts of Horace, Ovid, Juvenal, &c. to ingenious ladies in old French, if you translate them faithfully, though never so coarsely, they will tell you that those thoughts are fine, delicate, and subtle. There are some beauties of wit in fashion at all times; and it is probable that Moliere is more copious in that respect than the ancient comic poets. He has some beauties that would vanish away in a translation, or in a country of a different taste from that of France; but he has many others that would be preserved in all sorts of translations, and approved, whatever the taste of the readers might be, provided they understood the essence of a good thought.

His unhappiness in marriage.

It is said that Moliere knew by experience the uneasiness of husbands that are jealous, or have reason to be so. I have read in a small book printed in the year 1688, that he was less praised than his wife was courted; that she “was the daughter of the deceased Mrs Bejard a country actress, who made many young sparks of Languedoc happy when her daughter was born; and therefore,” adds the author, “it were a very difficult thing to know who was her father among so many gallants: all that we know of it is, that her mother affirmed she never admitted any but persons of quality, except Moliere, and that therefore her daughter was of a very noble blood; and indeed, the only thing she recommended to her all all along was, to prostitute herself to none but the best sort of people. Moliere was thought to be her father, though he married her afterwards; however the truth of it is not well known. Moliere married young Mrs Bejard some time after he he had settled his company at Paris. He made some pieces for the stage, and among others La Princesse d’Elide, wherein his wife who acted the part of the princess, shone so brightly, that he had all the reason in the world to repent his having exposed her in the middle of all the sprightly youth of the court; for she was hardly got to the chamber where the king gave that

entertainment, but she fell desperately in love with the count de Guiche, and the count de Lauzun fell desperately in love with her. Moliere was made sensible that the great care he took to please the public, kept him from observing how his wife behaved herself; and that whilst he made it his business to divert every body, every body made it their business to divert his wife. Jealousy awakened his tenderness, which had lain asleep by reason of his application to study; he immediately went and made great complaints to his wife, telling her in a reproachful manner how carefully he had brought her up, how he had stifled his passion, how he had behaved himself towards her more like a lover than a husband, and that to reward him for so many kindnesses, she made him ridiculous to the whole court. His wife fell a weeping, and confessed to him that she had had an inclination for the count de Guiche; but she swore that the only fault she was guilty of, consisted in the intention; she added that he should forgive the first fault of a young woman, who for want of experience will be apt to make such steps; but that the kindness she was sensible he had for her, would prevent for the time to come, her being guilty of such a weakness. Moliere being persuaded of her virtue by her tears, begged her pardon a thousand times for the anger he had expressed, and gently represented to her that a good conscience was not sufficient to preserve reputation, but that we should take care to do nothing that may occasion ill reports, especially in an age wherein people are so apt to think ill, and so little disposed to judge favourably of things?”

She however quickly began again her old trade more openly than ever. “Moliere being informed of his wife’s behaviour, by some people who were willing to make him uneasy, renewed his complaints with more violence than he had done before, and even threatened to get her confined; on which being

provoked to the highest degree with his reproaches, she wept and fell into a swoon. Her husband, who was extremely fond of her, repented of having put her into that condition, and did his best to recover her spirits, intreating her to consider that nothing but love was the occasion of his passion; and that she might be sensible of the great power she had over him, since notwithstanding all the reasons he had to complain of her, he was ready to forgive her provided she would be more cautious for the time to. come. One would think that so extraordinary a husband should have made her sensible of her fault, and brought her off from her ill course, but his kindness produced quite a contrary effect. She thought she had a fair opportunity of parting with him, and therefore she spoke in a high strain, and told him that she knew well enough from whom he had those false stories; that she was weary of being every day accused of a thing she was not guilty of; that he might think of a separation; and that she could no longer endure a man who was always intimate with Mad. de Brie who lived in the house, and had never left it since they were married. The care that was taken to pacify Moliere’s wife proved ineffectual; from that very moment she conceived an extreme aversion for him, and when he had a mind to make use of the privileges of a husband, she treated him with the utmost contempt. At last she carried things to such an extremity, that Moliere who began to perceive her wicked inclinations, consented to the separation she continually desired since their quarrel, so that without a decree of parliament, they agreed to have no commerce with one another; but Moliere could not resolve upon it without doing himself a great violence.

“One day as he was thinking upon it in his garden at Auteuil, one of his friends called Chapelle, who came to walk there by chance, accosted him, and

finding him more uneasy than he used to be, asked him several times the reason of it. Moliere being somewhat ashamed of showing so little constancy under a misfortune that was so much in fashion, held out as much as he could, but having his heart then full, a thing well known to those that have been in love, he ingenuously confessed to his friend that the grief wherewith he was overwhelmed, proceeded from his being obliged to use his wife as he did. Chapelle, who thought he was above things of that nature, jeered him, and told him he wondered that a man who knew so well how to represent the weak side of other men, should be guilty of a weakness he blamed every day, and showed him that the most ridiculous of all was, to love a woman when her love is not reciprocal. ‘ For my part,’ added he, ‘ I must needs tell you that if I were so unhappy as to find myself in such a condition, and if I were fully persuaded that the woman I love grants some favours to others, I should have such a contempt for her, that it would infallibly cure my passion. You have a satisfaction you could not have if she were your mistress, and revenge which commonly succeeds love in an injured lover, may make amends for all the uneasiness your wife gives you, since you need only get her shut up, and this will be a sure way to quiet your mind.’ Moliere, who heard his friend quietly enough, interrupted him, and asked whether he had ever been in love. ‘ Yes,’ replied Chapelle, ‘ I have been in love as a man of sense ought to be, but I should not have been so much troubled for a thing which my happiness should have required from me, and I am ashamed to see you so uncertain? ‘ I perceive,’ replied Moliere, ‘ that you have never been a true lover, and that you have taken the figure of love for love itself. I will not allege many examples whereby you might know the power of that passion, but shall only give you a faithful account of the perplexity I am in, to make you sensible how little a man is master of himself, when love has got its usual ascendant over him. Wherefore in answer to what you say, that I have a perfect knowledge of men’s hearts, as it appears by the public descriptions I daily make of them, I confess that I made it my chief study to know their weak side; but if I have learned that the danger may be shunned, experience has but too well taught me that it is impossible to avoid it. I judge of it every day by myself.’ ”

He afterwards gives an account of his marriage, and after some reflections, adds, “I am therefore resolved to live with her as if she were not my wife; but if you knew the anguish I am in, you would pity me: my passion is come to such a pitch, that I cannot forbear being concerned for; and when I consider that it is impossible for me to overcome my affection for her, I am apt to fancy that perhaps she finds it no less difficult to conquer her inclinations to be a coquet, and I am more disposed to pity her than to blame her. You will say that none but a poet can love in such a manner; but it is my opinion there is but one sort of love, and that those who have never been so nice, are perfect strangers to true love. Do not you wonder that my reason should serve only to make me sensible of my weakness, without being able to conquer it?” “I must needs tell you,” replied his friend,” that you are more to be pitied than I thought; but I hope time will cure you, and I beseech you to use your endeavours towards it.”

Such was the fate of that wit. In the midst of the acclamations of the whole court, shining with glory, and admired in France and in foreign countries, he was tormented with a thousand domestic griefs. His marriage deprived him of his honour and quiet: nay, he could not have the satisfaction of hating his cross, I mean the person who was the cause of so much vexation. He might have been told, “physician, cure thyself: Moliere, you who give so much diversion

to the public, cannot you divert yourself? You laugh at every body, you give very good advice to the poor cuckolds, why do not you make use of it yourself first?” Perhaps he said a thousand times, as Horace did, “I had rather be accounted the meanest of all authors, than have so much wit, and live such an uneasy life.”

(Boileau's Criticism.)

Boileau found fault with Moliere for humouring too much those that sat in the pit; which is a reasonable censure in some respects, but unjust in the main. Moliere was dead when Boileau praised him in one of his epistles; as much, or more, than in the satire he had inscribed to him. It is therefore a great piece of injustice to say, that he praised him out of policy, and for fear of being bantered by him upon the stage, if he should say nothing to his advantage, or if he should venture to criticise him. But some will say, he criticised him when he had nothing to fear, and therefore the suspicion entertained of him seems to be well grounded. I am not of that opinion; I believe that if he had made his Art Poëtique in Moliere’s life-time, he would have inserted in it the censure contained in the following verses. It was, in a manner, essential to his subject; there is in it a very judicious observation, which should be an inviolable rule, if comedies were only made to be printed; but because they are chiefly designed to appear on the stage in the presence of all sorts of people, it is not just to require they should be adapted to Boileau's taste. These are his words:—

Etudiez la cour, & connoissez la ville,
L’une & l’autre est toûjours en modèles fertile.
C'est par là que Moliere illustrant ses écrits
Peut-être de son art eût remporté le prix;

Si moins ami du peuple en ses doctes peintures,
Il n’eût point fait souvent grimacer ses figures,
Quitté pour le bouffon, l’agréable & le fin.
Et sans honte à Terence allié Tabarin.
Dans ce sac ridicule où Scapin s'envelope,
Je ne reconnois plus l'auteur du Misanthrope.
Desperaux Art. Poétique, Canto iii, ver. 391, & seq.

Study the court, and know the city well:
So shall your various characters excel. It was by this that Moliere in his plays
Perhaps, as victor, might have claim'd the bays;
If he, to please the rabble of the town,
Had not sometimes affected the buffoon; Preferr'd low farce and drollery to wit,
And more like Tabarin than Terence writ.
In that same bag which Scapin doth enclose,
The author of the Misanthrope I lose.

He blames Moliere for endeavouring to please, not only men of a nice judgment, but also the common people. Moliere had some reasons for it, and might have said what Arlequin answered in a like case. “Those jests, said I to him, (to Arlequin) are pleasant enough in your plays; it is pity they are not equally good. I own it, replied he, but they please several young people, who come to our play-house only to laugh, and who laugh at any thing, and very often without knowing why. Our plays are frequently acted before such people, and if our jests were not suited to their capacity, our house would be very often empty. I am sorry, said I to him, that you have almost left your old pieces off; they were well approved by men of sense, they contained many things of good use in morality, and I dare say, that your stage was a place where vice was so effectually ridiculed, that every body found himself inclined to love virtue merely out of reason. Should we act none but our old pieces, replied he, our play-house would be little resorted to, and I will tell you what Cinthio formerly told St Evremond, that good actors

would be starved notwithstanding their excellent plays.” It ought to be observed, that players are at great charges, and that plays are no less designed for the diversion of the people, than for the diversion of the senate; and therefore they must be adapted to the taste of the public, in order to bring a numerous audience; for without that, although they were a perfect compound of ingenious, nice, and exquisite thoughts, the actors would be ruined by them, and they would be of no use to the people.

This is what may be said, not only against those who censure Moliere, but also against those who find fault with many other books, because they do not consider the several uses they are designed for, and because there are many things in them which they could wish the author had left out. What do I care for that, says one? What is it to me, says another, that such a one had a bad wife? To what purpose so many quotations, so many merry thoughts, so many philosophical reflections, &c? Such are the complaints of those who censure this dictionary: but they will give me leave to tell them, that they want the most necessary notion to pass a right judgment upon this work. They do not consider that it ought to be of some use to all sorts of readers, and that if it had been entirely framed according to the taste of the greatest purists; it would go out of its natural sphere. I would have them to consider, that if I had kept to their notions of perfection, my book would indeed have been acceptable to them, but then many others had been displeased with it, and it had remained in the dust of the booksellers’ warehouses. What a poor thing would two or three large folios be for him, if there were nothing in them but what may please those who pretend to gravity, and to an exquisite taste, and who would have the most copious subjects explained in the shortest way? They may, if they please, make such a reflection as Socrates

made at the sight of a fair; but the fair will nevertheless be as it ought to be. The fellow feeling of Bayle with Arlequin on this occasion is very amusing; so would a numerous tribe of buzzing periodical dramatic critics be much injured by a full consideration of his reasoning on the situation of theatrical proprietors.—Ed. ⁹¹—Art. Moliere.