le of his friends was small, but intimate, and his
timidity with men, his suspiciousness, his lack of self-assertion, made
him an easy prey to such unscrupulous opponents as Voltaire. Fond of the
refined society of the salons, and repelled by the less feeling and more
boisterous set of the cafes, which he avoided, Marivaux became a
convenient object of attack for the cabals set in motion by the latter,
and, although, in spite of his general suspiciousness, he refused to give
credence[154] to an idea so obnoxious to him, it is not unlikely that the
frequent failure of his comedies on their "first night" may be most
satisfactorily explained in this way.

Marivaux was ever ready to accept a criticism that seemed to him deserved.
"J'ai eu tort de donner cette comedie-ci au theatre," he says in the
preface to his _Ile de la Raison_: "Elle n'etait pas bonne a etre
representee, et le public lui a fait justice en la condamnant. Point
d'intrigue, peu d'action, peu d'interet; ce sujet, tel que je l'avais
concu, n'etait point susceptible de tout cela...." At another time, having
been present at the first performance of one of his comedies, and noticing
the undissimulated yawns of the parterre, he confessed, upon leaving the
theatre, that no one had been more bored than he.[155] However,
notwithstanding his readiness to acknowledge his own defects, and to defer
to the opinions of others, Marivaux required the criticism to be fair-
minded and impersonal.

The seventh leaflet of the _Spectateur_ contains his ideas upon this
matter of criticism, which a few selections will suffice to illustrate: "A
l'egard de ces critiques qui ne sont que des expressions meprisantes, et
qui, sans autre examen, se terminent a dire crument d'un ouvrage _cela ne
vaut rien, cela est detestable_, nous serons bientot d'accord la-dessus,
et je vous ferai convenir sur-le-champ que ces sortes de raisonnements a
leur tour ne valent rien et sont detestables.... Ah! que nous irions loin,
qu'il naitrait de beaux ouvrages, si la plupart des gens d'esprit qui en
sont les juges, tatonnaient un peu avant de dire, _cela est mauvais_ ou
_cela est bon!_ ... mais je voudrais des critiques qui pussent corriger et
non pas gater, qui reformassent ce qu'il y aurait de defectueux dans le
caractere d'esprit d'un auteur, et qui ne lui fissent pas quitter ce
caractere. Il faudrait aussi pour cela, s'il etait possible, que la malice
ou l'inimitie des partis n'alterat pas les lumie