almost against his will; and we can imagine the
feelings with which Moliere himself took the _role_ of Alceste to his
wife's Celimene.

In 1669 the King, growing more independent of his advisers, sanctioned
the production of _Tartuffe_; but this strengthening of his repertory
did not prevent Moliere producing _Monsieur de Pourceaudnac_, a farcical
comedy in three acts, in which there is a masterly and not exaggerated
sketch of a consultation of doctors in Moliere's time; and, in 1670, the
_Bourgeois Gentilhomme_, in which the folly of aping noblemen is
delineated, as well as the _Amants Magnifiques_, a comedy-ballet for the
particular behoof of the court. In 1671 he combined with Corneille and
Quinault in the production of _Psyche_, a tragedy-ballet, and wrote, or
rather, perhaps, remodelled from among his earlier efforts, the
_Fourberies de Scapin_ and the _Comtesse d'Escarbagnas_.

His two last works were among the highest and happiest creations of his
genius--the _Femmes Savantes_, a sort of sequel to the _Precieuses
Ridicules_, though of a more general application--and the _Malade
Imaginaire_. In the latter, he insisted on playing the part of Argan
upon the first representation, February 10, 1673; but it was the
crowning act of his energetic mind. He became ill during the fourth
representation of the play, and died that same evening, February 17th,
exactly one year after Madeleine Bejart, with whom, seven-and-twenty
years ago, he had set out from Paris with little more ambition than that
of earning a livelihood by the pursuit of a congenial career.

Moliere placed upon the stage nearly all human passions which lend
themselves to comedy or farce. Sordid avarice, lavish prodigality,
shameless vice, womanly resignation, artless coquetry, greed for money,
downright hypocrisy, would-be gentility, self-sufficient vanity,
fashionable swindling, misanthropy, heartlessness, plain common-sense,
knowledge of the world, coarse jealousy, irresolution, impudence, pride
of birth, egotism, self-conceit, pusillanimity, ingenuity, roguery,
affectations, homeliness, thoughtlessness, pedantry, arrogance, and many
more faults and vices, find their representatives. The language which
they employ is always natural to them, and is neither too gross nor
over-refined. His verse has none of the stiffness of the ordinary French
rhyme, and becomes in his hands, as well as his prose, a delightful
medium for sparkling sallies, bitter sarcasms,