above their proper rank, is wholly
original; it mounts in the close from comedy to the extravagance of
farce, and perhaps in the uproarious laughter of the play we may
discover a touch of effort or even of spasm. The operatic _Psyche_
(1671) is memorable as having combined the talents of Moliere,
Corneille, and Quinault, with the added musical gifts of Lulli.

In _Les Femmes Savantes_ (1672) Moliere returned to an early theme,
with variations suited to the times. The Hotel de Rambouillet was
closed; the new tribe of _precieuses_ had learnt the Cartesian
philosophy, affected the sciences, were patronesses of physics,
astronomy, anatomy. Something of the old romantic follies survived,
and mingled strangely with the pretensions to science and the
pedantries of erudition. Trissotin (doubtless a portrait in
caricature from the Abbe Cotin) is the Tartufe of spurious culture;
Vadius (a possible satire of Menage) is a pedant, arrogant and brutal.
Shall the charming Henriette be sacrificed to gratify her mother's
domineering temper and the base designs of an impostor? The forces
are arrayed on either side; the varieties of learned and elegant folly
in woman are finely distinguished; of the opposite party are Chrysale,
the bourgeois father with his rude common-sense; the sage Ariste;
the faithful servant, Martine, whose grammar may be faulty, but whose
wit is sound and clear; and Henriette herself, the adorable, whom
to know is more of a liberal education than to have explored all the
Greek and Latin masters of Vadius and Trissotin. The final issue of
the encounter between good sense, good nature, reason and folly,
pedantry and pride, cannot be uncertain.

_Le Malade Imaginaire_ was written when Moliere was suffering from
illness; but his energy remained indomitable. The comedy continued
that long polemic against the medical faculty which he had sustained
in _L'Amour Medecin_, _Monsieur de Pourceaugnac_, and other plays.
Moliere had little faith in any art which professes to mend nature;
the physicians were the impostors of a learned hygiene. It was the
dramatist's last jest at the profession. While playing the part of
Argan on February 17, 1673, the "Malade Imaginaire" fell dying on
the stage; he forced a laugh, but could not continue his part; at
ten o'clock he was no more. Through the exertions of his widow a
religious funeral was permitted to an actor who had died unfortified
by the rites of the Church.

Many admirable th