ough slighter pieces served as the relief of his
mind between the effort of his chief works. In all, gaiety and good
sense interpenetrate each other. Kindly natured and generous,
Moliere, a great observer, who looked through the deeds of men, was
often taciturn--_le contemplateur_ of Boileau--and seemingly
self-absorbed. Like many persons of artistic temperament, he loved
splendour of life; but he was liberal in his largess to those who
claimed his help. He brought comedy to nature, and made it a study
of human life. His warfare was against all that is unreal and unnatural.
He preached the worth of human happiness, good sense, moderation,
humorous tolerance. He does not indulge in heroics, and yet there
is heroism in his courageous outlook upon things. The disciple of
Moliere cannot idealise the world into a scene of fairyland; he will
conceive man as far from perfect, perhaps as far from perfectible;
but the world is our habitation; let us make it a cheerful one with
the aid of a sane temper and an energetic will. As a writer, Moliere
is not free from faults; but his defects of style are like the
accidents that happen within the bounds of a wide empire. His stature
is not diminished when he is placed among the greatest European
figures. "I read some pieces of Moliere's every year," said Goethe,
"just as from time to time I contemplate the engravings after the
great Italian masters. For we little men are not able to retain the
greatness of such things within ourselves."

To study the contemporaries and immediate successors of Moliere in
comedy--Thomas Corneille, Quinault, Montfleury, Boursault,
Baron--would be to show how his genius dominates that of all his
fellows. The reader may well take this fact for granted.[1]

[Footnote 1: An excellent guide will be found in Victor Fournel's
_Le Theatre au xvii. Siecle, La Comedie_.]

II

With the close of the sanguinary follies of the Fronde, with the
inauguration of the personal government of Louis XIV. and the triumph
of an absolute monarchy, a period of social and political
reorganisation began. The court became the centre for literature;
to please courtiers and great ladies was to secure prosperity and
fame; the arts of peace were magnificently ordered; the conditions
were favourable to ideals of grace and beauty rather than of proud
sublimity; to isolate one's self was impossible; literature became
the pastime of a cultivated society; it might be a trivial pastime,