t the abortive conceptions of some of his future pieces.
The severe judgment of Moliere suffered his skeletons to perish; but, when
he had discovered the art of comic writing, with equal discernment he
resuscitated them.

Not only had Moliere not yet discovered the true bent of his genius, but,
still more unfortunate, he had as greatly mistaken it as when he proposed
turning _avocat_, for he imagined that his most suitable character was
tragic. He wrote a tragedy, and he acted in a tragedy; the tragedy he
composed was condemned at Bordeaux; the mortified poet flew to Grenoble;
still the unlucky tragedy haunted his fancy; he looked on it with paternal
eyes, in which there were tears. Long after, when Racine, a youth, offered
him a very unactable tragedy,[A] Moliere presented him with his own:
--"Take this, for I am convinced that the subject is highly tragic,
notwithstanding my failure." The great dramatic poet of France opened his
career by recomposing the condemned tragedy of the comic wit in _La
Thebaide._ In the illusion that he was a great tragic actor, deceived by
his own susceptibility, though his voice denied the tones of passion, he
acted in one of Corneille's tragedies, and quite allayed the alarm of a
rival company on the announcement. It was not, however, so when the
author-actor vivified one of his own native personages; then, inimitably
comic, every new representation seemed to be a new creation.

[Footnote A: The tragedy written by Racine was called _Theagene et
Chariclee_, and founded on the tale by Heliodorus. It was the first
attempt of its author, and submitted by him to Moliere, while director of
the Theatre of the Palais Royal; the latter had no favourable impression
of its success if produced, but suggested _La Thebaide_ as a subject for
his genius, and advanced the young poet 100 louis while engaged on his
work, which was successfully produced in 1664.--ED.]

It is a remarkable feature, though not perhaps a singular one, in the
character of this great comic writer, that he was one of the most serious
of men, and even of a melancholic temperament. One of his lampooners wrote
a satirical comedy on the comic poet, where he figures as "Moliere
hypochondre." Boileau, who knew him intimately, happily characterised
Moliere as _le Contemplateur_. This deep pensiveness is revealed in his
physiognomy.

The genius of Moliere, long undiscovered by himself, in its first attempts
in a higher walk did not move