ributes, those of all times, and of all races, are the things
with which, in his higher comedies, Moliere deals. Some transient whim
of fashion may in these supply to him the mould of form that he uses,
but it is human nature itself that supplies to Moliere the substance of
his dramatic creations. Now and again, if you read Moliere wisely and
deeply, you find your laughter at comedy fairly frozen in your throat,
by a gelid horror seizing you, to feel that these follies or these
crimes displayed belong to that human nature, one and the same
everywhere and always, of which also you yourself partake. Comedy,
Dante, too, called his poem, which included the "Inferno." And a
Dantesque quality, not of method, but of power, is to be felt in
Moliere.

This character in Moliere the writer, accords with the character of the
man Moliere. It might not have seemed natural to say of Moliere, as was
said of Dante, "There goes the man that has been in hell." But Moliere
was melancholy enough in temper and in mien to have well inspired an
exclamation such as, 'There goes the man that has seen the human heart.'

A poet as well as a dramatist, his own fellow-countrymen, at least, feel
Moliere to be. In Victor Hugo's list of the eight greatest poets of all
time, two are Hebrews (Job and Isaiah), two Greeks (Homer and AEschylus),
one is a Roman (Lucretius), one an Italian (Dante), one an Englishman
(Shakspeare),--seven. The eighth could hardly fail to be a Frenchman,
and that Frenchman is Moliere. Mr. Swinburne might perhaps make the list
nine, but he would certainly include Victor Hugo himself.

Curiously enough, Moliere is not this great writer's real name. It is a
stage name. It was assumed by the bearer when he was about twenty-four
years of age, on occasion of his becoming one in a strolling band of
players,--in 1646 or thereabout. This band, originally composed of
amateurs, developed into a professional dramatic company, which passed
through various transformations, until, from being at first
grandiloquently self-styled, L'Illustre Theatre, it was, twenty years
after, recognized by the national title of Theatre Francais. Moliere's
real name was Jean Baptiste Poquelin.

Young Poquelin's bent, early encouraged by seeing plays and ballets, was
strongly toward the stage. The drama, under the quickening patronage of
Louis XIII.'s lordly minister, Cardinal Richelieu, was a great public
interest of those times in Paris. Moliere's evil star