your beautiful eyes, fair Marchioness, make me;" or else, "Me
make your beautiful eyes die, fair Marchioness, of love."

M. JOUR. But of all these ways, which is the best?

PROF. PHIL. The one you said,--"Fair Marchioness, your beautiful
eyes make me die of love."

M. JOUR. Yet I have never studied, and I did all right off at the
first shot.

The "Bourgeois Gentilhomme" is a very amusing comedy throughout.

From "Les Femmes Savantes" ("The Learned Women")--"The Blue-Stockings,"
we might perhaps freely render the title--we present one scene to
indicate the nature of the comedy. There had grown to be a fashion in
Paris, among certain women high in social rank, of pretending to the
distinction of skill in literary criticism, and of proficiency in
science. It was the Hotel de Rambouillet reduced to absurdity. That
fashionable affectation Moliere made the subject of his comedy, "The
Learned Women."

In the following extracts, Moliere satirizes, under the name of
Trissotin, a contemporary writer, one Cotin. The poem which Trissotin
reads for the learned women to criticise and admire, is an actual
production of this gentleman. Imagine the domestic _coterie_ assembled,
and Trissotin, the poet, their guest. He is present, prepared to regale
them with what he calls his sonnet. We need to explain that the original
poem is thus inscribed: "To Mademoiselle de Longueville, now Duchess of
Namur, on her Quartan Fever." The conceit of the sonneteer is that the
fever is an enemy luxuriously lodged in the lovely person of its victim,
and there insidiously plotting against her life:--

TRISSOTIN. Sonnet to the Princess Urania on her Fever, Your
prudence sure is fast asleep, That thus luxuriously you keep And
lodge magnificently so Your very hardest-hearted foe.

BELISE. Ah! what a pretty beginning!

ARMANDE. What a charming turn it has!

PHILAMINTE. He alone possesses the talent of making easy verses.

ARM. We must yield to _prudence fast asleep_.

BEL. _Lodge one's very hardest-hearted foe_ is full of charms for
me.

PHIL. I like _luxuriously_ and _magnificently_: these two adverbs
joined together sound admirably.

BEL. Let us hear the rest.

TRISS. Your prudence sure is fast asleep, That thus luxuriously you
keep And lodge magnificently so Your very hardest-hearted foe.

ARM. _Prudence fast asleep._

BEL. _To