or even
near him. The "Gambler" is admirably done; but it is the only comedy in
which Regnard attempted character. He drew from his experience. Moliere
was so skilful a moral anatomist that he required only a whim or a
weakness to construct a consistent character. This wonderful man found
the French comic stage occupied by a few stock personages, imported from
Spain and Italy. The elders were fathers or uncles, rich, miserly, and
perverse, instinctively disposed to keep a tight rein on the young
people, of whose personal expenses and matrimonial projects they
invariably disapproved. The persecuted juniors were all alike, colorless
shadows, mere lay figures to hang a plot on: _Leandre, amant de
Celimene; Celimene amante de Leandre_: helpless creatures, who would
have been quite at the mercy of the old dragons of the story, were it
not for the powerful assistance of the rascally soubrettes. These clever
sinners abounded in cunning contrivances, disguises, and tricks, which
resulted in the signal discomfiture of the parents and guardians. In the
last act, they are forced to consent to all the marriages, and are
cheated out of most of their property; they are even lucky to escape
with their lives. There was no mercy for Age in those plays.

"Pluck the lined crutch from the old limping sire;
With it beat out his brains."

The theatre was the temple of youth, of love, and of feasting. Away with
the dull old people! Providence created them only to pay the bills.

"Fuyez d'ici, sombre vieillesse,--
Car en amour les vieillards ne sont bons
Qu'a payer les violons."

Did gentlemen of a certain age go to the theatre in the seventeenth
century? expend their money to see themselves abused and ridiculed? Did
they laugh at these indignities and enjoy them? We might wonder, if we
did not know that Frenchmen never grow old, so long as they have an eye
left for ogling or a leg to caper with.

Moliere took these old inhabitants of the stage into his service, and
injected new life into their veins. He gave them the foibles, the
follies, and the vices he saw about him, and made them speak in a new
language of unrivalled wit, humor, and mirth. But his genius was
shackled by the artificial conventions of the theatre, which did not
allow him time or space to fully develop a character. A grand comic
creation like Falstaff was impossible. He introduces a single propensity
of mankind, exhibits it in all its relations t