d his astonishment, "qu'il
faisait de la prose," in the Count de Soissons, one of the uneducated
noblemen devoted to the chase. The memorable scene between Trissotin and
Vadius, their mutual compliments terminating in their mutual contempt, had
been rehearsed by their respective authors--the Abbe Cottin and Menage.
The stultified booby of Limoges, _Monsieur de Pourceaugnac_, and the
mystified millionaire, _Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme_, were copied after life,
as was _Sganarelle_, in _Le Medecin malgre lui_. The portraits in that
gallery of dramatic paintings, _Le Misanthrope_, have names inscribed
under them; and the immortal _Tartuffe_ was a certain bishop of Autun. No
dramatist has conceived with greater variety the female character; the
women of Moliere have a distinctness of feature, and are touched with a
freshness of feeling. Moliere studied nature, and his comic humour is
never checked by that unnatural wit where the poet, the more he discovers
himself, the farther he removes himself from the personage of his
creation. The quickening spell which hangs over the dramas of Moliere is
this close attention to nature, wherein he greatly resembles our
Shakspeare, for all springs from its source. His unobtrusive genius never
occurs to us in following up his characters, and a whole scene leaves on
our mind a complete but imperceptible effect.

The style of Moliere has often been censured by the fastidiousness of his
native critics, as _bas_ and _du style familier_. This does not offend the
foreigner, who is often struck by its simplicity and vigour. Moliere
preferred the most popular and naive expressions, as well as the most
natural incidents, to a degree which startled the morbid delicacy of
fashion and fashionable critics. He had frequent occasions to resist their
petty remonstrances; and whenever Moliere introduced an incident, or made
an allusion of which he knew the truth, and which with him had a settled
meaning, this master of human life trusted to his instinct and his art.

This pure and simple taste, ever rare at Paris, was the happy portion of
the genius of this Frenchman. Hence he delighted to try his farcical
pieces, for we cannot imagine that they were his more elevated comedies,
on his old maid-servant. This maid, probably, had a keen relish for comic
humour, for once when Moliere read to her the comedy of another writer as
his own, she soon detected the trick, declaring that it could not be her
master's. Henc