does a writer venture into the presence of the
great Moliere! As a courtier in your time would scratch humbly (with his
comb!) at the door of the Grand Monarch, so I presume to draw near your
dwelling among the Immortals. You, like the king who, among all his
titles, has now none so proud as that of the friend of Moliere--you
found your dominions small, humble, and distracted; you raised them to
the dignity of an empire: what Louis XIV. did for France you achieved
for French comedy; and the ba'ton of Scapin still wields its sway though
the sword of Louis was broken at Blenheim. For the King the Pyrenees,
or so he fancied, ceased to exist; by a more magnificent conquest you
overcame the Channel. If England vanquished your country's arms, it was
through you that France _ferum victorem cepit_, and restored the dynasty
of Comedy to the land whence she had been driven. Ever since Dryden
borrowed 'L'Etourdi,' our tardy apish nation has lived (in matters
theatrical) on the spoils of the wits of France.

In one respect, to be sure, times and manners have altered. While
you lived, taste kept the French drama pure; and it was the congenial
business of English playwrights to foist their rustic grossness and
their large Fescennine jests into the urban page of Moliere. Now they
are diversely occupied; and it is their affair to lend modesty
where they borrow wit, and to spare a blush to the cheek of the Lord
Chamberlain. But still, as has ever been our wont since Etherege saw,
and envied, and imitated your successes--still we pilfer the plays of
France, and take our _bien_, as you said in your lordly manner, wherever
we can find it. We are the privateers of the stage; and it is rarely,
to be sure, that a comedy pleases the town which has not first been
'cut out' from the countrymen of Moliere. Why this should be, and what
'tenebriferous star' (as Paracelsus, your companion in the 'Dialogues
des Morts,' would have believed) thus darkens the sun of English humour,
we know not; but certainly our dependence on France is the sincerest
tribute to you. Without you, neither Rotrou, nor Corneille, nor 'a
wilderness of monkeys' like Scarron, could ever have given Comedy to
France and restored her to Europe.

While we owe to you, Monsieur, the beautiful advent of Comedy, fair and
beneficent as Peace in the play of Aristophanes, it is still to you that
we must turn when of comedies we desire the best. If you studied with
daily and nightly care