to do.
I browsed the bigness of my tongue:
Since truth must out, I own it wrong."
On this, a hue and cry arose,
As if the beasts were all his foes.
A wolf, haranguing lawyer-wise,
Denounced the ass for sacrifice,--
The bald-pate, scabby, ragged lout,
By whom the plague had come, no doubt.
His fault was judged a hanging crime.
What! eat another's grass? Oh, shame!
The noose of rope, and death sublime,
For that offence were all too tame!
And soon poor Grizzle felt the same.

Thus human courts acquit the strong,
And doom the weak, as therefore wrong.

It is suitable to add, in conclusion, that La Fontaine is a crucial
author for disclosing the irreconcilable difference that exists, at
bottom, between the Englishman's and the Frenchman's idea of poetry. No
English-speaker, heir of Shakspeare and Milton, will ever be able to
satisfy a Frenchman with admiration such as he can conscientiously
profess for the poetry of La Fontaine.

VII.

MOLIERE.

1623-1673.

MOLIERE is confessedly the greatest writer of comedy in the world. Greek
Menander might have disputed the palm; but Menander's works have
perished, and his greatness must be guessed. Who knows but we guess him
too great? Moliere's works survive, and his greatness may be measured.

We have stinted our praise. Moliere is not only; the foremost name in a
certain department of literature; he is one of the foremost names in
literature. The names are few on which critics are willing to bestow
this distinction. But critics generally agree in bestowing this
distinction on Moliere.

Moliere's comedy is by no means mere farce. Farces he wrote,
undoubtedly; and some element of farce, perhaps, entered to qualify
nearly every comedy that flowed from his pen. But it is not for his
farce that Moliere is rated one of the few greatest producers of
literature. Moliere's comedy constitutes to Moliere the patent that it
does of high degree in genius, not because it provokes laughter, but
because, amid laughter provoked, it not seldom reveals, as if with
flashes of lightning,--lightning playful, indeed, but lightning that
might have been deadly,--the "secrets of the nethermost abyss" of human
nature. Not human manners merely, those of a time, or of a race, but
human att