at last the term _precieuse_ as a
designation of ridicule. Madame de Sevigne was a _precieuse_. But she,
with many of her peers, was too rich in sarcastic common sense to be a
_precieuse ridicule_. Moliere himself, thrifty master of policy that he
was, took pains to explain that he did not satirize the real thing, but
only the affectation.

"Tartuffe, or the Impostor," is perhaps the most celebrated of all
Moliere's plays. Scarcely comedy, scarcely tragedy, it partakes of both
characters. Like tragedy, serious in purpose, it has a happy ending
like comedy. Pity and terror are absent; or, if not quite absent, these
sentiments are present raised only to a pitch distinctly below the
tragic. Indignation is the chief passion excited, or detestation,
perhaps, rather than indignation. This feeling is provided at last with
its full satisfaction in the condign punishment visited on the impostor.

The original "Tartuffe," like the most of Moliere's comedies, is written
in rhymed verse. We could not, with any effort, make the English-reading
student of Moliere sufficiently feel how much is lost when the form is
lost which the creations of this great genius took, in their native
French, under his own master hand. A satisfactory metrical rendering is
out of the question. The sense, at least, if not the incommunicable
spirit, of the original is very well given in Mr. C. H. Wall's version,
which we use.

The story of "Tartuffe" is briefly this: Tartuffe, the hero, is a pure
villain. He mixes no adulteration of good in his composition. He is
hypocrisy itself, the strictly genuine article. Tartuffe has completely
imposed upon one Orgon, a man of wealth and standing. Orgon, with his
wife, and with his mother, in fact, believes in him absolutely. These
people have received the canting rascal into their house, and are about
to bestow upon him their daughter in marriage. The following scene from
act first shows the skill with which Moliere could exhibit, in a few
strokes of bold exaggeration, the infatuation of Orgon's regard for
Tartuffe. Orgon has been absent from home. He returns, and meets
Cleante, his brother, whom, in his eagerness, he begs to excuse his not
answering a question just addressed to him:--

ORGON (_to_ CLEANTE). Brother, pray excuse me: you will kindly
allow me to allay my anxiety by asking news of the family. (_To_
DORINE, _a maid-servant_.) Has every thing gone on well these last
two days? What