rpose."
Madame Campan's anecdote of a similar courtesy, on the part of Louis the
Fourteenth, is also well known; who, when several of these functionaries
refused to sit at table with the comedian, kindly invited him to sit down
with him, and, calling in some of his principal courtiers, remarked that
"he had requested the pleasure of Moliere's company at his own table, as
it was not thought quite good enough for his officers." This rebuke had
the desired effect.

Moliere died in 1673, he had been long affected by a pulmonary complaint,
and it was only by severe temperance that he was enabled to preserve even
a moderate degree of health. At the commencement of the year, his malady
sensibly increased. At this very season, he composed his _Malade
Imaginaire_; the most whimsical, and perhaps the most amusing of the
compositions, in which he has indulged his raillery against the faculty.
On the 17th of February, being the day appointed for its fourth
representation, his friends would have dissuaded him from appearing, in
consequence of his increasing indisposition. But he persisted in his
design, alleging "that more than fifty poor individuals depended for
their daily bread on its performance." His life fell a sacrifice to his
benevolence. The exertions which he was compelled to make in playing the
principal part of _Argan_ aggravated his distemper, and as he was
repeating the word _juro_, in the concluding ceremony, he fell into a
convulsion, which he vainly endeavoured to disguise from the spectators
under a forced smile. He was immediately carried to his house, in the
_Rue de Richelieu_, now No. 34. A violent fit of coughing, on his
arrival, occasioned the rupture of a blood-vessel; and seeing his end
approaching, he sent for two ecclesiastics of the parish of St. Eustace,
to which he belonged, to administer to him the last offices of religion.
But these worthy persons having refused their assistance, before a third,
who had been sent for, could arrive, Moliere, suffocated with the
effusion of blood, had expired in the arms of his family.

Moliere died soon after entering upon his fifty-second year. He is
represented to have been somewhat above the middle stature, and well
proportioned; his features large, his complexion dark, and his black,
bushy eye-brows so flexible, as to admit of his giving an infinitely
comic expression to his physiognomy. He was the best actor of his own
generation, and by his counsels, formed the