the sudden acquisition of
immense fortune, become desirous to emulate such as have been educated
in the front ranks of society, in those accomplishments, whether
mental or personal, which cannot be gracefully acquired after the
early part of life is past. A grave, elderly gentleman learning to
dance is proverbially ridiculous; but the same absurdity attaches to
everyone who, suddenly elevated from his own sphere, becomes desirous
of imitating, in the most minute particulars, those who are denizens
of that to which he is raised. It is scarcely necessary to notice that
the ridicule directed against such characters as Monsieur Jourdain
properly applies, not to their having made their fortunes, if by
honest means, but to their being ambitious to distinguish themselves
by qualities inconsistent with their age, habits of thinking, and
previous manners.

The last of this great author's labors was at once directed against
the faculty of medicine, and aimed at its most vulnerable
point--namely, the influence used by some unworthy members of the
profession to avail themselves of the nervous fears and unfounded
apprehensions of hypochondriac patients. Instead of treating imaginary
maladies as a mental disease requiring moral medicine, there have been
found in all times medical men capable of listening to the rehearsal
of these brain-sick whims as if they were real complaints, prescribing
for them as such, and receiving the wages of imposition, instead of
the honorable reward of science. On the other hand, it must be
admitted that the faculty has always possessed members of a spirit to
condemn and regret such despicable practices. There cannot be juster
objects of satire than such empirics, nor is there a foible more
deserving of ridicule than the selfish timidity of the hypochondriac,
who, ungrateful for the store of good health with which nature has
endowed him, assumes the habitual precautions of an infirm patient.

Moliere has added much to the humor of the piece by assigning to the
Malade Imaginaire a strain of frugality along with his love of
medicine, which leads him to take every mode that may diminish the
expense of his supposed indisposition. The expenses of a sick-bed are
often talked of, but it is only the imaginary valetudinarian who
thinks of carrying economy into that department; the real patient has
other things to think of. Argan, therefore, is discovered taxing his
apothecary's bill, at once delighting his ear