with the flowery
language of the pharmacopoeia, and gratifying his frugal disposition
by clipping off some items and reducing others, and arriving at the
double conclusion, first, that if his apothecary does not become more
reasonable, he cannot afford to be a sick man any longer; and
secondly, that as he has swallowed fewer drugs by one-third this month
than he had done the last, it was no wonder that he was not so well.
The inference, "_Je le dirai a Monsieur Purgon, a fin qu'il mette
ordre a cela_," is irresistibly comic.

As the Malade Imaginaire was the last character in which Moliere
appeared, it is here necessary to say a few words upon his capacity as
an actor. He bore, according to one contemporary, and with justice,
the first rank among the performers of his line. He was a comedian
from top to toe. He seemed to possess more voices than one; besides
which, every limb had its expression--a step in advance or retreat, a
wink, a smile, a nod, expressed more in his action, than the greatest
talker could explain in words in the course of an hour. He was, says
another contemporary, neither corpulent nor otherwise, rather above
the middle size, with a noble carriage and well-formed limbs; he
walked with dignity, had a very serious aspect, the nose and mouth
rather large, with full lips, a dark complexion, the eyebrows black
and strongly marked, and a command of countenance which rendered his
physiognomy formed to express comedy. A less friendly pen (that, of
the author of "L'Impromptu de l'Hotel de Conde") has caricatured
Moliere as coming on the stage with his head thrown habitually back,
his nose turned up into the air, his hands on his sides with an
affectation of negligence, and (what would seem in England a gross
affectation, but which was tolerated in Paris as an expression of the
_superbia quoesita meritis_) his peruke always environed by a crown of
laurels. But the only real defect in his performance arose from an
habitual _hoquet_, or slight hiccough, which he had acquired by
attempting to render himself master of an extreme volubility of
enunciation, but which his exquisite art contrived on almost all
occasions successfully to disguise.

[Illustration: A Dinner at the House of Moliere at Auteuil.]

Thus externally fitted for his art, there can be no doubt that he who
possessed so much comedy in his conceptions of character, must have
had equal judgment and taste in the theatrical expression, and that
onl