CAMBRIDGE ESSAYS.

THE LIFE AND GENIUS OF MOLIÈRE.

W Poquelin, alias Molière? What are the elements and

THAT are the authentic facts in the life of Jean Baptiste

characteristics of that genius which his works bewray? To what extent are those elements and characteristics, on the one hand the produce of that spirit by which the whole literature of his age was governed, or, on the other, the true and genuine manifestation of the man's own soul? The vices and foibles he so greatly dares to ridicule, do they change their nature and their name, when stripped of point-lace and peruke? are they like clocks and ruffles à la Louis Quatorze? has mankind outgrown them, like measles or hooping-cough, or are they a chronic disease, affecting every age and condition of society? Such are the main inquiries towards the solution of which the writer of these pages would fain hope, in his measure and degree, to contribute something, were it but a mite. As regards the events in Molière's life, we plume ourselves less on the facts narrated than on the fictions omitted -fictions at which most biographers, we allow, are prone to sip, but which Molière's swallow at a gulp. In like manner, as regards our criticisms, we have no desire to be original at the risk of being wrong, holding it sorry wisdom to act in such matters after the fashion of those birds of whom old Fuller speaks, who cannot take wing except the wind be contrary. At the same time, we are determined to think for ourselves, firmly believing, with Molière, that 'la bonne façon de juger d'une pièce, est de se laisser prendre aux choses, et de n'avoir ni prévention aveugle, ni complaisance affectée, ni délicatesse ridicule.' (La Critique de l'Ecole des Femmes. Scene vi.)

B

It behoves us, in limine, to say a word or two on the various sources of every kind, which we have at our disposal. Manuscripts of Molière there are none.* Confided by his widow to the care of Lagrange, an actor in the 'troupe' and an editor of the collected works of the great poet, it is conjectured that they came to the hammer, on the death of that individual, which took place in 1692. We have relegated to a note such other facts as are to be gleaned respecting their subsequent history. It was in the year 1682 that Lagrange, aided by Vinot, also a friend of Molière, completed his editorial labours. To the general reader it may not be an oft-told tale, that of the edition thus completed, and as it came from the press, one solitary copy is known to exist. In the technical language of French bibliography, an edition of any work is said to be 'cartonnée' when the integrity of any of the sheets composing it is destroyed by the substitution of one or more detached leaves, called 'cartons,' in the place of such fourth, eighth, twelfth, &c. parts of the sheet as have been deemed objectionable. To this process (by which Voltaire recommended superseding lists of errata) Molière's works were subjected; the only copy which escaped interpolation, and thus preserved the genuine text of Molière's plays, having belonged to M. de la Reynie, who hurled the thunders of censorship at the time, in his capacity of lieutenant général de police.' The chief stumbling-block was the famous scene with the beggar, in Don Juan, but other passages shared the same fate. It is only within a comparatively recent period that these inter

* Having been led to conjecture that the Archives of the Comédie Française might contain some precious relics of Molière's handwriting, we availed ourselves of the kindness of a common friend to procure from M. Samson, of histrionic celebrity, some precise information on this subject. The result we give in his own words :- Aucun manuscrit, pas une seule ligne de la main de Molière n'existe dans les archives du Théâtre Français. Les manuscrits ont ils en effet été anéantis par l'incendie du Théâtre ? (This took place in 1799.) Quelques personnes croient qu'ils avaient disparu avant ce temps: ils assignent à cette disparition des causes qu'il est inutile de rapporter puisque ce ne sont que de simple conjectures et que rien n'est prouvé à cet égard.' M. Samson here alludes to a vague rumour that in 1792 Fabre d'Eglantine purloined certain papers of Molière's writing, which, up to that time had been in the possession of the Comédie Française. He goes on to state that he has himself a fac simile of a signature by Molière appended to a receipt, of which the original, he believes, exists at the Bibliothéque Impériale. Apropos of relics of Molière, we may add that the same letter informs us, that there is no reason whatever for supposing that the 'fauteuil' always used in representations of the Malade Imaginaire is the same as that in which Molière (so runs the legend) was seized with no imaginary malady.

Editio Princeps of Molière.

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polations were discovered. La Revnie's copy found its way to Constantinople, and it was not till 1833 that it was added to the treasures of M. de Soleine's famous collection of dramatists. Bought by him for only 3., it was sold, at his decease, for upwards of ten times that amount, to M. Armand Bertin, the lamented editor of the Journal des Débats. What sum it may ultimately realise, it would be hazardous to conjecture. Suffice it to say, that last year, in spite of the Eastern question, it was knocked down for 501. to the Comte de Montalivet. To dwell upon the importance of this unique copy as the touchstone of Molière's text, seems superfluous. The edition of 1682 has, however, a further merit, which remained unscathed by the scissors of censorship-the Preface furnishes the only narrative of the events in Molière's career on which we can rely with implicit confidence. By what it says, no less than by what it leaves unsaid, it refutes a number of silly misstatements-to use no harsher term-with which later biographers have not scrupled to season their pages. Grimarest's work, for example, the standard authority for all that might have taken place in Molière's life, is there proved to merit Boileau's summary criticism,— ́ a book not worth speaking of,'-by which yet later biographers would have done well to abide.

The most recent edition of Molière's works (Didot, Paris, 1855, Edition Lefévre) combines with great cheapness both the advantages as to the text and the life of Molière which have here been ascribed to the edition of 1682. We owe it to the courtesy of Messieurs Didot, from whose press it issued last year, that the four octavo volumes of which it is composed are now at our elbow, while we are writing these pages. After carefully examining its contents, we feel no scruple whatever in recommending it warmly to the English public. The notes -selected from the best commentators have the rare merit of being excellent in kind, without being oppressive in number.

We pass at a bound from the earliest to the latest biographer of Molière, from 1682 to 1851. To a man of greater critical acumen than M. Bazin, the standard historian of the reign of Louis XIII., the task of exposing the danger of forsaking the fountain head, Lagrange, for that broken cistern, Grimarest, could with difficulty have been confided. Into any æsthetical criticism of Molière's plays, the Notes Historiques sur la Vie de Molière (Paris, Techener, 1851), does not pretend to enter. Still, its value can scarcely be overrated, such is the shrewdness, so inexorable the rigour, with which all preceding biographies of Molière are dissected and scrutinized. One defect, and a very grave defect it is, this book certainly has. It is written in a spirit of acrimony and self-sufficiency, which

B 2

leads one to suppose that the author believed himself, by special licence infallible; a notion very much the reverse of the truth. We have recently put ourselves in communication with M. Taschereau, the author (it is superfluous to state) of by far the most elaborate life of Molière that has yet been given to the public. As this work has, not unfrequently, been made the object of M. Bazin's somewhat flippant censures, we thought it but fair to the author to see what could be said in defence. Courteous by double right,—a Frenchman and a man of letters,—M. Taschereau sent us some highly valuable notes, in which he shows that even M. Bazin has been betrayed into hypotheses and statements which will not bear examination. Of these notes we shall make fitting use, and we are too glad to put on record the obligations we are under to M. Taschereau for not having suffered his onerous duties at the Bibliothéque Impériale to interfere with his complying with our request. When his Vie de Molière first appeared (1825), Sir Walter Scott introduced it to the notice of English readers by an able article in the Foreign Quarterly Review. We regret that the fourth edition, which came into the world a short time ago, has not now met with a worthier godfather. And now to business, commencing with the particulars usual at the threshold of a biographical narrative.*

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It would appear, then,-and we can produce our vouchers, -that on the 27th of April, 1621, Jean Poquelin, tapissier,' led to the hymeneal altar one Marie Cressé, and that of this marriage was born, in due course, to wit, on the 15th January, 1622, Jean Baptiste Poquelin, hereafter to be surnamed Molière. Tourists to Paris may have observed a small narrow building, in the Rue de la Tonnellerie, No. 3, leading from the Rue St. Honoré, the groundfloor whereof is occupied by one Naudin, who furnishes Draperies et Nouveautés' to the lieges of Paris. In a circular niche over the shop stands a bust, and under the niche runs the following inscription: 'J. B. Poquelin de Molière. Cette maison a été bâtie sur l'emplacement de celle où il naquit l'an 1620.' Dot it all down in your note-book, Mr. Sightseer; but, hark you! leave room to add : 'This is the house, as 1620 is the year, in which Molière was not born.' In a city such as Paris, where so much attention is paid to mementos of the worthies of France, it seems curious that the authorities who have charge of public monu

*In enumerating the sources at our disposal, we must not omit M. Génin's Lexique de la Langue de Molière, a valuable repertory of words and idioms peculiar to Molière. The English reader should be warned, however, that many of M. Génin's philological crotchets have not been endorsed by other and greater masters of the art.

Social Status of Molière's Father.

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ments should never have repaired the mistake committed in 1799 and discovered in 1833. It was the house forming the corner of the Rue St. Honoré (No. 96) and the Rue des Vieilles Étuves (No. 2), that ought to have borne the words 'siste viator.' In Molière's day it went by the designation of 'La maison des singes,' the beam forming the angle of the street having been covered with sculptures of the thirteenth century, representing a knowing old monkey sitting quietly at the bottom of a tree, up which his more thoughtless and impetuous comrades clambered with such vehemence that all the apples left the boughs and became the prize of the gentleman at the base, whose physiognomy, if one may judge from the engraving in the Musée Français (the sculptures themselves are lost), wears an expression of serene contempt. To our apprehension, the device was not unworthy of the house of one who so sagaciously scanned the follies of those educated monkeys called men.

Molière's father, we have said, exercised the vocation of 'tapissier.' Those who bear in mind the degree of refinement which we are warranted in attributing to the furniture of those days-witness the specimens in the Louvre, or the Maison Cluny, and the 'inventaires' in the archives of the Bibliothéque Impériale-will not fall into the error of supposing, with some of Molière's biographers, that the position of tapissier,' occupied by M. Poquelin, senior, and others of that 'ilk,' was necessarily situate on the lowest rounds of the social ladder, or incompatible with any but inferior mental acquirements. Unless, indeed, they be taken in the snare by which so many biographers lame their veracity beyond hope of cure, and think to enhance the glories of Molière's meridian splendour by shrouding his aurora in murky clouds. doubt it makes a pretty frontispiece to a life of Molière, to represent him as compelled by a stern sire to aid in decorating the salons of Paris, and to forego furnishing his own brain, that upper story of the house of flesh. That one who was destined by fate (whatever that is) to polish his mother tongue with the graces of thought should be doomed to spend life's early prime in polishing his father's tables with spirit of turpentine; this, indeed, if properly seasoned with expressions of indignation against the father, and of admiration for the nascent genius of the son, might make a book lively, thrilling, readable—anything but probable, just, or true.

No

That we are warranted in attributing to Molière's father a higher social status than is generally conceded to him will, we think, appear from the fact, that in 1631 he was appointed by Louis XIII. tapissier valet-de-chambre' to the Crown. We gather from authentic sources that these functionaries were

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