inimitable--he has reached a point of perfection to which none of the ancients ever attained." The "Fourberies de Scapin" followed--the play that could excite Boileau's bile; so that not all his admiration of its author could prevent his exclaiming:-- "Dans ce sac ridicule où Scapin s'envelope, Je ne reconnais plus l'auteur du Misanthrope." Still the comedy of tricks and hustle is still comedy, and will amuse; and there crept into the dialogue also the true spirit of Molière; the humour of the father's frequent question: "_Que diable alla-t-il faire dans cette galère_," has rendered the expression a proverb. _The Countess d'Escarbagnas_ is very amusing. The old dowager, teaching country bumpkins to behave like powdered gold-caned footmen; her disdain for her country neighbours, and glory in her title, are truly French, and give us an insight into the deep-seated prejudices that separated noble and ignoble, and Parisians from provincials, in that country before the revolution. The "Femmes Savantes" followed, and was an additional proof that his vein not only was not exhausted, but that it was richer and purer than ever; and that while human nature displayed follies, he could put into the framework of comedy, pictures, that by the grouping and the vivid colouring showed him to be master of his art. The pedantic spirit that had succeeded to the sentimentality of _les Précieuses_, the authors of society, whose impromptus and sonnets were smiled on in place of the exiled Platonists of the _ruelle_, lent a rich harvest. "Les Femme Savantes" echoed the conversations of the select coteries of female pretension. The same spirit of pedantry existed some five and twenty years ago, when the blues reigned; and there was many a "Bustling Botherby to show 'em That charming passage in the last new poem." That day is over: whether the present taste for mingled politics and inanity is to be preferred is a question; but we may imagine how far posterity will prefer it, when we compare the many great names of those days with the "small and far between" of the present. Bluism and pedantry may be the poppies of a wheat-field, but they show the prodigality of the Ceres which produces both. We are tempted, as a last extract, to quote portions of the scene in which the learned ladies receive their favourite, _Trissotin_, with enthusiasm, and he recites his poetry for their delight. "PHILAMINTE. Servez nous promptement votre aimable repas. TRISSOTIN. Pour cette grande faim qu'à mes yeux on expose, Un plat seul de huit vers me semble peu de chose; Et je pense qu'ici je ne ferai pas mal De joindre à l'épigramme, ou bien au madrigal, Le ragoût d'un sonnet qui, chez une princesse, Est passé pour avoir quelque délicatesse. Il est de sel attique assaisonné partout, Et vous le trouverez, je crois, d'assez bon goût.