It must be remarked that, in the favourite of these learned ladies of the stage, _Trissotin_, the spectators perceived the Magnus Apollo of the real ones, l'abbé Cotin; and, as the epigram _Trissotin_ recites was really written by Cotin, there can be no doubt that Molière held up the literary productions of the man to ridicule--but it is false that he made him personally laughable. Cotin was a priest; and, when Molière made _Trissotin_ a layman, who aspired to the hand of one of the personages, he might believe that he took all personal sting from his satire. The public fixed the name of _Vadius_ on Menage: the latter was far too clever to allow that the cap fitted. "Is it to be borne that this man should thus make game of us?" said madame de Rambouillet to Menage, on their return from the first representation of the play. "Madame," said Menage, "the play is admirable; there is not a word to be said against it." Molière's career was drawing to a close; he was overworked, and did not take sufficient care of his health: he despised the medicinal art such as it then existed, and rejected its remedies. "What do you do with your doctor?" asked the king, when Molière applied for a canonicate for the son of M. de Mauvillain, the physician, whose patient he said "he had the honour to be." "We converse together," he replied; "he writes prescriptions which I do not take, and I recover." A weak chest and a perpetual cough was indeed best medicated by the sober regimen and milk diet to which he long adhered; and while he adhered to it his life seemed safe. Mutual friends had interfered with success in reconciling him and his wife; and the order of his simple table being altered by her presence, he yielded to her instigations in adopting a more generous diet: his cough became worse, in consequence. [Sidenote: 1673. Ætat.] When he brought out the "Malade Imaginaire" he was really ill; but such was his sense of duty towards his fellow comedians, that he would not be turned from his intention of acting the principal character. The play was warmly received. Though more adverse to our taste and tone than almost any of Molière's, it is impossible not to be highly amused. Sir Walter Scott well remarks, that the mixture of frugality and love of medicine in the "Malade Imaginaire" himself is truly comic: his credulity as to the efficacy of the draughts, and his resolution only to pay half-price for them--his anxious doubts of whether, in the exercise prescribed to him he is to walk across his room, or up and down--his annoyance at having taken one third less physic this month than he had done the last and his expostulation at the cost,--"_C'est se moquer, il faut vivre avec les malades--si vous en usez comme cela, on ne voudra plus être malade--mettez quatre francs, s'il vous plait_,"--is very comic; as is also the sober pedantry of _Thomas Diafoirus_, and his long orations, when he addresses his intended bride as her mother, is in the