There are few things more surprising, and perhaps it may be added, less satisfactory, in connection with the theory that a subsidized and established theatre tends to encourage the production of works of genius, than the fact of the subsequent disagreement of the players with Lesage. It is almost inconceivable that the man who wrote such a play should not have had it in him to write others of equal, if not greater, goodness. But, as we have seen, Lesage had no opportunity of improving upon _Turcaret_ or repeating his success, being almost immediately diverted from the regular theatre to the _Foire_, where, whatever he may have done, he certainly did not work for posterity. His dramatic career, indeed, was that of Molière reversed. The earlier writer began with a long apprenticeship to farce-writing and then turned his attention to regular comedy, the other began with regular comedy and was afterwards driven to farce. When one considers the special opening which drama presents to a man who, like Lesage, prefers to work on the inventions of others rather than to spin everything out of his own brains, his abandonment of it seems much to be regretted. Perhaps, however, on the whole the world has not lost; for where a play gives amusement now and then to hundreds, a novel gives it constantly to thousands, and it is extremely improbable that the very best work that Lesage could ever have produced in the way of drama would have added to the sum of human enjoyment as much as _Gil Blas_ has added.