His last comedy was Le Malade Imaginaire. It was acted for the fourth time on the 17th February, 1673. The principal character represented is that of a sick man, who, to carry on a purpose of the plot, pretends to be dead. This part was played by Moliere himself. The popular story was, that when he was to discover that it was only a feint, he could neither speak nor get up, being actually dead. The wits and epigrammatists made the most of the occurrence; those who could not write good French, treated it with bad Latin. But unluckily for the stability of their conceits, they were not built on the foundation of truth. Though very ill, and obviously in much pain, he was able to finish the play. He went home, and was put to bed: his cough increased violently; a vessel burst in his lungs, and he was suffocated with blood in about half an hour after. He was only in his fifty-second year when this event took place. The King was extremely affected at this sudden loss, by which, as Johnson said of Garrick, the gaiety of nations was eclipsed; and as a strong mark of his regard, he prevailed with the archbishop of Paris to allow of his being interred in consecrated ground. Nothing short of so absolute a King’s interposition could have effected this; for, independently of the general sentence of excommunication then in force against scenic performers, Moliere had drawn upon himself the resentment of the ecclesiastics in particular, by exposing the hypocrites of their cloth, as well as the bigots among the laity. Those who ridicule folly and knavery in all orders of men must expect to be treated as Moliere was, and to have the foolish and knavish of all orders for enemies. During his life, Paris and the court were stirred up and inflamed against the dramatist; and on more than one occasion, he must have fallen a sacrifice to the indignation of the clergy, had he not been protected by the King. The friend of his life did not desert him when he was dead; but procured for his insensible remains that decent respect, which all nations have consented to pay, as a tribute even to themselves.