Molière is the greatest name in French literature. The facts as to his youth and early manhood are so wrapped in uncertainty, that it is impossible to say when the frailty of his health first became manifest. When he emerges from obscurity we find him already subject to attacks of illness and forced to limit himself to a milk diet. His best work, however, was still undone. “Tartuffe” was not written until 1664 when Molière was already forty-two years old, and “Le Misanthrope” was performed a year later. Although it had probably long been latent, he first showed unmistakable symptoms of consumption in 1667. In spite of the ravages of disease, and the continual strain of an impossible domestic situation, he produced “Le Bourgois Gentilhomme” three years later, followed by “Les Fourberies de Scapin.” “Le Malade Imaginaire” was written shortly before his death, and it was while acting the title rôle that he ruptured a blood vessel. He died a few hours afterwards, alone, except for the casual presence of two Sisters of Charity. Scarron, poet, dramatist and novelist, lived twenty years in a state of miserable deformity and pain. His head and body were twisted; his legs useless. He bore his sufferings with invincible courage. Scarron was a prominent figure in the literary and fashionable society of his day. His work, however, is very unequal. That the “Roman Burlesque” is a novel of real merit, no competent critic can deny. It was republished during the nineteenth century, not only in the original French but in an English translation. Scarron is also of interest as the first husband of the lady who as Mme. de Maintenon became the wife of Louis XIV. Boileau was the youngest of fifteen children. He is said to have had but one passion, the hatred of stupid books. He was the first critic to demonstrate the poetical possibilities of the French language. His two masterpieces are “L’Art Poétique” and “Lutrin.” “After much depreciation Boileau’s critical work has been rehabilitated and his judgments have been substantially adopted by his successors.” He suffered all his life from constitutional debility. Schiller was a leading spirit of his age, yet from his thirty-second year “every one of his nerves was an avenue of pain.” Nevinson, however, considered “it possible the disease served in some way to increase Schiller’s eager activity and fan his intellect into keener flame.” Carlyle also writes of the poet that “in the midst of his infirmities he persevered with unabated zeal in the great business of his life. His frame might be impaired, but his spirit retained its fire unextinguished.” Schiller wrote some of his noblest and greatest plays during the periods of his most acute suffering. When he died it was found that all his vital organs were deranged.