tle a man is master of himself, when love has got its usual ascendant over him. Wherefore in answer to what you say, that I have a perfect knowledge of men's hearts, as it appears by the public descriptions I daily make of them, I confess that I made it my chief study to know their weak side; but if I have learned that the danger may be shunned, experience has but too well taught me that it is impossible to avoid it. I judge of it every day by myself.''

He afterwards gives an account of his marriage, and after some reflections, adds, "I am therefore resolved to live with her as if she were not my wife; but if you knew the anguish I am in, you would pity. me my passion is come to such a pitch, that I cannot forbear being concerned for; and when I consider that it is impossible for me to overcome my affection for her, I am apt to fancy that perhaps she finds it no less difficult to conquer her inclinations to be a coquet, and I am more disposed to pity her than to blame her. You will say that none but a poet can love in such a manner; but it is my opinion there is but one sort of love, and that those who have never been so nice, are perfect strangers to true love. Do not you wonder that my reason should serve only to make me sensible of my weakness, without being able to conquer it?" "I must needs tell you," replied his friend," that you are more to be pitied than I thought; but I hope time will cure you, and I beseech you to use your endeavours towards it."

Such was the fate of that wit. In the midst of the acclamations of the whole court, shining with glory, and admired in France and in foreign countries, he was tormented with a thousand domestic griefs. His marriage deprived him of his honour and quiet: nay, he could not have the satisfaction of hating his cross, I mean the person who was the cause of so much vexation. He might have been told, "physician, cure thyself: Moliere, you who give so much diversion

to the public, cannot you divert yourself? You laugh at every body, you give very good advice to the poor cuckolds, why do not you make use of it yourself first?" Perhaps he said a thousand times, as Horace did, "I had rather be accounted the meanest of all authors, than have so much wit, and live such an uneasy life.”

(Boileau's Criticism.)

BOILEAU found fault with Moliere for humouring too much those that sat in the pit; which is a reasonable censure in some respects, but unjust in the main. Moliere was dead when Boileau praised him in one of his epistles; as much, or more, than in the satire he had inscribed to him. It is therefore a great piece of injustice to say, that he praised him out of policy, and for fear of being bantered by him upon the stage, if he should say nothing to his advantage, or if he should venture to criticise him. But some will say, he criticised him when he had nothing to fear, and therefore the suspicion entertained of him seems to be well grounded. I am not of that opinion; I believe that if he had made his Art Poëtique in Moliere's life-time, he would have inserted in it the censure contained in the following verses. It was, in a manner, essential to his subject; there is in it a judicious observation, which should be an inviolable rule, if comedies were only made to be printed; but because they are chiefly designed to appear on the stage in the presence of all sorts of people, it is not just to require they should be adapted to Boileau's

taste.

These are his words:

:

Etudiez la cour, & connoissez la ville,

L'une & l'autre est toûjours en modeles fertile.
C'est par là que Moliere illustrant ses écrits

Peut-être de son art eût remporté le prix ;

very

Si moins ami du peuple en ses doctes peintures,
Il n'eût point fait souvent grimacer ses figures,
Quitté pour le bouffon, l'agréable & le fiu.

Et sans honte à Terence allié Tabarin,
Dans ce sac ridicule où Scapin s'envelope,
Je ne reconnois plus l'auteur du Misanthrope.
DESPERAUX Art. Poétique, Canto iii, ver. 391, & seq.

Study the court, and know the city well:
So shall your various characters excel.
It was by this that Moliere in his plays
Perhaps, as victor, might have claim'd the bays;
If he, to please the rabble of the town,
Had not sometimes affected the buffoon;
Preferr'd low farce and drollery to wit,
And more like Tabarin than Terence writ.
In that same bag which Scapin doth enclose,
The author of the Misanthrope I lose.

He blames Moliere for endeavouring to please, not
only men of a nice judgment, but also the common
people. Moliere had some reasons for it, and might
have said what Arlequin answered in a like case.
"Those jests, said I to him, (to Arlequin) are plea-
sant enough in your plays; it is pity they are not
equally good. I own it, replied he, but they please
several young people, who come to our play-house
only to laugh, and who laugh at any thing, and very
often without knowing why. Our plays are fre-
quently acted before such people, and if our jests
were not suited to their capacity, our house would be
very often empty. I am sorry, said I to him, that
you have almost left your old pieces off; they were
well approved by men of sense, they contained many
things of good use in morality, and I dare say, that
your stage was a place where vice was so effectually
ridiculed, that every body found himself inclined to
love virtue merely out of reason.
Should we act
none but our old pieces, replied he, our play-house
would be little resorted to, and I will tell you what
Cinthio formerly told St Evremond, that good actors

would be starved notwithstanding their excellent plays." It ought to be observed, that players are at great charges, and that plays are no less designed for the diversion of the people, than for the diversion of the senate; and therefore they must be adapted to the taste of the public, in order to bring a numerous audience; for without that, although they were a perfect compound of ingenious, nice, and exquisite thoughts, the actors would be ruined by them, and they would be of no use to the people.

This is what may be said, not only against those who censure Moliere, but also against those who find fault with many other books, because they do not consider the several uses they are designed for, and because there are many things in them which they could wish the author had left out. What do I care for that, says one? What is it to me, says another, that such a one had a bad wife? To what purpose so many quotations, so many merry thoughts, so many philosophical reflections, &c? Such are the complaints of those who censure this dictionary: but they will give me leave to tell them, that they want the most necessary notion to pass a right judgment upon this work. They do not consider that it ought to be of some use to all sorts of readers, and that if it had been entirely framed according to the taste of the greatest purists; it would go out of its natural sphere. I would have them to consider, that if I had kept to their notions of perfection, my book would indeed have been acceptable to them, but then many others had been displeased with it, and it had remained in the dust of the booksellers' warehouses. What a poor thing would two or three large folios be for him, if there were nothing in them but what may please those who pretend to gravity, and to an exquisite taste, and who would have the most copious subjects explained in the shortest way? They may, if they please, make such a reflection as Socrates

made at the sight of a fair; but the fair will nevertheless be as it ought to be.*-Art. MOLIERE.

MOTION.

(Arguments of Zeno against the existence of.)

SOME objections of Zeno against the existence of motion, are preserved in Aristotle's works. Read Aristotle's Physics,† where you will find four objec tions made by Zeno examined.

The first is If an arrow, which tends towards a certain place, should move, it would move and rest at the same time. But that is a contradiction; therefore it doth not move. The consequence of the major is proved thus. The arrow is every moment in a space equal to itself. It is then at rest; for a thing is not in a space when it leaves it: wherefore there is no moment in which it moves; and if it moved in some moments, it would be at once in motion and at rest. To understand this objection the better, we must take notice of two principles which cannot be denied: one is, that a body cannot be in two places at once; the other, that two parts of time cannot exist together. The first of these two principles is so evident, even without making use of any attentior, that I need not explain it but as the other requires a little more reflection, in order to be understood, and comprehends the whole force of the objection, I will render it more obvious by an instance. I say then that what suits Monday and Tuesday with respect to succession, suits every portion of time whatsoever. Since then it is impossible for Monday and Tuesday to exist together, and that of necessity Monday must cease to be before Tues

*The fellow feeling of Bayle with Arlequin on this occasion is very amusing; so would a numerous tribe of buzzing periodical dramatic critics be much injured by a full consideration of his reasoning on the situation of theatrical proprietors.-ED. + In the ninth chapter of the sixth book.