But on behalf of the moderation which for him was the secret of social wisdom, he fought a lifelong battle with a courage and persistence that have rarely been equalled. His lack of doctrine was due not to any moral indifference, but to his sense of the unlimited energy and possibilities of life. The human spirit was for him too various to be limited by any formula.
The style of Moliere, in verse and prose, was a reflection of his free spirit and his candid intelligence. He wrote with extreme facility, but he was never a sloven. He is both voluble and pre cise. His prose dialogue is unequalled outside the plays of Shakes peare, and his verse has an ease and variety that make it imme diately tolerable even to the foreign reader for whom the French alexandrine is a taste to be painfully acquired. The most exacting authors of the classical tradition, like Boileau, no less than their romantic successors, like Victor Hugo, unite in praising the style of Moliere from opposite angles. Foreign readers, though their appreciation of French may be limited, rarely fail to appreciate the lucidity and vivacity of his writing.
For Moliere's personal appearance we have the portraits of Mignard and the description of Mademoiselle Poisson, who saw him in the flesh : he was "neither too stout nor too thin, tall rather than short ; he had a noble carriage, a good leg, walked slowly and had a very serious expression. His nose was thick, his mouth large with thick lips, his complexion brown, his eyebrows black and strongly marked, and it was his way of moving these that gave him his comic expression on the stage." He was of a grave and melancholy disposition—a contemplative genius, given to fits of abstraction. But he could speak well on occasion, and all his friends bear witness to the wit and charm of his conversation. In his private dealings he was generous, sympathetic and candid, tolerant for the faults he understood so well, delicate in his appre ciation of the views and sentiments of others. He was free, gentle and fearless. Exposed to a criticism and calumny such as few men have had to sustain, we can find in him no trace of envy or malice and nothing mean was ever charged to his account.
the best biography of Moliere (vol. ix.) and a bibliography which is complete up to 1893 (vol. The earliest life of Moliere is the preface to the first edition of his works published in 1682 by La Grange and Vinot. This is included in the edition of Despois et Mesnard. Grimarest, who obtained most of his information from Baron, a young actor who was for many years in the company of Moliere, published a life of the dramatist in 1705 ; he is, however, untrustworthy. The life of Moliere by Voltaire throws more light upon its author than upon his subject, and the excellent biography of Taschereau (5863) requires careful correction in the light of recent research. The life prefixed by Ste. Beuve to the edition of 1825 is of more value as criticism than biography. Among later biographies are those of Jules Claretie (1873) ; J. J. Weiss (1900) ; Georges Lafenestre (1909) ; Maurice Donnay (19II). The contemporary sources may be studied in the documents collected by Edouard Soulie, Recherches sur Moliere et sa famille (1863), and the Collection Molieresque of Paul Lacroix (1867-75). This last work contains the more important contemporary libels including La Fameuse Comedienne, Elomire Hypocondre and Zelinde. It was supplemented by a Nouvelle Collec tion Molieresque, begun by Paul Lacroix (1863-84) and continued by Georges Monval who also edited a monthly review, Le Molieriste, an important source of information (1879-89).
Among the authors who have dealt with the problems of the marriage and family relations of Moliere are Jules Loiseleur in Les Points obscurs de la vie de Moliere (1877) and Edouard Fournier in Etudes sur la vie de Moliere and Le Roman de Moliere (1885). The most searching and authoritative modern studies in the biography of Moliere are Gustave Michaut's; he critically reviews all the previous evidence and gives the results in La Jeunesse de Moliere (1922) , Les Debuts de Moliere a Paris and Les Luttes de Moliere (1925).
Critical studies of Moliere will be found in the works of Jules Lemaitre, Impressions de theatre (1888-9o) ; P. Bourget, Etudes et Portraits (1889) ; Brunetiere, Epoques du Theatre FrarKais (1892), and Etudes Critiques sur l'histoire de la literature Francaise (1895— 2908). (J. PA.)