bouillet, and her daughter Julie D'Angennes (afterwards Duchesse de Montausier,) in the salon bleu, where, with perfumes constantly burning around them, these celebrated would-be savantes received all the soi-disant wits and poets of their day. Madame de Rambouillet died in 1665; Madame de Montausier, Julie, in 1671, one year only before the production of Molière's comedy. The comedy of the Femmes Savantes is considered in France as altogether the most perfectly written piece in the French language. It is said that, turn or twist them how you may, it would be impossible to manufacture a single line of prose out of its matchless verses. We have now come to the greatest of all Molière's creationsthe Misanthrope; and, strange as it may at first appear, we shall perhaps find less matter for comment in this profound and brilliant piece than in any of his other productions. The conduct, as well as the composition of the Misanthrope, is excellent from beginning to end; for, in this case, the dénouement is in perfect keeping with the rest of the piece. From the moment we first see Alceste, we are made acquainted with his character. His treatment of Oronte, and the sonnet, shows his uncompromising sincerity; and his choice of the old song— Si le roi m'avait donné reveals his enthusiastic disposition. Truth and generous enthusiasm-these are the two leading characteristics of Alceste. His hatred of mankind comes from a too exalted idea of what humanity should be; and his love for Célimène is meant to show how ardent and how powerful are the feelings of those who love not many, when they find (or think they find) a single object of affection. It is quite a mistake to imagine that Molière meant to make of Alceste a ridiculous, or even an extravagant character. On the contrary, all that was truly lofty in his own nature he has poured forth in the pages of the Misanthrope; and when the virtuous and austere Duc de Montausier was told by Molière's enemies that the poet had taken him for his model, and intended Alceste to be his portrait- I only wish I could 'flatter myself that it was like,' answered he gravely. We know of nothing more touching than the scenes between Alceste and Célimène. With what tenderness he treats her at times, and how, at others, his irritability and ill-concealed resentment betray the inward workings of his heart, and the tightness with which she has wound herself around it! What can surpass the beauty of these lines?— 'Oui! je voudrais qu'aucun ne vous trouvât aimable ! Que vous n'eussiez ni rang, ni naissance, ni bien ; A fin que de mon cœur l'éclatant sacrifice Vous pût d'un pareil sort réparer l'injustice; Et que j'eusse la joie et la gloire en ce jour De vous voir tenir tout des mains de mon amour!' There never was a more exquisite scene than that in which Alceste, after showing Célimène her own letter to Oronte, entreats her to justify herself. Here again Molière's genius manifests itself. It is a situation frequently resorted to on the stage, to make the injured ask forgiveness from the guilty party; but this never fails to cast a sort of ridicule on the person who is thus trifled with. Alceste, on the contrary, sees clearly that he is deceived; but he avows his weakness, and consents to be wilfully blinded. He is not, for a moment, the dupe of Célimène. You are no doubt deceiving me with your soft ' words,' says he— Mais il n'importe, il faut suivre ma destinée. A votre foi mon âme est toute abandonnée. Je veux voir jusqu'au bout quel sera votre cœur, Where shall we find a more truly dramatic situation than that of the last scene? We know of few things more impressive— we had almost said more solemn. From the moment when, addressing Philinte and Eliante, Alceste exclaims Vous voyez ce que peut une indigne tendresse !' &c. till the fall of the curtain, each succeeding line is stamped with increasing force and beauty. Célimène, far from losing in our estimation by refusing to follow the Misanthrope, rather gains on the contrary. She is at least sincere and true, when she gravely says La solitude effraie une âme de vingt ans : Je ne sens point la mienne assez grande, assez forte, We cannot, in this instance, blame her; but all our sympathies follow Alceste-trahi de toutes parts, accablé d'injustice-and long after we have left the scene of his distress, we cherish a sort of melancholy remembrance of the noble and high-minded being Qui haït tous les hommes; Les uns parcequ'ils sont méchants, et malfaisans ; Upon a nearer examination of the character of the Misanthrope, we are struck by the resemblance it bears, in many points, to Hamlet. Alceste is the Hamlet of the Siècle de Louis XIV., divested of the poetry that belongs exclusively to the North the Hamlet that would have been possible at Versailles-the Hamlet of everyday existence, who, although he perhaps might not, like the princely Dane, arrogate unto himself the right, which is the attribute of Providence alone, to condemn and to revenge, would in many cases repeat, quite naturally, the words of him who says, Man delights me not, nor woman neither.' The Get thee to a nunnery' of Hamlet to Ophelia, would assuredly come fittingly from the lips of Alceste to Célimène. If Molière ever drew, or intended to draw, a portrait of himself in one of his fictitious personages, that portrait is decidedly the Misanthrope. He was,' to use the expression of a contemporary, in private, what he appeared in the moral of his pieces -honest, judicious, kind, frank, generous, and true;' but he had no cause to love the world or mankind. We have reason to believe that, notwithstanding his pretended attachment to the profession of an actor, not all the glory he acquired by his writings made him forget the professional humiliations he sometimes unavoidably endured. There is a passage in the Amphitryon which appears to us to betray his weariness of spirit— Ah! qu'on est peu flatté de louange, d'honneur, Lorsque dans l'âme on souffre une vive douleur! Et que l'on donnerait volontiers cette gloire Pour avoir le répos du cœur!' And when this is coupled with a dedicatory epistle to Louis XIV., in which he says, 'Ceux qui sont nés en un rang élevé ⚫ peuvent se proposer l'honneur de servir votre Majesté dans les 'grands emplois; mais pour moi, toute la gloire où je puis aspirer 'c'est de la réjouir,' we already perceive how slight a compensation his literary fame afforded for the want of universal consideration and honour. Here is a point of contact. between Shakspeare and Molière. Who does not remember the sonnet of the Bard of Avon, where he alludes to his profession as a player ?— Oh! for my sake, do you with fortune chide The guilty goddess of my harmless deeds, That did not better for my life provide Than public means which public custom breeds- To what it works in—like the dyer's hand. Although Molière is incontestably the Father of French Comedy, his successors have profited comparatively little by their model. Those who followed him immediately, or were his contemporaries, fell all, more or less, into the defects he instinctively avoided. All have either produced portraits of individuals, or exaggerated pictures of some one particular vice or folly; but none has succeeded in delineating human nature. Régnard, who died nearly forty years after Molière, is considered one of the best French dramatic writers; but he has all the faults we have mentioned. From Régnard we come to Piron, Le Sage, Gresset, and Marivaux. The merits of the Métromanie, of Turcaret, and of the Méchant, are evidently higher than those of any of Marivaux's comedies; yet he has had a far greater influence on the drama than any one since Molière. He is the inventor of what may be called the langage précieux of the eighteenth century, which, since his time, has been called Marivaudage. Destouches, Sédaine, and a few others, pave the way for Diderot and Beaumarchais. But we remark at this period a total change in the dramatic literature of France. The purer outlines of the grand siècle have given way to glittering and frittered ornament. The Climènes, the Dorantes, and the Aristes, have been superseded by the Baron de Vieuxbois, and Madame de Clainville. Individuals have taken the place of classes; and when we see Frontin and Champagne replace Mascarille and Scapin, and Lisette usurp the office of Dorine, we feel at once that a century has elapsed-that Louis XV. has succeeded to Louis XIV., and Madame de Pompadour to the Marquise de Montespan. The Spanish and Italian aspects of the grand siècle have vanished, and every thing is more decidedly French. St Germain and Versailles no longer witness the solemn fêtes of the plus grand roi du monde; and the media noches have changed their name for that of petits soupers. From Beaumarchais, coupled with Marivaux, spring that host of comic writers who supplied the wants of the theatres in France throughout the Empire, and the Restoration-ending with the production of Scribe. It is certainly deplorabie that in France nothing should be found above Bertrand et Raton, and the Verre d'Eau, to perpetuate the Misanthrope and the Tartuffe. But it is not so much the fault of M. Scribe as of the age. Enchanting the public of the Chaussée d'Antin with a representation of La Chaine, he bears the same relation to Molière exhibiting the Femmes Savantes before the court of Versailles, that the France of the present King-the Monarch who wisely places his chief glory in being the first magistrate of a free people, and who was wont, a few years ago, to walk across the Boulevard with an umbrella under his arm-bears to the France of Louis XIV., when bedecked all over, he proudly advanced into the Parliament to utter the lordly exclamation 'L'Etat, c'est moi!' ART. VI.-Commercial Statistics. A Digest of the Productive Resources, Commercial Legislation, Customs, Tariffs, Navigation, Port and Quarantine Laws and Charges, Shipping, Imports and Exports, and the Monies, Weights, and Measures of all Nations, including all British Commercial Treaties with Foreign States: collected from Authentic Records, and consolidated with especial reference to British and Foreign Products, Trade, and Navigation. By JOHN MACGREGOR, one of the Joint Secretaries of the Board of Trade. Vols. I. and II. 8vo. London: 1844. TH HE work which Mr Macgregor has presented to the public under the above comprehensive title, may be considered as a new and improved edition of the Commercial Tariffs prepared by him under the auspices of the Board of Trade, and officially laid before Parliament. The Lords of Trade have, we think, displayed a judicious liberality in promoting this very useful and instructive undertaking; and we are glad to find that Mr Macgregor's labours have received the approbation of all his successive official Chiefs. A good digest of the laws of this and other countries relating to trade and navigation, had long been wanted. Our older publications, such as Beawes's Lex Mercatoria, had become obsolete; and, until the appearance of Mr M'Culloch's Commercial Dictionary, mercantile men were obliged to grope their way very much in the dark when any thing occurred out of the ordinary routine of the counting-house. The Commercial Dictionary is perfect of its kind; but its plan differs from the present work in embracing many subjects not belonging to the department of foreign trade, whilst its limits could not comprise the immense variety of facts and documents which form the voluminous contents of the work under notice. Mr Macgregor conceived his design on the suggestion and with the decided approval of the late Mr Deacon Hume, who continued to take a warm interest in its progress down to the end of his valuable life. The season was opportune for such a work, in consequence of the consolidation of the customs' laws of the United Kingdom, which had been recently accomplished by Mr Hume, under the direction of Mr Huskisson. Those who remember, as we do, the rudis indigestaque moles of acts, and clauses of acts, in which the mercantile law of this country till lately lay hidden, will agree with us in considering that species of Codification thus effected, as one of the most signal reforms ever accomplished in commercial legislation. There |