Chapter V: Part 5

The next few years of Newton’s life were not marked by any remarkable events. They were passed almost entirely at Cambridge, in the prosecution of the researches in which he was engaged. The most important incident was the communication to Oldenburgh, and, through him, to Leibnitz, that he possessed a method of determining maxima and minima, of drawing tangents, and performing other difficult mathematical operations. This was the method of fluxions, but he did not announce its name or its processes. Leibnitz, in return, explained to him the principles and processes of the Differential Calculus. This correspondence took place in the years 1676 and 1677: but the method of fluxions had been communicated to Barrow and Collins as early as 1669, in a tract, first printed in 1711, under the title ‘Analysis per equationes numero terminorum infinitas.’ Newton had indeed intended to publish his discovery as an introduction to an edition of Kinckhuysen’s Algebra, which he undertook to prepare in 1672; but the fear of controversy prevented him, and the method of fluxions was not publicly announced till the appearance of the Principia in 1687. The edition of Kinckhuysen’s treatise did not appear; but the same year, 1672, was marked by Newton’s editing the Geography of Varenius.

In 1679 Newton’s attention was again called to the theory of gravitation, and by a fuller investigation of the conditions of elliptical motion, he was confirmed in the opinion that the phenomena of the planets were referable to an attractive force in the sun, of which the intensity varied in the inverse proportion of the square of the distance. The difficulty about the amount of the moon’s motion remained, but it was shortly to be removed. In 1679 Picard effected a new measurement of a degree of the earth’s surface, and Newton heard of the result at a meeting of the Royal Society in June, 1682. He immediately returned home to repeat his former calculation with these new data. Every step of the process made it more probable that the discrepance which had so long perplexed him would wholly disappear: and so great was his excitement at the prospect of entire success that he was unable to proceed with the calculation, and intrusted its completion to a friend. The triumph was perfect, and he found the theory of his youth sufficient to explain all the great phenomena of nature.

From this time Newton devoted unremitting attention to the development of his system, and a period of nearly two years was entirely absorbed by it. In 1684 the outline of the mighty work was finished; yet it is likely that it would still have remained unknown, had not Halley, who was himself on the track of some part of the discovery, gone to Cambridge in August of that year to consult Newton about some difficulties he had met with. Newton communicated to him a treatise De Motu Corporum, which afterwards, with some additions, formed the first two books of the Principia. Even then Halley found it difficult to persuade him to communicate the treatise to the Royal Society, but he finally did so in April, 1686, with a desire that it should not immediately be published, as there were yet many things to complete. Hooke, whose unwearied ingenuity had guessed at the true law of gravity, immediately claimed to himself the honour of the discovery; how unjustly it is needless to say, for the merit consisted not in the conjecture but the demonstration. Newton was inclined in consequence to prevent the publication of the work, or at least of the third part, De Mundi Systemate, in which the mathematical conclusions of the former books were applied to the system of the universe. Happily his reluctance was overcome, and the whole work was published in May, 1687. Its doctrines were too novel and surprising to meet with immediate assent; but the illustrious author at once received the tribute of admiration for the boldness which had formed, and the skill which had developed his theory, and he lived to see it become the common philosophical creed of all nations.

We next find Newton acting in a very different character. James II. had insulted the University of Cambridge by a requisition to admit a Benedictine monk to the degree of Master of Arts without taking the oaths enjoined by the constitution of the University. The mandate was disobeyed; and the Vice-Chancellor was summoned before the Ecclesiastical Commission to answer for the contempt. Nine delegates, of whom Newton was one, were appointed by the University to defend their proceedings; and their exertions were successful. He was soon after elected to the Convention Parliament as member for the University of Cambridge. That parliament was dissolved in February, 1690, and Newton, who was not a candidate for a seat in the one which succeeded it, returned to Cambridge, where he continued to reside for some years, notwithstanding the efforts of Locke, and some other distinguished persons with whom he had become acquainted in London, to fix him permanently in the metropolis.

During this time he continued to be occupied with philosophical research, and with scientific and literary correspondence. Chemical investigations appear to have engaged much of his time; but the principal results of his studies were lost to the world by a fire in his chambers about the year 1692. The consequences of this accident have been very differently related. According to one version, a favourite dog, called Diamond, caused the mischief, and the story has been often told, that Newton was only provoked, by the loss of the labour of years, to the exclamation, “Oh, Diamond! Diamond! thou little knowest the mischief thou hast done.” Another, and probably a better authenticated account, represents the disappointment as preying deeply on his spirits for at least a month from the occurrence.

We have more means of tracing Newton’s other pursuits about this time. History, chronology, and divinity were his favourite relaxations from science, and his reputation stood high as a proficient in these studies. In 1690 he communicated to Locke his ‘Historical account of two notable corruptions of the Scriptures,’ which was first published long after his death. About the same time he was engaged in those researches which were afterwards embodied in his Observations on the Prophecies: and in December, 1692, he was in correspondence with Bentley on the application of his own system to the support of natural theology.

During the latter part of 1692 and the beginning of 1693 Newton’s health was considerably impaired, and he laboured in the summer under some epidemic disorder. It is not likely that the precise character or amount of his indisposition will ever be discovered; but it seems, though the opinion has been much controverted, that for a short time it affected his understanding, and that in September, 1693, he was not in the full possession of his mental faculties. The disease was soon removed, and there is no reason to suppose that it ever recurred. But the course of his life was changed; and from this time forward he devoted himself chiefly to the completion of his former works, and abstained from any new career of continued research.

His time indeed was less at his own disposal than it had been. In 1696, Mr. Montague, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, an early friend of Newton, appointed him to the Wardenship of the Mint, and in 1699 he was raised to the office of Master. He removed to London, and was much occupied, especially during the new coinage in 1696 and 1697, with the duties of his office. Still he found time to superintend the editions of his earlier works, which successively appeared with very material additions and improvements. The great work on Optics appeared for the first time in a complete form in 1704, after the death of Hooke had freed Newton from the fear of new controversies. It was accompanied by some of his earlier mathematical treatises; and contained also, in addition to the principal subject of the work, suggestions on a variety of subjects of the highest philosophical interest, embodied in the shape of queries. Among these is to be found the first suggestion of the polarity of light; and we may mention at the same time, although they occur in a different part of the work, the remarkable conjectures, since verified, of the combustible nature of the diamond, and the existence of an inflammable principle in water. The second edition of the Principia appeared under the care of Cotes in 1713, after having been the subject of correspondence between Newton and his editor for nearly four years. Dr. Pemberton published a third edition in 1725, and he frequently communicated about the work with Newton who was then eighty-two years old.

These were the chief scientific employments of Newton’s latter life: and it is not necessary to particularize all its minor details. In 1712 he made some improvements in his Arithmetica Universalis, a work containing his algebraical discoveries, of which Whiston had surreptitiously published an edition in 1707. It is also worthy of remark that at the beginning of the year 1697, John Bernouilli addressed two problems as a challenge to the mathematicians of Europe, and that Leibnitz in 1716 made a similar appeal to the English analysts; and that Newton in each case undertook and succeeded in the investigation.

This enumeration of Newton’s philosophical employments has far outrun the order of time. After his return to London, compliments and honours flowed in rapidly upon him. In 1699 he was elected one of the first foreign associates of the Académie des Sciences at Paris; and in 1701 he was a second time returned to Parliament by the University of Cambridge. He did not, however, long retain his seat. At the election in 1705 he was at the bottom of the poll, and he does not appear again to have been a candidate. In 1703 he was chosen President of the Royal Society, and held that office till his death. In 1705 he was knighted by Queen Anne upon her visit to Cambridge.

Newton’s life in London was one of much dignity and comfort. He was courted by the distinguished of all ranks, and particularly by the Princess of Wales, who derived much pleasure from her intercourse both with him and Leibnitz. His domestic establishment was liberal, and was superintended during great part of his time by his niece, Mrs. Barton, a woman of much beauty and talent, who married Mr. Conduitt, his assistant and successor at the Mint. Newton’s liberality was almost boundless, yet he died rich.

The only material drawback to Newton’s enjoyment during this portion of his life, seems to have arisen from controversies as to the history and originality of his discoveries; a molestation to which his slowness to publish them very naturally exposed him. There was a long and angry dispute with Leibnitz about the priority of fluxions or the differential calculus; and, after the fashion of most disputes, it diverged widely from the original ground, and it became necessary for Newton to vindicate the religious and metaphysical tendencies of his greatest works. His success was complete on all points. Leibnitz does not appear to have been acquainted with the method of fluxions at the time of his own discovery, but there is now no doubt of Newton’s having preceded him by some years; and the attacks made on the tendency of Newton’s discoveries have long been remembered only as disgracing their author. But such discussions had always been distasteful to Newton, and this controversy, which was conducted with great rancour by his opponents and some of his supporters, embittered his later years.

The same fate awaited him in another instance. His system of Chronology had been long conceived, but he had not communicated it to any one until he explained it to the Princess of Wales. At her desire, he afterwards, in 1718, drew up a short abstract of it for her use, and sent it to her on condition that no one else should see it. She afterwards requested that the Abbé Conti might have a copy of it, and Newton complied, but still on the terms that it should not be farther divulged. Conti, however, showed the manuscript at Paris to Freret, who, without the author’s permission, translated and published it with observations in opposition to its doctrines. Newton drew up a reply which was printed in the Philosophical Transactions for 1725, and this was the signal for a new attack by Souciet. Newton was then roused to his last great exertion, that of fully digesting his system; which as yet existed only in confused papers, and preparing it for the press. He did not live to complete his task, but the work was left in a state of great forwardness, and was published in 1728 by Mr. Conduitt. Its value is well known. As a refutation of the systems of chronology then received, it is almost demonstrative; and the affirmative conclusions, if not always minutely correct, or even generally satisfactory, are yet among the most valuable contributions which science has made to history.

With the exception of the attack of 1693, Newton’s health had usually been very good. But he suffered much from stone during the last few years of his life. His mental faculties remained in general unaffected, but his memory was much impaired. From the year 1725 he lived at Kensington, but was still fond of going occasionally to London, and visited it on February 28th, 1727, to preside at a meeting of the Royal Society. The fatigue appears to have been too great: for the disease attacked him violently on the 4th of March, and he lingered till the 20th, when he died. His sufferings were severe, but his temper was never soured, nor the benevolence of his nature obscured. Indeed his moral was not less admirable than his intellectual character, and it was guided and supported by that religion, which he had studied not from speculative curiosity, but with the serious application of a mind habitually occupied with its duties, and earnestly desirous of its advancement.

Newton died without a will, and his property descended to Mrs. Conduitt and his other relations in the same degree. He was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey, where there is a monument to his memory, erected by his relations. His Chronology appeared, as has been already mentioned, almost immediately after his death; and the Lectiones Opticæ, the substance of his lectures at Cambridge in the years 1669, 1670, and 1671, were published from his manuscripts in 1729. In 1733, Mr. Benjamin Smith, one of the descendants of his mother’s second marriage, published the Observations on the Prophecies. These, in addition to the works already mentioned, are Newton’s principal writings; there are, however, several smaller tracts, some of which appeared during his lifetime, and some after his death, which it is not necessary here to specify. They would have conferred much honour on most philosophers;—they are hardly remembered in reckoning up Newton’s titles to fame.

Many portraits of Newton are in existence. The Royal Society possesses two; and Lord Egremont is the owner of one, which is engraved as the frontispiece to Dr. Brewster’s Life of Newton. Trinity College, Cambridge, abounds in memorials of its greatest ornament. Almost every room dedicated to public purposes possesses a picture of him, and the chapel is adorned by Roubiliac’s noble statue. The library also has a bust by the same artist, of perhaps even superior excellence. As works of art these are far superior to any of the paintings extant: but they have not the claim to authenticity possessed by the contemporary portraits. It is remarkable, that until the recent publication of Dr. Brewster’s life, no one had thought it worth while to devote an entire work to the history of so remarkable a man as Newton. There is, however, an elaborate memoir of him, written by M. Biot, in the Biographie Universelle, which has been republished in the Library of Useful Knowledge.

_Engraved by R. Woodman._

MICHAEL ANGELO BUONAROTI.

_From a Picture by V. Campil, in the possession of the Right Hon. Lord
Dover._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London. Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._
]

MICHAEL ANGELO

Michael Angelo Buonaroti was born at the castle of Caprese in Tuscany, on March 6, 1474–5. He was descended from a noble, though not a wealthy family; and his father endeavoured to check the fondness for drawing which he showed at an early age, lest he should disgrace his parentage by following what was then deemed little better than a mechanical employment. Fortunately for the arts, the bent of the son’s genius was too decided to be foiled by the parent’s pride; and in April, 1488, young Buonaroti was placed under the tuition of Ghirlandaio, then the most eminent painter in Italy.

He soon distinguished himself above his fellow pupils, and was fortunate in attracting the notice of Lorenzo de Medici; but the early death of his patron, and the troubles which ensued in Florence, clouded the brilliant prospects which seemed open to him. He first visited Rome when about twenty-two years old, at the invitation of Cardinal St. Giorgio; and resided in that city for a year, without being employed to execute anything for his pretended patron. He obtained three commissions, however, from other quarters; one for a Cupid, a second for a statue of Bacchus, a third for a Virgin and dead Christ, which forms the altar-piece of a chapel in St. Peter’s. The latter work was the most important, and established his character as one of the first sculptors of the day.

Returning to Florence soon after the appointment of Sodarini to be perpetual Gonfaloniere, or standard-bearer, an office equivalent to that of president of the republic, he found ampler room for the development of his talents in the favour of the chief magistrate; for whom he executed the celebrated statue of David, in marble, placed in front of the Palazzo Vecchio; and another statue of David, and a group of David and Goliath, both in bronze. To this period we are also to refer an oil picture of a Holy Family, painted for Angelo Doni, and now in the Florence gallery; the only oil painting which can be authenticated as proceeding from his hand.

The accounts of Michael Angelo’s early life relate so exclusively to his skill and practice as a sculptor, that some wonder may be felt as to the means by which he acquired the technical science and dexterity necessary to the painter. But it was in composition, and as a draughtsman that he excelled, not as a colourist; and the same intimate knowledge of the human figure, and freedom and boldness of hand, which guided his chisel, often, it is said, without a model, will account for the anatomical excellence and energy of his drawings. Nevertheless it is surprising to find him at this early age rivalling, and indeed by general suffrage excelling in his own art Leonardo da Vinci, not only the first painter of his generation, but one of the most accomplished persons of his age. The work to which we allude, the celebrated Cartoon of Pisa, painted as a companion to a battle-piece of Leonardo, has long disappeared; and is generally supposed to have been destroyed clandestinely by Baccio Bandinelli, a rival artist, of whose envious and cowardly temper some amusing anecdotes are related in Benvenuto Cellini’s autobiography. It represented a party of Florentine soldiers, disturbed, while bathing in the Arno, by a sudden call to arms. Only one copy of it is said to exist, which is preserved in Mr. Coke’s collection at Holkham.

When Julius II. ascended the papal chair, he invited Michael Angelo to Rome, and commissioned him to erect a splendid tomb. The original design, a sketch of which may be seen in Bottari’s edition of Vasari, was for an insulated building, thirty-four feet six inches by twenty-three feet, ornamented with forty statues, many of colossal size, and a vast number of bronze and marble columns, basso-relievos, and every species of architectural decoration of the richest sort. This commission, upon the due execution of which Michael Angelo set his heart, as a worthy opportunity of immortalizing his name, was destined to involve him in a long train of vexations. During the life of Julius, the attention which he wished to concentrate on this one great work was distracted by a variety of other employments forced on him by his patron. Upon his death, it was resolved to finish it on a smaller scale: but its progress was then more seriously interrupted by the eagerness of successive Popes to employ the great artist on works which should immortalize their own names as liberal patrons of the arts. Ultimately, after much dissatisfaction and dispute on the part of Pope Julius’s heirs, the form of the monument was altered; and as it now stands in the church of St. Pietro in Vinculis, it consists only of a façade, ornamented by seven statues, three of which are from the hand of Michael Angelo, the others are by inferior artists. The central figure is the celebrated Moses, by many considered the finest modern work of sculpture; and this is the only part of the original composition.

During the same pontificate, Michael Angelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine chapel. The employment was not to his taste; but it was forced upon him by Pope Julius. He had never tried his powers in fresco painting; and that branch of the art, as is well known, involves many difficulties, which, though merely mechanical, it requires some practice and experience to surmount. Having first completed the design in a series of cartoons, he sent to Florence to engage the ablest assistants to be found: but their labours were unsatisfactory, and dismissing them, he set to work himself, and executed the whole vault with his own hands, in the short space of twenty months.

Julius II. died in 1513. The next nine years, comprehending the pontificate of Leo X., are an entire blank in Michael Angelo’s life, so far as regards the practice of his art. He was employed the whole time, by the Pope’s express order, in superintending some new marble quarries in the mountains of Tuscany.

During the pontificate of Adrian VI. he resided at Florence, where Giuliano de Medici, afterwards Clement VII., employed him to build a new library and sacristy to the church of St. Lorenzo, and a sepulchral chapel, to serve as a mausoleum for the ducal family. He was also employed to execute two monuments in honour of Giuliano, the brother, and Lorenzo de Medici, the nephew, of Leo X. The princes are represented seated, in the Roman military habit, above two sarcophagi. Below are two recumbent figures to each monument, one pair representing Morning and Evening; the other, Day and Night. The reason for this singular choice of personages is not explained.

We cannot enter upon the maze of Italian politics, which led to the siege of Florence by the imperial troops in 1529–30. Michael Angelo’s well-known and varied talent led to his being appointed chief engineer and master of the ordnance to the city; in which capacity he gained new honour by his skill, resolution, and patriotism. During this turbulent time he began a picture of Leda, which was sent to France, and fell into the possession of Francis I. It has long been lost; the original cartoon is in the collection of the Royal Academy.

Michael Angelo’s second work in fresco, the Last Judgment, occupying the east end of the Sistine chapel, seems to have been begun in 1533 or 1534. It was not finished till 1541. His last and only other works of this kind were two large pictures in the Pauline chapel, representing the Martyrdom of St. Peter, and the Conversion of St. Paul. These were not completed till he had reached the advanced age of seventy-five.

In 1546 died Antonio da San Gallo, the third architect employed in the rebuilding of St. Peter’s. The project of renewing the metropolitan church of Rome was first suggested to the ambitious mind of Pope Julius II. by the impossibility of finding any place in the then existing cathedral, worthy of the splendid monument which he had ordered Michael Angelo to execute. Bramante, Raphael, and San Gallo, were successively appointed to conduct the mighty undertaking, and removed by death. San Gallo had deviated materially from the design of Bramante. Michael Angelo disapproved of his alterations; but was deterred from returning to the original plan by its vast extent, and the necessity of contracting the extent of the work so as to meet the impoverished state of the Papal treasury, produced by the spreading of the Reformation in Germany and England. He accordingly gave in the design from which the present building was erected, which, gigantic as it is, falls short of the dimensions of that which Julius proposed to raise. Having now reached the advanced age of seventy-one, it was with reluctance that he undertook so heavy a charge. It was, indeed, only by the absolute command of the Pope that he was induced to do so; and on the unusual condition that he should receive no salary, as he accepted the office purely from devotional feelings. He also made it a condition that he should be absolutely empowered to discharge any persons employed in the works, and to supply their places at his pleasure.

To the independent and upright feelings which led him to insist on this latter clause, the factious opposition, which harassed the remainder of his life, is partly to be ascribed. Disinterested himself, he suffered no peculation under his administration; and he was repaid by the hatred of a powerful party connected with those whose vanity his appointment wounded, or whose interests his honesty crossed. Repeated attempts were made to procure his removal, to which he would willingly have yielded, but for a due sense of the greatness of the work which he had undertaken, and reluctance to quit it, until too far advanced to be altered and spoiled by some inferior hand. This praiseworthy solicitude was not disappointed. During the life of Paul, and through four succeeding pontificates, he held the situation of chief architect; and before his death, in February, 1563–4, the cupola was raised, and the principal features of the building unalterably determined.

His earlier architectural works are to be seen at Florence. They consist of the façade and sacristy of the church of St. Lorenzo, left unfinished by Brunelleschi, the mausoleum of the Medici family, and the Laurentian library. During the latter part of his life he amused his leisure hours by working on a group representing a dead Christ, supported by the Virgin and Nicodemus, which he intended for an altar-piece to the chapel in which he should himself be interred. It was never finished, however, and is now in the cathedral of Florence. But, from the time of his assuming the charge of St. Peter’s, his attention was almost entirely devoted to architecture. His chief works were the completion of the Farnese palace, begun by San Gallo; the palace of the Senator of Rome, the picture galleries, and flight of steps leading up to the convent of Araceli, all situated on the Capitoline hill; and the conversion of the baths of Diocletian into the church of S. Maria degli Angeli.

Michael Angelo, though he painted few pictures himself, frequently gave designs to be executed by his favourite pupils, especially Sebastiano del Piombo. Such was the origin of the magnificent Raising of Lazarus, in the National Gallery. Like many artists of that age, he aspired to be a poet. His works consist chiefly of sonnets, modelled on the style of Petrarch. Religion and Love are the prevailing subjects.

The Life of Michael Angelo, by Mr. Duppa, will gratify the curiosity of the English reader, who wishes to pursue the subject beyond this mere list of the artist’s principal works. To the Italian reader we may recommend the lives of Condivi and Vasari, as containing the original information from which subsequent writers have drawn their accounts. To do justice to the versatile, yet profound genius of this great man, is a task which we must leave to such writers as Reynolds and Fuseli, in whose lectures the reader will find ample evidence of the profound admiration with which they regarded him. Nor can we conclude better than with the short but energetic character given by the latter, of his favourite artist’s style of genius, and of his principal works:—

“Sublimity of conception, grandeur of form, and breadth of manner, are the elements of Michael Angelo’s style. By these principles he selected or rejected the objects of imitation. As painter, as sculptor, as architect, he attempted, and above any other man, succeeded, to unite magnificence of plan, and endless variety of subordinate parts, with the utmost simplicity and breadth. His line is uniformly grand: character and beauty were admitted only as far as they could be made subservient to grandeur. To give the appearance of perfect ease to the most perplexing difficulty, was the exclusive power of Michael Angelo. He is the inventor of epic painting, in that sublime circle of the Sistine chapel which exhibits the origin, the progress, and the final dispensations of theocracy. He has personified motion in the groups of the Cartoon of Pisa; embodied sentiment on the monuments of S. Lorenzo; unravelled the features of meditation in the Prophets and Sibyls of the Sistine chapel; and in the Last Judgment, with every attitude that varies the human body, traced the master-trait of every passion that sways the human heart. Though, as sculptor, he expressed the character of flesh more perfectly than all who came before or went after him, yet he never submitted to copy an individual, Julius II. only excepted; and in him he represented the reigning passion rather than the man. In painting he has contented himself with a negative colour, and as the painter of mankind, rejected all meretricious ornament. The fabric of St. Peter’s, scattered into infinity of jarring parts by Bramante and his successors, he concentrated; suspended the cupola, and to the most complex gave the air of the most simple of edifices. Such, take him for all in all, was M. Angelo, the salt of art: sometimes he no doubt had his moments of dereliction, deviated into manner, or perplexed the grandeur of his forms with futile and ostentatious anatomy: both met with armies of copyists; and it has been his fate to be censured for their folly.”—(Lecture II.)

JACKSON

From the Monument of Giuliano de Medici.
]

_Engraved by J. Posselwhite._

MOLIERE.

_From the original Picture of Lebrun’s School, in the collection of
the Musée Royale. Paris._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London. Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._
]

MOLIERE

Moliere, the contemporary of Corneille and Racine, whose original and real name was Jean Baptiste Poquelin, was born at Paris on the 15th January, 1622. His father and mother were both in trade; and they brought up their son to their own occupation. At the age of fourteen, young Poquelin could neither read, write, nor cast accounts. But the grandfather was very fond of him; and being himself a great lover of plays, often took his favourite to the theatre. The natural genius of the boy was, by this initiation, kindled into a decided taste for dramatic entertainments: a disgust to trade was the consequence, and a desire of that mental cultivation from which he had hitherto been debarred. His father consented at length to his becoming a pupil of the Jesuits at the College of Clermont. He remained there five years, and was fortunate enough to be the class-fellow of Armand de Bourbon, Prince de Conti, whose friendship and protection proved of signal service to him in after-life. He studied under the celebrated Gassendi, who was so impressed by the apparent aptitude of young Poquelin to receive instruction, that he admitted him to the private lectures given to his other pupils. Gassendi was in the habit of breaking a lance with two great rivals: Aristotle, at the head of ancient, and Descartes, then at the head of modern philosophy. By witnessing this combat, Poquelin acquired a habit of independent reasoning, sound principles, extensive knowledge, and that feeling of practical good sense, which was so conspicuous not only in his most laboured, but even in his lightest productions.

His studies under Gassendi were abruptly terminated by the following circumstance. His father was attached to the court in the double capacity of valet-de-chambre and tapestry-maker; and the son had the reversion of these places. When Louis XIII. went to Narbonne in 1641, the old man was ill, and the young one was obliged to officiate for him. On his return to Paris, his passion for the stage, which had first led him into the paths of literature, revived with renewed strength. The taste of Cardinal de Richelieu for theatrical performances was communicated to the nation at large, and a peculiar protection was granted to dramatic poets. Many little societies were formed for acting plays in private houses, for the amusement at least of the performers. Poquelin collected a company of young stage-stricken heroes, who so far exceeded all their rivals, as to earn for their establishment the pompous title of The Illustrious Theatre. He now determined to make the stage his profession, and changing his name, according to the usage in such cases, adopted that of Moliere.

He disappears during the time of the civil wars, from 1648 to 1652; but we may suppose the interval to have been passed in composing some of those pieces which were afterwards brought before the public. When the disturbances ceased, Moliere, in partnership with an actress of Champagne, named La Béjard, formed a strolling company; and his first regular piece, called L’Etourdi, or the Blunderer, was performed at Lyons in 1653. Another company of comedians settled in that town was deserted by the spectators in favour of these clever vagabonds; and the principal performers of the regular establishment took the hint, pocketed their dignity, and joined Moliere. The united company transferred itself to Languedoc, and were retained in the service of the Prince of Conti. During the Carnival of 1658, the troop, having resumed their vagrant life, were playing at Grenoble. The following summer was passed at Rouen. When so near Paris, Moliere made occasional journeys thither, with the earnest hope of bettering his fortune in the metropolis, where the market for talent is always brisk and open, the competition, though severe, fair and encouraging. Once more he received protection from his august fellow-collegian, who introduced him to Monsieur, and ultimately to the King himself. The company appeared before their Majesties and the court for the first time, on the 3d of November, 1658, on a stage erected in the Hall of the Guards in the Old Louvre. Their success was so complete that the King gave orders for their permanent settlement in Paris, and they were allowed to act alternately with the Italian players in the Hall of the Petit Bourbon. In 1663 a pension of a thousand livres was granted to Moliere, and in 1665 his company was taken altogether into the King’s service.

As in the course of about fifteen years he produced more than double that number of dramatic pieces, instead of giving, within our narrow limits, a mere dry catalogue of titles, we shall make some more detailed remarks on a few of those masterpieces, in different styles, which not only raised the character of French comedy to a great height in France itself, but in a great measure furnished the staple to some of our own most distinguished writers.

Among many persons of taste and judgment, the Misantrope has borne the character of being the most finished of all Moliere’s pieces; of combining the most powerful efforts of united genius and art. The subject is single, and the unities are exactly observed. The principal person of the drama is strongly conceived, and brought out with the boldest strokes of the master’s pencil: it is throughout uniform, and in strict keeping. The subordinate persons are equally well drawn, and fitted for their business in the scene, so as to throw an artist-like light upon the chief figure. The scenes and incidents are so contrived and conducted as to diversify the main character, and set it in various points of view. The sentiments are strong and nervous as well as proper; and the good sense with which the piece is fraught, proves that the bustle and dissipation of the court and the theatre had not obliterated the lessons of the college, or the lectures of Gassendi. The title of the play will at once bring to the mind of an Englishman our own Timon of Athens; but there are scarcely any other points of resemblance. The ancient and the modern Man-hater had little in common: the Athenian was the victim of personal ill-treatment; having suffered by excess of good-nature and credulity, he runs into the other extreme of suspicion and revenge. Moliere’s Man-hater owes his character to the severity of virtue, which can give no quarter to the vices of mankind; to that sincerity which disdains indiscriminate complaisance, and the prostitution of the language of friendship to the flattery of fools and knaves. Wycherley, in his Plain Dealer, has given the French Misantrope an English dress. Manly is a character of humour, speaking and acting from a peculiar bias of temper and inclination; but the coarseness of the _plain dealing_ is not to be tolerated, and what Manly _does_ goes near to counteract the moral effect of what he _says_.

By way of contrasting the various talents of the author, than whom none better understood human nature in its various ramifications, or copied more skilfully every shade and gradation of manners, we may just mention the Bourgeois Gentilhomme, exhibiting the folly and affectation of a cit turned man of fashion. If the moral of the Misantrope be pure, the wit of the Bourgeois is terse and diverting.

In several of his comedies he has treated medicine and its professors not only with freedom but severity; it was, however, perverted medicine only, and its quack professors that were the subjects of his ridicule. The respectable members of the faculty could be no more affected by the satire, nor displeased by what they could not fear, than a true prophet by the punishment of imposture. Those who are acquainted with the history of the science will recollect the state of it at Paris in Moliere’s time, and the character of the physicians. Their whole employment was confined to searching after visionary specifics, and experimental trickery in chemistry. The cause of a disease was never inquired after, nor the symptoms regarded; but hypothetical jargon and random prescription were thrown like dust into the eyes of the patient, to the exclusion of a practice founded on science and observation. Thus medicine became a pest instead of a remedy; and this state of things justified the chastisement inflicted.

Les Précieuses Ridicules is a comedy intended to reprove a vain, fantastical, and preposterous humour prevailing very much about that time in France. It had the desired effect, and conduced materially towards rooting out a taste in manners so unreasonable and ridiculous.

Tartuffe, or The Impostor, has occasionally, and even recently, sometimes to the disturbance of the public peace in France, given great offence not only to those who felt the justice, and winced under the severity of the satire; but to others, who suspected that a blow was aimed at religion, under the mask of an attack upon hypocrisy. But its intrinsic merit, the truth of the drawing, and the justness of the colouring, have secured patrons for it among persons of unquestionable sense, virtue, learning, and taste; and it has always triumphed over the violence of opposition. Cibber, a vamper of other men’s plays, has borrowed from it his favourite Nonjuror, and applied it to the purposes of a political party. On this adaptation has been grafted a more modern attack on the Methodists, under the title of The Hypocrite. But however great may be the merit of this celebrated drama, it cannot boast of entire originality. Machiavelli left behind him three comedies, the fruits of a statesman’s leisure hours. In all three, the author has exhibited the hand of a master; he has painted mankind in the spirit of truth, and unmasked falsehood and hypocrisy in a tone of profound contempt. Two monks, a brother Timothy and a brother Alberico, are represented with too much wit and keenness of sarcasm to have been overlooked by Moliere in his working up of the third specimen. The first three acts of the Tartuffe were played for the first time at court before the piece was finished. Masques of pomp, magnificence and panegyric, such as usually furnish out the amusement of royal saloons, are forgotten as soon as they have served the purpose of the moment: but masterpieces like that now in question perpetuate their own renown, and leave a lasting memorial of what is supposed to be a phenomenon, a princely taste for genuine wit.

Les Fâcheux was the first piece in which dancing was so connected with the dramatic action, as to fill up the intervals without breaking the thread of the story.

Le Mariage Forcé was borrowed from Rabelais, to whom both Moliere and La Fontaine were deeply indebted. The Aristotelian and Pyrrhonian philosophy, as travestied by modern doctors, furnishes occasion for lively satire and clever buffoonery. The horror with which Pancrace calls down the vengeance of heaven on him who should dare to say the _form_ of a hat, instead of the _figure_ of a hat, is a pleasant parody on the unintelligible absurdities of the schools. According to Marphurius, philosophy commands us to suspend our judgment, and to speak of every thing with uncertainty; not to say _I am come_, but, _I think that I am come_.

La Princesse d’Elide, though not one of Moliere’s happiest efforts, deserves notice on account of its contributing to the festivities of the court, by an adaptation of ingenious allegories to the manners and events of the time. This satire was aimed at the illusion of Judicial Astrology, after which many princes of the period were running mad; and in particular Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, father of the Duchess of Burgundy, who kept an astrologer about his person even after his abdication. The dramatic antiquary may find some amusement in comparing the fêtes of the French court with the masques of Ben Jonson, Davenant, and others, exhibited before our James I. and Charles I.; but here the interest ends. It is sufficient to remark, that the masques of the English court owed their power of pleasing to the ingenuity of the machinist and the flattery of the poet. The little dramas performed before the royal family of France tickled the ears of the audience by the pungency of their wit and ridicule.

The Miser has been pretty closely translated, for the version is little more, by Henry Fielding; but not so happily as he himself seems to have imagined.

The subject of that excellent comedy, Les Femmes Savantes, in which the ridicule is kept within reasonable bounds, and female faults and virtues are painted with a proper gradation of colouring, where what the painters call a _medium tint_ harmonizes the extremes of light and shade, was taken up by Goldoni with that coarse and abrupt pencilling of black and white, which has always been the vice of the Italian stage. It has indeed been advanced as a reproach to Moliere, that he too often charged his comic pictures with the extravagance of caricature: but if we compare even the most farcical of his scenes with the speaking pantomimes and half-improvisations of Italy, we must pronounce him a model of delicacy and classical propriety.

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.

Voltaire characterizes Moliere as the best comic poet of any nation; and treats the posthumous hostility which made a difficulty about his burial as a reproach both to France and to the Catholic religion. Professing to have reperused the comedians of antiquity for the purpose of comparison, he gives it as his judgment, that the French dramatist is entitled to the preference. He grounds this decision on the art and regularity of the modern theatre, contrasted with the unconnected scenes of the ancients, their weak intrigues, and the strange practice of declaring by the mouths of the actors, in cold and unnatural monologues, what they had done and what they intended to do. He concludes by saying that Moliere did for comedy what Corneille had done for tragedy; and that the French were superior on this ground to all the people upon earth. A country possessing such a comic drama as ours, throughout the course of about two centuries, with Much ado about Nothing at one end of the list, and The School for Scandal at the other, will be inclined to demur to this broad national assumption: but we, in our turn, must in candour confess, that though the chronological precedence of Shakspeare, Jonson, Fletcher, Massinger, and Ford, had established a glorious stage for us before Moliere was born, or while he was yet in petticoats; yet our most eminent comic writers in the reigns of William III., Anne, and George I., drank deep and often from the abundant source of French comedy. But Moliere’s influence was most beneficially exerted in reclaiming his countrymen from a fondness for such Italian conceits as ringing the changes upon _odours_ and _ardours_, &c., to which authors like Scudery, Voiture, and Balzac had given an ephemeral fashion. Boileau and Moliere principally contributed to arm the French against the invasion from beyond the Alps, of such madrigal-writers as Marini, Achillini, and Préti.

It is not true that Moliere, when he commenced his career, found the theatre absolutely destitute of good comedies. Corneille had already produced Le Menteur, a piece combining character with intrigue, imported from the Spanish stage. Moliere had produced only two of his most esteemed plays, when the public was gratified with La Mère Coquette of Quinault, than which few pieces were more happy either in point of character or intrigue. But if Corneille be the first legitimate model for tragedy, Moliere was so for comedy. The general shaping of his plots, the connexion of his scenes, his dramatic consistency and propriety were attempted to be copied by succeeding writers: but who could compete with him in wit and spirit? His well-directed attacks did more than any thing to rescue the public from the impertinence of subaltern courtiers affecting airs of importance; from the affectation of conceited, and the pedantry of learned, ladies; from the quackery of professional costume and barbarous Latin on the part of the medical tribe. Moliere was the legislator of conventional proprieties. That period might well be called the Augustan age of France, which saw the tragedies of Corneille and Racine; the comedies of Moliere; the birth of modern music in the symphonies of Lulli; the pulpit eloquence of Bossuet and Bourdaloüe. Louis XIV. was the hearer and the patron of all these; and his taste was duly appreciated and adopted by the accomplished Madame, by a Condé, a Turenne, and a Colbert, followed by a long train of eminent men in every department of the state and of society.

Little has come down to us respecting Moliere’s personal history or habits, excepting that his marriage was not among the happy or creditable events of his life. So little did he in his own case weigh the evils of disproportioned age, however sarcastically he might imagine them in fictitious scenes, that he took for his partner the daughter of La Béjard, the associate of his strolling career. If his choice were a fault, it carried its punishment along with it. He was very jealous, and the young lady was an accomplished coquette. The bickerings of married life were the frequent and successful topics of his comedies; and his enemies asserted, that in drawing such scenes, he possessed the advantage of painting from the life. Of that ridicule which had so often set the theatre in a roar, he was himself the serious subject, the repentant and writhing victim.

Fuller accounts of Moliere are to be found prefixed to the best editions of his works: we may mention those of Joly, Petitot, and Auger. An article of considerable length, by the last-named author, is devoted to our poet in the Biographie Universelle.

_Engraved by I. W. Cook._

CHARLES JAMES FOX.

_From a Picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds in the possession of Lord
Holland._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London. Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._
]

FOX

The Right Honourable Charles James Fox was third son of the Right Honourable Henry Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, and of Lady Georgina Caroline Fox, eldest daughter of Charles, second Duke of Richmond. He was born January 24th, 1749, N. S.

Mr. Fox received his education at Eton; and the favourite studies of the place had more than ordinary influence over his tastes and literary pursuits in after-life. Before he left school, his father was so imprudent as to carry him to Paris and Spa. To his early associations at the latter place may be ascribed that propensity to gaming, which was the bane of two-thirds of his life. As the present article is not designed to be a mere panegyric, we abandon the indulgence of this fatal passion to the severest censure that can be bestowed upon it by the philosopher and the moralist: but justice demands it at our hands to say, that after the adjustment of Mr. Fox’s affairs by his friends, personal and political, he resolutely conquered what habit had almost raised into second nature, and abstained from play with scrupulous fidelity. It may further be remarked, that while the paroxysms of the fever were most violent, his mind was never interrupted from more worthy objects of pursuit.

The following anecdote will show the divided empire which discordant passions alternately usurped over his heart. On a night when he had sustained some serious losses, his deportment assumed so much of the character of despair, that his friends became uneasy: they followed him at distance enough to elude his observation, from the clubhouse to his home in the neighbourhood. They knocked at his door in time, as they thought, to have prevented any rash act, and rushed into the library. There they found the object of their anxiety stretched on the ground without his coat, before the fire: his hand neither grasping a razor nor a pistol, but his eyes intently fixed on the pages of Herodotus. The old historian had engrossed him wholly from the moment when he took up the volume, and the ruins of his own air-built castles vanished from before him, as soon as he got sight of the venerable remains of the ancient world.