PREFACE

This édition of Molière's excellent comedy has been carefully prepared firom the text given some years ago by M. Charles Louandre (1862, 3 vols. i2mo, Paris, Charpentier). For the notes I hâve been enabled to avail myself of several most valuable works, such as M. Génin's Lexique comparé de la Langue de Molière, M. Soulié*s Recherches sur Molière et sur sa famille, and M. Taschereau's Histoire de la Vie et des Ouvrages de Molière. Mr. Watson*s admirable essay on the life and genius of the great French comic poet has also been frequently consulted by me. (See Cambridge Essays,

The biography of Molière ["will appear in a subséquent volume of this séries. With respect to the comedy of the Femmes Savantes it is enough to say that it was intended to follow up the attack made in the Précieuses Ridicules against the exaggerations of leaming and bel esprit on the part of ladies.

"The Précieux and Précieuses, carried away by their ambition, aimed at altering too radically the French language ; and, if they did not go quite so far as to say, * Nul n'aura de Tesprit hors nous et nos amis,* it is certain, on the other hand, that they afFected too much a superiority which was not always established on literary merit. At the same time, we must not deny the services they rendered, first by fostering the spirit of society, and secondly, by the introduction of certain words and locutions which are