Barbier de Séville, cf. page 73, note

3. prince de Ligne, an amiable and brilliant man of the world, who dabbled very successfully in literature, besides gaining a deserved réputation, military and diplomatie, in the service of the Austrian emperor. He died in 1814.

4. petite pièce, a short comic play given as an afterpiece to a longer one.

5. La Fontaine (1621-95), the author of the Fables, in which the most poetic tempérament of seventeenth century France has found expression in the most exquisitely wrought style and verse, seasoned with the most Attic wit — perhaps the chief treasure of French poetry. He is also the author of the Contes, displaying the same qualities but not so artistically, and vitiated, moreover, by the extrême license of the matter.

6. bouffons italiens, as early as the Renaissance, the French théâtre began to reproduce the comédie botiffonne of the Italians, a species of broad farce of considérable vivacity and wit.