un demi-Ménandre

*'Tu quoque tu in summis, o dimidiate Menander, Poneris..." (Csesar.) 1. 16. cet éloignement complet potir..., that complète breaking away from...

NOTES

1. 17. Pierre Ail giistin Car on de Beaitmar chais — 1799). There is a total want of dignity about him, but at the same time a good deal of common sensé, and a clear appréciation of the feelings of France during the last days of the reign of Louis XVI. Le mariage de Figaro (1784), and Le Barbier de Sêville ( 1 776) are two dramatised satires rather than two comédies.

1. 25. le chemin de Saint-Cloud, the road to Saint-Cloud, a village near Paris on the banks of the Seine. The palace of Saint-Cloud was Napoleon's favourite résidence.

1. 27. y ean François Cailhava (1731 — 1813), a dramatic author of very little réputation, but an enthusiastic admirer of Molière. His best play, VÉgoïsme^ a five-act comedy, was performed in 1777.

1. 28. Jean Baptiste Poqiielin de Molière (1622 — 1673), ^he greatest of French dramatists, as distinguished a writer as he was a thinker. " Molière, c*est mon homme," said La Fontaine.

P. 40, 11. 3 — 5. le peintre, etc., the clever painter, exhibiting to visitors his model in the most favourable light, has dexterously touched on the severity of the old school in order to describe only the brilliancy of the new one.

1. II. ce qui prononce, that which characterises, stamps, or distinguishes.

1. 18. de r e7npressement, literary activity. 1. 19. du tour, élégance of expression. 1. 22. membre du Corps législatif, in 1807.

1. 26. Les Capitulations de conscience, a comedy brought out in 1809, and unmercifully hissed.

1. 27. Les deux Vieillards, one of the best plays of Andrieux.

P. 41, 1. 6. je me mets en règle, I settle. 1. 15. D"^ honnêtes gens, gentlemen.

1. 21. Le Faux Bonhom77ie, this comedy was performed only in 18 16, and very unfavourably received. The author, Népornucène- Louis Lemercier (1771 — 1840), composed a great number of plays in which he anticipated some of the innovations made by M. Victor Hugo and the other représentatives of the rom.antic school.