in forgiving a writer who can say that ’La Bruyere, animated with nearly the same genius, painted the crookedness of men with as much truth and as much force as Moliere; but I believe that there is more eloquence and more elevation to be found in La Bruyere’s images.’[24] Without at all undervaluing La Bruyere, one of the acutest and finest of writers, we may say that this is a truly disastrous piece of criticism.  Quite as unhappy is the preference given to Racine over Moliere, not merely for the conclusion arrived at, but for the reasons on which it is founded.  Moliere’s subjects, we read, are low, his language negligent and incorrect, his characters bizarre and eccentric.  Racine, on the other hand, takes sublime themes, presents us with noble types, and writes with simplicity and elegance.  It is not enough to concede to Racine the glory of art, while giving to Moliere or Corneille the glory of genius.  ’When people speak of the art of Racine—­the art which puts things in their place; which characterises men, their passions, manners, genius; which banishes obscurities, superfluities, false brilliancies; which paints nature with fire, sublimity, and grace—­what can we think of such art as this, except that it is the genius of extraordinary men, and the origin of those rules that writers without genius embrace with so much zeal and so little success?’[25] And it is certainly true that the art of Racine implied genius.  The defect of the criticism lies, as usual, in a failure to see that there is glory enough in both; in the art of highly-finished composition and presentation, and in the art of bold and striking creation.  Yet Vauvenargues was able to discern the secret of the popularity of Moliere, and the foundation of the common opinion that no other dramatist had carried his own kind of art so far as Moliere had carried his; ’the reason is, I fancy, that he is more natural than any of the others, and this is an important lesson for everybody who wishes to write.’[26] He did not see how nearly everything went in this concession, that Moliere was, above all, natural.  With equal truth of perception he condemned the affectation of grandeur lent by the French tragedians to classical personages who were in truth simple and natural, as the principal defect of the national drama, and the common rock on which their poets made shipwreck.[27] Let us, however, rejoice for the sake of the critical reputation of Vauvenargues that he was unable to read Shakespeare.  One for whom Moliere is too eccentric, grotesque, inelegant, was not likely to do much justice to the mightiest but most irregular of all dramatists.