Page:Biographical and critical miscellanies (IA biographicalcrit00presrich).pdf/394

 after some hesitation, he determined no longer to withstand the decided impulse of his genius. He associated himself with one of those city companies of players with which Paris had swarmed since the days of Richelieu—a minister who aspired after the same empire in the republic of letters which he had so long maintained over the state, and whose ostentatious patronage eminently contributed to develop that taste for dramatic exhibition which has distinguished his countrymen ever since.

The consternation of the elder Poquelin, on receiving the intelligence of his son's unexpected determination, may be readily conceived, It blasted at once all the fair promise which the rapid progress the latter had made in his studies justified him in forming, and it degraded him to an unfortunate profession, esteemed at that time even more lightly in France than it has been in other countries. The humiliating dependance of the comedian on the popular favour, the daily exposure of his person to the caprice and insults of an unfeeling audience, the numerous temptations incident to his precarious and unsettled life, may furnish abundant objections to this profession in the mind of every parent. But in France, to all these objections were superadded others of a graver cast, founded on religion. The clergy there, alarmed at the rapidly-increasing taste for dramatic exhibitions, openly denounced these elegant recreations as an insult to the Deity; and the pious father anticipated, in this preference of his son, his spiritual no less than his temporal perdition. He