Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/284

 272 RECENT FOREIGN LITERATURE. Bossuet, at the end of his life, in bad health, in enforced idleness, amuses himself by turning the Song of Solomon into verse. His grand-nephew, a boy of twelve, falls childishly in love with a little girl of fourteen, and has a great desire to write some verses in her honour. He is, however, unable to accomplish the task, and one day in Bossuet's room finds by chance on the table, while his uncle is sleeping, some of his transcripts based on the Song of Songs. They just meet his pur- pose, and he presents them to the girl. She, as always, older in knowledge than the boy, is alarmed at the ardent words, and asks permission to confess to Bossuet, thinking herself the sinner in having inspired such passionate verses. Bossuet is easily able to reassure her, but he realises that there may be some danger in versifying the Song of Solomon. In ' Les Comedies-ballets de Moliere,' Maurice Pellisson touches a little-heeded side of Moliere's genius. Of his comedies a third are never pro- duced, and those seldom played are produced in an incomplete fashion, since the music and dancing mingled with them are always suppressed. In c Tartuffe ' and ' Le Misanthrope/ Moliere is, of course, at his best on the heights but he joined grace to strength, charming gifts to his superior qualities, the thinker to the poet and artist ; and so, if we would know Moliere wholly, we must get acquainted with the rhythmical prose and blank verse of the ' Comedies-ballets/ and learn that, besides his realistic comedies, he wrote comedies expressly sentimental and poetic. c La Princesse