THE PROGRESS OF FRENCH COMEDY. 21 eighteenth century in the list of comic writers, though by no means the most important from a purely literary point of view, is that of Beaumarchais. There is nothing in the general scheme of the Barbier de Seville and the Manage de Figaro (which, though he wrote much else, are Beaumarchais’ titles to fame) to distinguish them from other plays of their time and kind, nor is there much in their construction— eminently artistic from the playwright’s point of view though it is— or even in their sparkling dialogue, which entitles them to this position of premiership. Beaumarchais’ claim lies in the fact that for the first time since the reign of Louis XII he made the theatre a political engine. The whole drift of his two great plays is to satirise the privileged classes, not as Moliere had done for foibles unconnected with their privileges or at most touching their social position, but from the political and rights-of-man point of view. Beaumarchais, a man not exactly of genius, but of extraordinary wit and talent, made the most of this application; but it may be doubted whether the political comedy is not a degenerate form. In the other writers of the last quarter of the eighteenth century and the first quarter of the nineteenth absolutely no advance is made, indeed they may be said to relapse into conventional imitation of Moliere. Collin d’Harleviile, Andrieux, even Lemercier, obviously do not go directly to contemporary life or to the general notions of human weaknesses obtain- able from observation of contemporary life for their subjects. They rely on their predecessors for types; and in their hands, as is inevitable, the types become a little blunter, a little less typical. There is still plenty of wit, but it is too much employed to broider a ready prepared canvas. During the whole of the period thus summarised the drama of Moliere was, as has been said, the model more or less of the playwright who aspired to regular comedy. But about the middle of the eighteenth century an attempt was made, chiefly by a dramatist of respectable talent, La Chausse’e, and by a critic of great genius, Diderot, to strike out a new dramatic line in what was variously called comedie larmoyante, tragefdie bourgeoise, and drame. This tended to the substitution of something still closer to nature,
