Page:Musset - On ne badine pas avec l'amour, 1884.djvu/30

1 8 PROLEGOMENA. Laurent, but at other times leading a rather precarious existence — which chiefly acted short pieces partaking of the comic operetta and the farce, and known generally at a later date under the title of vaudeville. These three last-named varieties have somewhat less to do with literature proper than the first, but they all afforded employment to writers of eminence, and the vaudeville has in one form or another held its ground not much altered till the present day. It was written in great numbers by Lesage, by Piron, by Colle - , and other wits of the eighteenth century, and it was always extremely popular. Some of the expedients to which the jealousy of the regular actors reduced the vaudevillistes were very curious — for instance, a piece was occasionally acted entirely in dumb show: the songs (couplets) which formed its libretto being successively displayed on large placards for the audience to sing. But it is impossible to enter into these details here ; and the opera proper, where music rather than acting was the staple of the entertainment, also escapes us. The Italian Theatre had at least one very distinguished writer in Marivaux, but its pieces, except with regard to the already mentioned adaptation of the cast, are in most cases hardly distinguishable from those of the Come"die Francaise. These latter continued to the middle of the eighteenth century, and with some modifications till the first quarter of the nineteenth, to be closely modelled upon Moliere ; and a short sketch may now be given of the principal authors who distinguished themselves therein. This sketch may conveniently extend without a break to the romantic revival, the partial change in the middle of the eighteenth century being returned to as a preliminary of the romantic revival itself, which indeed was less marked in regard to comedy than in regard to tragedy. The excellence of Moliere’s work, the clearness with which he pointed out the way, and the great popularity of his drama, raised many imitators and followers when his own short and brilliant course was run. The greatest and one of the earliest of these was Regnard — one of the few members of the youngest generation in the ’ Siecle de Louis Quatorze’ who had the good fortune to secure the capricious and