Spendthrift_, etc. Sometimes he took pains to be a trifle more original,
as in _The False Agnes_, _The Married Philosopher_; sometimes he borrowed
a subject from a foreign literature and adapted it fairly dexterously for
the Gallic stage, as in _The Impertinent Inquisitive_, taken from _Don
Quixote_ and _The Night Drum_, borrowed from an English author. His
versification was dexterous and correct without possessing other merit.

REGNARD.--Regnard, on the contrary, was an original genius, though
frequently imitative of Moliere. He possessed the comic spirit, gaiety,
animation, the sense of drollery, and a prodigious capacity for humorous
verse of great flexibility and incredible ease, highly superior in point
of form to that of Boileau and even of Moliere, for he suggests a Scarron
perfected by Moliere himself and by the Italian poets. Still alive and
probably imperishable are such works as _The Gamester_, _The Universal
Legatee_, _The Unexpected Return_.

THE DRAMA: LA CHAUSSEE.--La Chaussee possessed a vein of the popular
novel, the serial, as we should say, and at the same time a taste for the
stage. The result was he created a new species, which in itself is no
small achievement. He created _the drama_: that is, the stage-play
wherein common people, and no longer kings and princes, affect us by
their misfortunes. This has been called by all possible names; when it
is a comedy it is described as a tearful comedy; when a tragedy, as a
dramatic tragedy. This is the drama we have known in France for a hundred
and fifty years; such as it already existed in the sixteenth century
under the title of the morality play, such as Corneille, who foresaw
everything, anticipated and predicted in his preface to _Don Sancho_: "I
would rather say, sir, that tragedy should excite pity and fear, and that
in its essentials, since there is necessity for definition. Now if it be
true that this latter feeling is only excited in us when we see those