The School for Husbands | Page 2

ex machina.
The School for Husbands was directed against one of the special and prominent defects of society in the age and country in which Moli��re lived. Domestic tyranny was not only rife, but it was manifested in one of its coarsest forms. Sganarelle, though twenty years younger than Ariste, and not quite forty years old, could not govern by moral force; he relied solely on bolts and bars. Physical restraint was the safeguard in which husbands and parents had the greatest confidence, not perceiving that the brain and the heart are always able to prevail against it. This truth Moli��re took upon himself to preach, and herein he surpasses all his rivals; in nothing more than in the artistic device by which he introduces the contrast of the wise and trustful Ariste, raisonneur as he is called in French, rewarded in the end by the triumph of his more humane mode of treatment. Moli��re probably expresses his own feelings by the mouth of Ariste: for The School for Husbands was performed on the 24th of June, 1661, and about eight months later, on the 20th of February, 1662, he married Armande B��jart, being then about double her age. As to Sganarelle in this play, he ceases to be a mere buffoon, as in some of Moli��re's farces, and becomes the personification of an idea or of a folly which has to be ridiculed.
Moli��re dedicated The School for Husbands to the Duke of Orleans, the King's only brother, in the following words:--
MY LORD,
I here shew France things that are but little consistent. Nothing can be so great and superb as the name I place in front of this book; and nothing more mean than what it contains. Every one will think this a strange mixture; and some, to express its inequality, may say that it is like setting a crown of pearls and diamonds on an earthen statue, and making magnificent porticos and lofty triumphal arches to a mean cottage. But, my Lord, my excuse is, that in this case I had no choice to make, and that the honour I have of belonging to your Royal Highness, [Footnote: Moli��re was the chief of the troupe of actors belonging to the Duke of Orleans, who had only lately married, and was not yet twenty-one years old.] absolutely obliged me to dedicate to you the first work that I myself published. [Footnote: Sganarelle had been borrowed by Neufvillenaine; The Pretentious Ladies was only printed by Moli��re, because the copy of the play was stolen from him; Don Garcia of Navarre was not published till after his death, in 1682.] It is not a present I make you, it is a duty I discharge; and homages are never looked upon by the things they bring. I presumed, therefore, to dedicate a trifle to your Royal Highness, because I could not help it; but if I omit enlarging upon the glorious truths I might tell of you, it is through a just fear that those great ideas would make my offering the more inconsiderable. I have imposed silence on myself, meaning to wait for an opportunity better suited for introducing such fine things; all I intended in this epistle was to justify my action to France, and to have the glory of telling you yourself, my Lord, with all possible submission, that I am your Royal Highness' very humble, very obedient, and very faithful servant,
MOLI��RE.
In the fourth volume of the "Select Comedies of M. de Moli��re, London, 1732," the translation of The School for Husbands is dedicated to the Right Honourable the Lady Harriot Campbell, in the following words:--
MADAM,
A Comedy which came abroad in its Native Language, under the Patronage of the Duke of ORLEANS, Brother to the King of FRANCE, attempts now to speak English, and begs the Honour of Your LADYSHIP'S Favour and Acceptance. That distinguishing good Sense, that nice Discernment, that refined Taste of Reading and Politeness for which Your LADYSHIP is so deservedly admir'd, must, I'm persuaded, make You esteem _Moli��re_; whose way of expression is easy and elegant, his Sentiments just and delicate, and his morals untainted: who constantly combats Vice and Folly with strong Reason and well turn'd Ridicule; in short, whose Plays are all instructive, and tend to some useful Purpose:--An Excellence sufficient to recommend them to your LADYSHIP.
As for this Translation, which endeavours to preserve the Spirit as well as Meaning of the Original, I shall only say, that if it can be so happy as to please Your LADYSHIP, all the Pains it cost me will be over-paid.
I beg Pardon for this Presumption, and am, with the greatest Respect that's possible, _Madam, Your Ladyship's Most Obedient and most Humble Servant_,
THE TRANSLATOR.
Sir Charles Sedley, well known through a history of a "frolick" which Pepys relates in