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"Empty, empty," his intelligence whispered in its depths, "a make-believe of lusts. What else? Nothing, nothing. Laws, ambitions, conventions froth in an empty glass. Tragedies, comedies all a swarm of nothings. Dreams in the hearts of men thin fever outlines to which they clung in hope.

His characters are drawn from the bacchanalian class described in Bellman's lyrics, but they are not sufficiently varied in their scope and sphere to create an actual Swedish drama. Kexel, the friend of the two last named, lived a gay and vagabond life, and is celebrated for his comedies.

Sir Charles, considered as an author, has great delicacy in his turns, and Eachard observes in his dedication of Plautus's three comedies to Sir Charles, that the easiness of his stile, the politeness of his expressions in his Bellamira, and even those parts of it which are purely translation, are very delightful, and engaging to the reader.

A great number came to hear these sermons as so many amusing comedies such was the buffoonery with which the pope, the fathers of the ecclesiastical council of Trent, purgatory, and other dogmas of the ruling church were abused in them.

His prolific pen poured forth Dialogues, Sonnets, Comedies, and mingled with a mass of discreditable and licentious works we find several books on morality and theology. These he wrote, not from any sense of piety and devotion, but simply for gain, while his immoral life was a strange contrast to his teaching. Concerning his Paraphrase a French poet wrote:

I have seen 'Le Misanthrope', 'L'Avare', 'Tartufe', 'Le Joueur', 'Le Glorieux', and many other comedies; and, no matter how often I saw them. I always fancied it was the first time.

"WELL, Tarleton," said I, looking round that mart of millinery and love-making, which, so celebrated in the reign of Charles II., still preserved the shadow of its old renown in that of Anne, "well, here we are upon the classical ground so often commemorated in the comedies which our chaste grandmothers thronged to see.

"They are not at all tragic: they are the only comedies left us, as one must amuse one's self somewhere, and the club de la Vengeance is the prettiest thing of the sort going. I quite understand why it should fascinate a poet like your son, M. Rameau. It is held in a salle de cafe chantant style Louis Quinze decorated with a pastoral scene from Watteau. I and my dog Fox drop in.

As to the Mechant, it is one of those gloomy comedies which might be rapturously hailed by a Timon as serving to confirm his aversion to human society, but which, on social and cheerful minds, can only give rise to the most painful impression.

Dickens utterly and innocently believed in certain things; he would, I think, have drawn the sword for them. Carlyle half believed in half a hundred things; he was at once more of a mystic and more of a sceptic. Carlyle was the perfect type of the grumbling servant; the old grumbling servant of the aristocratic comedies. He followed the aristocracy, but he growled as he followed.