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We have often thought that the famous epitaph written for his grave by Piron, the cynical author of La Metromanie, might have come from Lamb, were it not for one objection; Lamb's benign heart would have recoiled from a sarcasm, however effective, inscribed upon a grave-stone; or from a jest, however playful, that tended to a vindictive sneer amongst his own farewell words.
He had begged his friends to vote for his compatriot, Piron, author of the celebrated comedy Metromanie, at that time an old man and still poor. "I can wait," said Buffon.
Le Mechant, by GRESSET, is a masterpiece in point of style, and La Metromanie, by PIRON, the best of French comedies, next to those of MOLIERE and REGNARD. Then come the works of LA CHAUSSEE, who is the father of the drame, and whose pieces are no longer represented, though he has composed several, such as La Gouvernante, L'Ecole des Meres, Le Prejuge a la Mode, which, notwithstanding, their whining style, are not destitute of merit, and those of DANCOURT, who has written several little comedies, of a very lively cast, which are still played, and those of MARIVAUX, whose old metaphysical jargon still pleases such persons as have their head full of love.
et respondere parati? No. Of all the manias of this mad age, the most incurable, as well as the most common, seems to be no other than the Metromanie.
If we wish to study the masterpieces of French comedy in the eighteenth century, we shall promptly shut up the volumes of Diderot, and turn to the ease and soft gracefulness of Marivaux's Game of Love and Chance, to the forcible and concentrated sententiousness of Piron's Métromanie, to the salt and racy flavour of Le Sage's Turcaret.
Two other single works are named as master-pieces in the regular Comedy in verse, belonging to two writers who here perhaps have taken more pains, but in other departments have given a freer scope to their natural talent: the Metromanie of Piron and the Mechant of Gresset. The Metromanie is not written without humorous inspiration.
Yet, according to the decision of the French critics, these three comedies, the Glorieux, the Metromanie, and the Mechant, are all that the eighteenth century can oppose to Moliere.
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