Note 43 — CABINET CYCLOPÆDIA. (continued 3)

There are some excellent observations on the moral of the "Tartuffe" in Sir Walter Scott's article on Molière, published in the seventeenth vol. of his prose works, in answer to Bourdaloue's violent philippic against this play. Scott argues with force and justice on the propriety of affixing the stigma of ridicule to the most hateful vice ever nurtured in the human heart—the assumption of the appearance of religion for worldly and wicked purposes; and he represents also the utility of the picture drawn to arrest in his course one in danger of incurring the sin of spiritual pride, by showing him that the fairest professions and strictest observances may be consistent with the foulest purposes. "The case of the 'Tartuffe,'" Sir Walter Scott thus sums up in his argument, "is that of a vilely wicked man, rendering the profession of religion hateful by abusing it for the worst purposes: and if such characters occurred, as there is little reason to doubt, in the time and court of Louis XIV., we can see no reason against their being gibbeted in effigy. The poet himself is at pains to show that he draws the true line of distinction between the hypocrite and the truly religious man. When the duped Orgon, astonished at the discovery of Tartuffe's villainy, expresses himself doubtful of the existence of real worth Cléante replies to him, with his usual sense and moderation: