MOLIEEE
MOLTENO
and statesman. B. May 23, 1810. Ed.
Edinburgh and Cambridge (St. John s and
Trinity Colleges). He entered Parliament
in 1832, and worked with the reformers.
In 1835 he founded the London Eeview as
an organ of the Philosophic Eadicals, and
in 1836 he amalgamated it with the West
minster Beview, which he purchased. He
quitted Parliament, after nine years excel
lent work, in 1841, but returned in 1845.
In 1853 he became First Commissioner of
the Board of Works in which capacity
he secured the opening of Kew Gardens on
Sundays and in 1855 Colonial Secretary.
He brought out at his own expense and
edited the works of Hobbes (16 vols.,
1839-45). Moles worth was an intimate
friend of Mill, Grote, and all the great
Eationalists of the time, and he was very
far from concealing his Agnostic senti
ments. J. S. Mill says that he " died a
firm adherent of anti-religious opinions,"
and begged Mill to see that his opinions
were respected in regard to any inscription
on his grave (Letters of J. S. Mill, i, 187).
Harriet Grote says that he " repudiated
the Christian mysteries, refused to attend
church, and laughed at those who did"
(The Philosophical Radicals, 1866, p. 3).
He had discarded all religious beliefs at
Cambridge. A man of means, he sought
earnestly all his life to further reform
movements and better the lot of others,
under a purely Utilitarian inspiration.
D. Oct. 22, 1855.
MOLIERE, Jean Baptists Poquelin,
French poet. B. Jan. 1622. Ed. College de Clermont. Jean Baptiste Poquelin he took the name of Moliere later, when he joined the stage was the son of a royal valet. He made at college a close study of philosophy under Gassendi, and was especially fond of Lucretius. At the close of his schooling he succeeded his father as valet to the King, but in 1643 he took to the stage and became manager of a travelling company (1647-58). In the latter year his company settled at Paris, and Moliere found great favour with the King. From 515
that time he began to produce the
comedies which place him among the
world s greatest writers Les precieuses
ridicules (1659), Don Juan (1665), Le
misanthrope (1666), Tartuffe (1667), etc.
In these comedies Moliere shows in
creasing boldness in attacking religion.
The last scene of Don Juan so plainly
ridicules the idea of hell that a Christian
writer of the time describes the play as " a
school of Atheism in which, after making
a clever Atheist say the most horrible
impieties, he entrusts the cause of God to
a valet who says ridiculous things." The
play had to be modified. In Le mis
anthrope there are two lines from Lucretius
(Act ii, sc. iv, 723-24). But Tartuffe is a
piece of Eationalism from beginning to end,
a satire on piety. Moliere first made the
ridiculous hero a priest. This he was
forced to alter, but the comedy was so
drastic an attack on the religious who
came to be called " Les Tartuffes " that
it was proscribed for five years, and some
of the clergy demanded that Moliere be
burned alive. He was excommunicated
(1667), and only the King s favour pro
tected him from the usual dreadful punish
ment. Even when he lay dying, and his
wife sent for the clergy, they refused to
attend; and it was only under pressure
from the King that they buried him by
night, in the cemetery for suicides, with
curtailed ceremonies. He had died excom
municated. Now the Catholic Encyclo
paedia shamelessly claims him as a
Catholic. For the details about his beliefs
and end see Lanson s Histoire de la lit-
terature franc. aise (1896, p. 520), Trollope s
Life of Moliere (1905), and the admirable
articles in Larousse and the Grande
Encyclopedic. D. Feb. 17, 1673.
MOLTENO, Sir John Charles, K.C.M.G.,
first Premier of Cape Colony. B. June 5, 1814. Ed. private school, Ewell. The Molteno family was of Italian origin, but had long been domiciled in London. Young Molteno, after a short term of schooling, was put in a shipping office, and 516
