On the 17th of February, being the day appointed for its fourth
representation, his friends would have dissuaded him from appearing, in
consequence of his increasing indisposition. But he persisted in his
design, alleging "that more than fifty poor individuals depended for
their daily bread on its performance." His life fell a sacrifice to his
benevolence. The exertions which he was compelled to make in playing the
principal part of _Argan_ aggravated his distemper, and as he was
repeating the word _juro_, in the concluding ceremony, he fell into a
convulsion, which he vainly endeavoured to disguise from the spectators
under a forced smile. He was immediately carried to his house, in the
_Rue de Richelieu_, now No. 34. A violent fit of coughing, on his
arrival, occasioned the rupture of a blood-vessel; and seeing his end
approaching, he sent for two ecclesiastics of the parish of St. Eustace,
to which he belonged, to administer to him the last offices of religion.
But these worthy persons having refused their assistance, before a third,
who had been sent for, could arrive, Molière, suffocated with the
effusion of blood, had expired in the arms of his family.

Molière died soon after entering upon his fifty-second year. He is
represented to have been somewhat above the middle stature, and well
proportioned; his features large, his complexion dark, and his black,
bushy eye-brows so flexible, as to admit of his giving an infinitely
comic expression to his physiognomy. He was the best actor of his own
generation, and by his counsels, formed the celebrated Baron, the best of
the succeeding. He played all the range of his own characters, from
_Alceste_ to _Sganarelle_; though he seems to have been peculiarly fitted
for broad comedy.

He produced all his pieces, amounting to thirty, in the short space of
fifteen years. He was in the habit of reading these to an old female