[AC] "Samson Agonistes" (that is, "Samson the Athlete, or Wrestler"), Milton's tragedy, cast in a classical mould, was composed after "Paradise Regained" was written, and after "Paradise Lost" was published. It was issued in 1671. No reader with knowledge can avoid associating the poem in a personal way with Milton, who, like Samson, was blind, living in the midst of enemies, and to some extent deserted; and, like him too, did not lose heart on behalf of the life's cause which, unlike Samson, he had never betrayed. As becomes a drama, it has more vigorously sustained movement than any of Milton's works. The familiar story is skilfully developed and relieved, and the formality of the style does not detract from the pity and beauty, while it adds to the dignity of the work.
[MOLIÈRE][AD]
[The Doctor in Spite of Himself]
Persons in the Play
Sganarelle
Martine, Sganarelle's wife
Lucas
Jacqueline, Lucas's wife, and nurse at M. Géronte's
Géronte
Lucinde, Géronte's daughter
Léandre, her lover
Valère, Géronte's attendant
Act I
Just when the day has been fixed for the marriage of Lucinde, daughter of M. Géronte, she suddenly becomes dumb, and no doctors are found skillful enough to cure her. One day Valère, M. Géronte's attendant, and Lucas, the nurse, are scouring the country in search of someone able to restore their young mistress's speech, when they fell in with Martine, the wife of Sganarelle, a bibulous faggot-binder. Sganarelle, who has served a famous doctor for ten years, has just been beating his wife, and she, in revenge, hearing the kind of person they are looking for, strongly recommends her husband to them as an eccentric doctor who has performed wonderful and almost incredible cures, but who always disclaims his profession, and will never practice it until he has been well cudgelled. Lucas and Valère accordingly go in quest of Sganarelle, and, having found him, express their desire of availing themselves of his services as doctor. At first the faggot-binder vehemently denies that he is a doctor, but at last—thanks to the use of the persuasion recommended by Martine—he confesses to a knowledge of the physician's art, is induced to undertake the cure of Mlle. Lucinde, and, on being introduced at M. Géronte's house, gives proof of his eccentricity as a doctor by cudgelling the master and embracing the nurse.