The value which was set upon the forms of language at that period, and the paltry strife about words with which dramatic authors were assailed, are no less surprising.

It would seem that the men of the age of Louis XIV attached very exaggerated importance to those details, which may be perceived in the study, but which escape attention on the stage.

For, after all, the principal object of a dramatic piece is to be performed, and its chief merit is to affect the audience.

But the audience and the readers in that age were the same: on quitting the theatre they called up the author for judgment to their own firesides.

In democracies, dramatic pieces are listened to, but not read.