The scene of Le Barbier de Séville lies in Sevilla, and for a few notes on Spanish customs, I am indebted to Prof. A. Blouet, late of the LYCÉE CONDORCET FONTANES, Paris, who resided in Madrid and Sevilla several years.

November 1878.

L. P. B.

BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION.

PIERRE AUGUSTIN CARON DE BEAUMARCHAIS was born in Paris on the 24th of January, 1732.

He was the son of a watchmaker of that town, and was first intended to follow the trade of his father. He applied himself to the study of mechanics and succeeded in inventing a new sort of escape, which perfected the mechanism of watches. However, a celebrated watchmaker of Paris claimed to be the inventor, and the case was brought before the Académie des Sciences. Beaumarchais gained his cause, and this was his first victory.

Such employment could not satisfy the lively imagination of a young man whose greatest desire was to distinguish himself. He was passionately fond of music, for which he very early showed great taste. He could play on the harp at the time when that instrument was getting fashionable. He soon became known in good society as a very pleasant amateur, and although he never was more than an

amateur, he became so well known that Mesdames, daughters of Louis XV., expressed the desire of hearing him. He afterwards gave them lessons in harp and guitar playing, and soon was an habitué of their private concerts and soirées.

Such favours, so quickly obtained, created for him many enemies, and his rapid promotion from a shop to the best salons, and from those salons to court, could not pass unnoticed; but by his bravery on a few occasions, and by his wit, he soon made himself respected. The following anecdote shows how he treated those who tried to humiliate him. One day he was met in the "Galerie de Versailles " by a young courtier who handed him his watch, and said to him sneeringly: "Ah! Monsieur de Beaumarchais, I am glad to meet you; my watch does not keep time well at all; will you kindly see what is the matter with it?"-" With pleasure," Beaumarchais replied. He accordingly took the watch, but immediately dropped it on the floor.

"I am

very sorry indeed, sir," he said, "but, you see, my father, after all, was right in saying I was toc awkward to be a watchmaker."

Beaumarchais soon obtained greater and greater favours at court. His appearance was prepossessing, he was witty, his manners were natural and those of a gentleman, and he never suffered himself once to be humiliated. His frivolity, which would have been the cause of his ruin in another century, was

the cause of his fortune in a century which he understood so well.

Laharpe, who knew Beaumarchais personally, if not intimately, says of him: "Beaumarchais a été un composé de singularités très-remarquables, même dans ce siècle, où tant de choses ont été singulières. Né dans une condition privée, et n'en étant jamais sorti, il parvint à une grande fortune, sans posséder aucune place; fit de grandes entreprises de commerce, sans être, à Paris, autre chose qu'un homme du monde; eut au théâtre des succès sans exemple, avec des ouvrages qui ne sont pas même des premiers du second ordre; obtint la plus éclatante célébrité, et fit longtemps retentir l'Europe de son nom par trois procès qui, avec tout autre que lui, seraient demeurés aussi obscurs qu'ils étaient ridicules; se fit une réputation durable de talent et de grand talent par l'espèce d'écrits qu'on oublie le plus vite, des mémoires et des factums; fut longtemps diffamé comme un homme atroce et noir sans avoir fait aucun mal, et réhabilité en un moment dans l'opinion publique pour avoir été déclaré infâme dans les tribunaux. Cette existence, sans contredit extraordinaire, a tenu chez lui à une réunion de qualités qui ne l'était pas moins, et surtout à ce que son caractère et son esprit se rencontrèrent (jusqu'à la révolution) dans l'accord le plus parfait avec le temps où il a vécu et les circonstances où il s'est trouvé."

Beaumarchais, who was conceited, knew his superiority over the men of Louis XV.'s court, and with his ordinary pride did not often disguise the contempt he felt for them. His retorts were so much feared that he was no more insulted or even sneered at, but his wit or courage could hardly be sufficient to silence people's tongues altogether: slander and calumny were used, and used in the vilest manner. Laharpe says that he heard many people who did not believe themselves to be wicked say that, "a certain M. de Beaumarchais, of whom people were talking so much, had grown rich by getting rid of two wives who had settled money on him." He had married, in the space of a few years, two wives, two widows who had money. As the contrat in the first marriage was not registered, through his own neglect, he had nothing from his first wife. The second one left him some money; she also left him a son whom he lost soon after. "Je ne sais pas," Laharpe says, "pourquoi on n'a jamais dit qu'il avait aussi empoisonné ce fils, car il fallait encore ce crime pour avoir toute la succession : la calomnie ne pense pas toujours à tout."

It will be easy to infer from this that no man could give a better definition of calumny than Beaumarchais, and, indeed, the Calumny scene, in the second act of "Le Barbier de Séville," is a masterpiece in its way for the choice and energy of the e