The Devil on Two Sticks

rary, is a great judge, was more just for the veritable Quixote than Le Sage himself; and he had once more to begin anew. However, he yet once more attempted this new road, which could lead him to nothing good. He returned to the charge, still with a Spanish comedy, Don Cesar Ursin, imitated from Calderon. This piece was played, for the first time, at Versailles, and applauded to the skies by the court, which deceived itself almost as often as the town. Le Sage now thought that the battle at last was won. Vain hope! it was again a battle lost; for, brought from Versailles to Paris, the comedy of Don Cesar Ursin was hissed off the stage by the Parisian pit, which thus unmercifully annihilated the eulogies of the court, and the first victory of the author. It was now full time to yield to the force of evidence. Enlightened by these rude instructions, Le Sage at last comprehended that it was not permitted to him, to him less than to all others, to be a plagiarist; that originality was one of the grand causes of