En vain contre le Cid un ministre se ligue,

Tout Paris pour Chimène a les yeux de Ro-
drigue;

L'Académie en corps a beau le censurer,
Le public révolté s'obstine à l'admirer.

So wrote Boileau.

66

with being destitute of original genius. To rebut this accusation he composed Horace," which was produced in 1639, and was followed in the same year by "Cinna." So prodigious was the success of these plays that from that time classical At first the author resented this unjust subjects were considered to be alone "Polyeucte" persecution; but more prudent thoughts worthy of the tragic muse. quickly smothered his indignation. " I and "La Mort de Pompée" appeared next. "Le Menteur," "first acted in am a little more worldly than Heliodorus," he said, "who preferred to lose his bish- 1642, adapted from the Spanish of Pedro opric to his book. I prefer the good de Roxas, may be considered as the first graces of my master to all the reputations work to which the term comedy, in its on earth." And the first edition of "The modern acceptance, can be applied. With Cid" was dedicated to the Duchesse this play his triumphs came to an end and d'Aiguillon, the cardinal's niece. Truth his genius entered upon its decadence, alto say, this most heroical of writers was though he continued to produce pieces at something of a timeserver in private life: short intervals, until the utter failure of several of his plays are dedicated in terms "Pertharite," in 1653, so disgusted him of the most fulsome flattery to rich nonen- with the theatre that he vowed never to tities; and for these adulations he re-write for it again. He kept his word for ceived far more money than ever he gained by his works; indeed, but for those tributes, spite of his genius and popularity, he might have starved.*

six years, and during that period gave himself up to the composition of poems upon religious subjects, the principal of

which was a translation into verse of

this change of purpose, a very poor play upon a most terribly sublime subject. Several other works followed, not one of which supported his previous fame. Very soon a young and most formidable rival, Jean Racine, entered the field, and then the career of the elder poet was ended; a bitter truth which was presently too clearly manifested to him. The Princess Henriette secretly engaged the two great poets to each write a play upon the same subject - Berenice. It was done; the plays were produced simultaneously in 1638, and Racine by universal assent bore off the palm.

If Richelieu was hostile to the play, he Thomas à Kempis' " Imitation of Jesus proved, in a very momentous affair, that Christ." In 1659, however, the king's he was a good friend to the author. Cor- superintendent of finance, the celebrated neille was passionately in love with a Fouquet, induced him to again tempt pubyoung girl named Mademoiselle de Lam-lic favour. "Edipe" was the result of périère. Her father had little desire to bestow his daughter upon a poet whose only fortune was his talent. He had a better match in view, and received Corneille's first advances with a very ill grace. Fontenelle relates that one day, about this period, Richelieu, observing the poet looked more thoughtful and sombre than usual, asked him if he were at work upon a tragedy. He answered that his mind was far from being tranquil enough for composition, and that his head was turned with love. Richelieu made him relate the story of this wonderful passion, and then, without any comment, took leave of him. But immediately afterwards the young lady's father received an order to appear before the redoubtable minister. He arrived," to translate Fontenelle's words, "all trembling at so unexpected an order, and returned very well satisfied to be let off by giving his daughter to a man who possessed so much credit."

"The Cid" being to a certain extent an imitation, and in parts even a translation, the author was charged by his detractors

He dedicated "Cinna" to one Montauron, president of the Parlement of Toulouse, whom he compared to Augustus. For this extravagant laudation he received one thousand pistoles. From that time "pitres à la Montauron" passed into a proverb to describe a lucrative dedication.

The greater portion of Corneille's life was passed quietly at Rouen, far away from the scene of his triumphs and failures. It was this voluntary rustication, rather than an insufficient appreciation of his genius, that so long delayed his admission to the Académie, an honour not accorded him until 1647.

In 1676 Louis XIV. ordered a revival of all his greater works, which had not been represented for several years; a

Steele's "Lying Lover," and Foote's "Liar" are adaptations of the same play.

Voltaire says: "It is reported that Corneille's translation of The Imitation of Jesus Christ' has been printed thirty times; it is as difficult to believe this as it is to read the book once."

mark of royal favour that called forth the Very few Englishmen of the present most eager expressions of gratitude from day have any acquaintance with his works, the old poet, and a petition that a similar still fewer take any pleasure in reading grace might be extended to his other plays. them; their tedious and inflated speeches, During the last years of his life he seems rendered yet more tedious by the monotto have sunk into obscurity; his genera- onous jingle of the metre, the perpetually tion had passed away, and court and pub-recurring antitheses, the lack of all human lic had found new idols. sympathy and semblance in their charac

In Dangeau's journal, under date Octo- ters, render the perusal of his plays a ber 31st, 1684, we find this entry: "To-wearisome task. To judge their merits day died the good man Corneille." Such impartially it is necessary to isolate the is fame!

His portraits represent him as possessing a fine intellectual face, with eyes full | of fire, but with the figure and air of a bourgeois. This physical discrepancy was equally reflected in his mind. He was excessively timid, and his manner was awkward, especially when in the presence of the great; his conversation was tedious, his language incorrect, and his elocution so bad that in reading he could not give any effect even to his own verses; he was acutely sensitive to all rivalry, and the great fame achieved by Racine embittered the latter years of his life.

(Teutonic) mind from all preconceived ideas of excellence and standards of taste. We must forget for a time all our former dramatic studies, and keep constantly before us the opposite principles upon which the English and the French classical drama are constructed, and the deduction therefrom-that the beauties of the one are the faults of the other. Our basis of excellence is the nearest possible approximation to nature, and a faithful picture of the various conflicting and contradictory passions that sway the human soul; the French classical school requires in its dramatic characters an elevation, whether The jealousy of Corneille [says Guizot] was of virtue, courage, grandeur, or wickedthat of a child who desires only a smile to reas-ness, above humanity, and perfect consure him against caresses given to his brother; sistency of thought and action; a hero it was that weakness which caused him to see must be always a hero, even to his valet. in every event something to disquiet him, and To the one nature is the all-sufficient in the most trifling affairs objects of horror. model, to the other she is a poor imperfect "He was melancholy," says Fontenelle, "and creature, who can be rendered presentable it required much more substantial things to only by very high-heeled cothurni, much render him hopeful and happy, than it did to vex and terrify him; nothing could equal his padding, and a heroic mask. The lanincapacity for business unless it was his aver-guage spoken by these sublimated beings sion for it, and the slightest thing caused him fright and terror. At home his humour was brusque, sometimes rude in appearance, but in the bottom he was very easy to live with and was a good father, a good husband, a good relation, tender and full of friendship." In the world he was by turns proud and humble, vain of his genius, but incapable of drawing from it any authority. At the end of his life this weakness of character was increased by physical debility.

Corneille was the father of the French drama; he found it crude, dull, without a spark of genius to illumine the leaden mass, he left it one of the literatures of the world. He was also a representative man, since he, more than any other, was an embodiment of the higher literary spirit of his age, and fixed the tragic drama of his country for nearly two centuries. Molière, like our own Shakespeare, while reflecting the world which surrounded him, mirrored the eternal aspect of humanity, and thus became a writer for all time. Racine was but a disciple of the elder master, the materials were moulded ready to his hand.

must not approach the ordinary utterances
of mortals; anguish and passion must
never be harsh, abrupt, inconsequent, but
must vent itself smoothly in flowing and
mellifluous verse. Here is an example,
culled at random. It is from "The Cid,"
a speech of Chimène after she has re-
ceived the news that her father has been
slain by her affianced husband :

Enfin je me vois libre, et je puis, sans con-
De mes vives douleurs te faire voir l'atteinte,
trainte,
Je puis donner passage à mes tristes soupirs,
Je puis t'ouvrir mon âme et tous mes déplai-,

sirs ;

fluences which surrounded it; a greater of the early Christians, which was conmind would have moulded the taste of the demned by the Hôtel de Rambouillet for age, his was moulded by it. Had he pur- having too much of Christianity in it. sued the vein he opened in "The Cid "he" Rodogune" is perhaps the most powerwould have done better things and given ful of all his works; but the same faults to his nation an original dramatic litera- pervade all — his Romans are French heture instead of the weak imitation of a roes; his heroines talk the language of great but defunct one. In spite of its ar- précieuses; the dialogues of his lovers are tificial language, and the improbabilities thèses d'amour, in which they perpetually of the action, arising from the restrictions argue upon the property or impropriety of of the unities, his play contains many nat- their attachment in the neatest epigrams ural touches and a certain truthfulness to and antitheses. Two despairing lovers nature. But it was these touches, and meet after a long separation to find one this truthfulness which, while they won married to another, and part with these the hearts of the public, procured its con- words:demnation by the critics. Had he boldly

defied the last and trusted to the truer instincts of the former he would have become a much greater writer; but he had not the courage; perhaps it would have required a higher than could be expected from less than one of his superhuman heroes to have braved Richelieu and the

Hôtel de Rambouillet. The précieuses, through their mouthpiece, the Académie, considered that Chimène, contrary to the propriety of her sex, was "une amante trop sensible;" that is to say, her love was human, and not founded upon the rules of Plato; that the passions expressed were too violent, that is to say, not in the language of the salons; that she was not sufficiently consistent, being now all for revenge, now all for love, that is to say, that she was a woman instead of an abstraction; and, above all, that love proved stronger than duty in the end.

These criticisms were sufficient to extinguish all Corneille's proclivities to the natural, which he henceforward carefully avoided. In "Horace," his next play, poor love seems introduced only to be shown its insignificance when compared with sterner virtues, and everybody acts and thinks with the undeviating regularity of machines. Yet it is a fine work notwithstanding; the characters of the two Horaces are truly Roman, and the last scene of Camille has the ring of real passion in it. Over "Cinna" the critics went into ecstasies, pronouncing it to be his masterpiece; but only a sense of duty could, I think, induce any one but a Frenchman enthusiastic upon the school to read it through at the present day. The utter dreariness of its long bombastic speeches, its disagreeable and unnatural characters, and, above all, its horrible heroine, whom an admiring Frenchman has called "that adorable shrew," render it repulsive in the extreme. A far more interesting work is "Polyeucte," a story

Sévère. O devoir qui me perd et qui me dé

sespère !

Adieu trop vertueux objet et trop charmant.
Pauline. Adieu trop malheureux et trop par-

fait amant.

Paul. Etrange aveuglement !
Pol.
Eternelles clartés!
Paul. Tu préfères la mort à l'amour de Pau-
line!

Pol. Vous préfèrez le monde à la bonté di-
vine! etc.

Love with Corneille is not a passion but a fatality, dependent, not upon sentiment, but upon certain arbitrary agreméns; few of his heroines have anything feminine except the name, and they make a parade of virtues which they employ only to drive their desperate lovers to acts more frequently evil than good. "Their love," says St. Beuve, "is rather of the head than the heart."

Having presented several examples of
his faults, it is but fair to close this article
with a specimen of his excellence. I se-
lect Camille's last speech to Horace, her
brother, who has killed Curiace, her affi-
It is her malediction
anced husband.
upon Rome:-

Rome, l'unique objet de mon ressentiment!
Rome, à qui vient ton bras d'immoler mon

amant,

Rome, qui t'a vu naître, et que ton cœur adore!

From The Argosy.

THE STORY OF MONIQUE.

BY JULIA KAVANAGH. SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST is the patron Saint of Manneville. On the twentyfourth of June the little village wakens from its yearly quietness into clamorous life. High mass opens the festivities. White booths, that have sprung up in the night like so many mushrooms, are scattered on the place, and all Manneville gathers there.

On the twenty-fourth of June some years ago, a youth and a little girl stood foremost in the crowd that had gathered round a wonderful collection of beasts, birds, and fishes, called "Noah's ark." The youth, a tall, dark lad of seventeen, handsome and grave, looked on with stoic indifference, but the little girl was lost in admiration. She was about ten years old, fair as a lily, fresh as a rose, blue-eyed and fair-haired, a Norman blossom, with all the promise of Norman beauty in her delicate, refined features and her slender little figure.

"Come along, Monique, your uncle will be angry," said Sévère.

"Let me look at the bird, Sévère," entreated Monique. "It talks -oh! so well."

"When I please," answered Monique, pertly; but when he turned away at once the child stole after him with a demure air, and followed him silently to the old abbey, which was turned into a farmhouse in '93. They both lived there under the care of Maître Louis David, the uncle of Monique, and the fourth or fifth cousin of Sévère. Maître Louis had no daughters, and Monique, his brother's orphan child, was petted by him and his two stalwart sons after a fashion. Her elder brother Jean he had turned out of the house for bad conduct six months before this, and whenever he was out of temper -a frequent occurrence - he would say to his little niece, “Do you want to be sent after your brother, my girl?" Sévère, who was also an orphan, he had taken in more out of pride than from pity, not choosing that one who bore the name of David should be a servant in a strange house. The lad proved a good servant, but there was in him a haughty stubbornness which irritated his wealthy cousin. He was pitiless whenever he could him at fault, and every day of his life he reminded him that he had long eaten the bread of charity.

He

Sévère only grew up harder, prouder, and more stubborn for the taunt. cared for no one save little Monique. She tyrannized over him, but she also admired him prodigiously. "You are SO clever, Sévère," she would say; "and you are strong, too- as strong as my uncle. And, oh! Sévère, I do love you!" When the old farm, with its high slate roof, its broad, arched gateway and its two turrets, appeared before them in the warm sunlight, Monique suddenly stood still, and said, in coaxing accents, “Sévère, go and get that bird for me! Here is the two-franc piece uncle gave me. Try and get the bird for one franc or for thirty sous; but if you cannot, why, give the two francs, Sévère !"

The lad laughed outright. "Two francs for a magpie!" But Monique had been a spoiled child in her father's house, and warmly said she would give ten francs if she had them. Sévère, who held magpies cheap, thought her crazy. A fierce argu"Only a magpie," was the curt answer. ment followed. He was worsted, of course, "Oh! but such a magpie!" and taking Monique's silver coin, he went "Monique, you know that Maître Louis back alone to the place and to Noah's David will be angry." ark. Noah was refreshing himself with "Good-bye," said Monique to the mag-bread and cheese and a glass of cider pie. The bird laughed shrilly, and answered "Bonjour" in a little treble voice, and hopped in its cage with a mocking air. "When are you coming?" asked Sévère.

when the canvas of his booth was raised, and Sévère's tall, straight figure appeared. "How much will you take for your magpie?" said he, bluntly.

66

Young man," answered Noah, incensed