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Rh new and surprising. The language and dialogue of Mélite are on the whole simple and natural, and though the construction is not very artful (the fifth act being, as is not unusual in Corneille, superfluous and clumsy), it is still passable. The fact that one of the characters jumps on another's back, and the rather promiscuous kissing which takes place, are nothing to the liberties usually taken in contemporary plays. A worse fault is the , or, to borrow Butler's expression, the Cat-and-Puss dialogue, which abounds. But the common objection to the play at the time was that it was too natural and too devoid of striking incidents. Corneille accordingly, as he tells us, set to work to cure these faults, and produced a truly wonderful work, Clitandre. Murders, combats, escapes and outrages of all kinds are provided; and the language makes The Rehearsal no burlesque. One of the heroines rescues herself from a ravisher by blinding him with a hair-pin, and as she escapes the seducer apostrophizes the blood which trickles from his eye, and the weapon which has wounded it, in a speech forty verses long. This, however, was his only attempt of the kind. For his next four pieces, which were comedies, there is claimed the introduction of some important improvements, such as the choosing for scenes places well known in actual life (as in the Galerie du palais), and the substitution of the soubrette in place of the old inconvenient and grotesque nurse. It is certain, however, that there is more interval between these six plays and Médée than between the latter and Corneille's greatest drama. Here first do we find those sudden and magnificent lines which characterize the poet. The title-rôle is, however, the only good one, and as a whole the play is heavy. Much the same may be said of its curious successor L'Illusion comique. This is not only a play within a play, but in part of it there is actually a third involution, one set of characters beholding another set discharging the parts of yet another. It contains, however, some very fine lines, in particular, a defence of the stage and some heroics put into the mouth of a braggadocio. We have seen it said of the Cid that it is difficult to understand the enthusiasm it excited. But the difficulty can only exist for persons who are insensible to dramatic excellence, or who so strongly object to the forms of the French drama that they cannot relish anything so presented. Rodrigue, Chimène, Don Diègue are not of any age, but of all time. The conflicting passions of love, honour, duty, are here represented as they never had been on a French stage, and in the "strong style" which was Corneille's own. Of the many objections urged against the play, perhaps the weightiest is that which condemns the frigid and superfluous part of the Infanta. Horace, though more skilfully constructed, is perhaps less satisfactory. There is a hardness about the younger Horace which might have been, but is not made, imposing, and Sabine's effect on the action is quite out of proportion to the space she occupies. The splendid declamation of Camille, and the excellent part of the elder Horace, do not altogether atone for these defects. Cinna is perhaps generally considered the poet's masterpiece, and it undoubtedly contains the finest single scene in all French tragedy. The blot on it is certainly the character of Émilie, who is spiteful and thankless, not heroic. Polyeucte has sometimes been elevated to the same position. There is, however, a certain coolness about the hero's affection for his wife which somewhat detracts from the merit of his sacrifice; while the Christian part of the matter is scarcely so well treated as in the Saint Genest of Rotrou or the Virgin Martyr of Massinger. On the other hand, the entire parts of Pauline and Sévère are beyond praise, and the manner in which the former reconciles her duty as a wife with her affection for her lover is an astonishing success. In Pompée (for La Mort de Pompée, though the more appropriate, was not the original title) the splendid declamation of Cornélie is the chief thing to be remarked. Le Menteur fully deserves the honour which Molière paid to it. Its continuation, notwithstanding the judgment of some French critics, we cannot think so happy. But Théodore is perhaps the most surprising of literary anomalies. The central situation, which so greatly shocked Voltaire and indeed all French critics from the date of the piece, does not seem to blame. A virgin martyr who is threatened with loss of honour as a bitterer punishment than loss of life offers points as powerful as they are perilous. But the treatment is thoroughly bad. From the heroine who is, in a phrase of Dryden's, "one of the coolest and most insignificant" heroines ever drawn, to the undignified Valens, the termagant Marcelle, and the peevish Placide, there is hardly a good character. Immediately upon this in most printed editions, though older in representation, follows the play which (therein agreeing rather with the author than with his critics) we should rank as his greatest triumph, Rodogune. Here there is hardly a weak point. The magnificent and terrible character of Cléopâtre, and the contrasted dispositions of the two princes, of course attract most attention. But the character of Rodogune herself, which has not escaped criticism, comes hardly short of these. Héraclius, despite great art and much fine poetry, is injured by the extreme complication of its argument and by the blustering part of Pulchérie. Andromède, with the later spectacle piece, the Toison d'or, do not call for comment, and we have already alluded to the chief merit of Don Sanche. Nicomède, often considered one of Corneille's best plays, is chiefly remarkable for the curious and unusual character of its hero. Of Pertharite it need only be said that no single critic has to our knowledge disputed the justice of its damnation. &OElig;dipe is certainly unworthy of its subject and its author, but in Sertorius we have one of Corneille's finest plays. It is remarkable not only for its many splendid verses and for the nobility of its sentiment, but from the fact that not one of its characters lacks interest, a commendation not generally to be bestowed on its author's work. Of the last six plays we may say that perhaps only one of them, Agésilas, is almost wholly worthless. Not a few speeches of Suréna and of Othon are of a very high order. As to the poet's non-dramatic works, we have already spoken of his extremely interesting critical dissertations. His minor poems and poetical devotions are not likely to be read save from motives of duty or curiosity. The verse translation of à Kempis, indeed, which was in its day immensely popular (it passed through many editions), condemns itself.

—The subject of the bibliography of Corneille was treated in the most exhaustive manner by M. E. Picot in his Bibliographie Cornélienne (Paris, 1875–1876). Less elaborate, but still ample information may be found in J. A. Taschereau's Vie and in M. Marty-Laveaux's edition of the Works. The individual plays were usually printed a year or two after their first appearance: but these dates have been subjected to confusion and to controversy, and it seems better to refer for them to the works quoted and to be quoted. The chief collected editions in the poet's lifetime were those of 1644, 1648, 1652, 1660 (with important corrections), 1664 and 1682, which gives the definitive text. In 1692 T. Corneille published a complete Théâtre in 5 vols. 12mo. Numerous editions appeared in the early part of the 18th century, that of 1740 (6 vols. 12mo, Amsterdam) containing the Œuvres diverses as well as the plays. Several editions are recorded between this and that of Voltaire (12 vols. 8vo; Geneva, 1764, 1776, 8 vols. 4to), whose Commentaires have often been reprinted separately. In the year IX. (1801) appeared an edition of the Works with Voltaire's commentary and criticisms thereon by Palissot (12 vols. 8vo, Paris). Since this the editions have been extremely numerous. Those chiefly to be remarked are the following. Lefèvre's (12 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1854), well printed and with a useful variorum commentary, lacks bibliographical information and is disfigured by hideous engravings. Of Taschereau's, in the Bibliothèque elzévirienne, only two volumes were published. Lahure's appeared in 5 vols. (1857–1862) and 7 vols. (1864–1866). The edition of Ch. Marty-Laveaux in Regnier's Grands Écrivains de la France (1862–1868), in 12 vols. 8vo, is still the standard. In appearance and careful editing it leaves nothing to desire, containing the entire works, a lexicon, full bibliographical information, and an album of illustrations of the poet's places of residence, his arms, some title-pages of his plays, facsimiles of his writings, &c. Nothing is wanting but variorum comments, which Lefèvre's edition supplies. Fontenelle's life of his uncle is the chief original authority on that subject, but Taschereau's Histoire de la vie et des ouvrages de P. Corneille (1st ed. 1829, 2nd in the Bibl. elzévirienne, 1855) is the standard work. Its information has been corrected and augmented in various later publications, but not materially. Of the exceedingly numerous writings relative to Corneille we may mention the Recueil de dissertations sur plusieurs tragédies de Corneille et de Racine of the abbé Granet (Paris, 1740), the criticisms already alluded to of Voltaire, La Harpe and Palissot, the well-known work of Guizot, first published as Vie de Corneille in 1813 and revised as Corneille et son temps in 1852, and the essays, repeated in his Portraits