Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/450

Rh -1-20 COBHEILLE did soliloquies of Medea which, as Voltaire happily says, &quot; annonccnt Corneille,&quot; the entire parts of Kodrigune and Chimene, the final speech of Camille in Horace, the dis covery scene of Cinna, the dialogues of Pauline and Severe in Polyeude, the magnificently-contrasted concep tion and exhibition of the Lest and worst forms of femi nine dignity in the Cornclie of Pompee and the Cleopatre of R&amp;lt;Kloy&quot;,ne t the singularly fine scene in Don Sanclie d Aragon, between the haughtiness of the Spanish nobles and the unshaken dignity of ths supposed adventurer Carlos, and the characters of Aristie, Viriate, and Ser- torius himself, in the play named after the latter, are not to be surpassed in grandeur of thought, felicity of design, or appropriateness of language. Admiration may or may not properly be excited by tragedy, and until this impor tant question is settled the name of tragedian may be at pleasure given to or withheld from the author of Rodogune. But his rank among the greatest of dramatic poets is not a matter of question. For a poet is to be judged by his best things, and the best things of Corneille are second to none. The plays. It was, however, some time before his genius came to perfection. It is undeniable that the first six or seven of his plays are of no very striking intrinsic merit. On the other hand, it requires only a very slight acquaintance with the state of the drama in France at the time to see that these works, poor as they may now seem, must have struck the spectators as something new and surprising. The language and dialogue of Mtlitc 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 c-Tixo/xuflt a, 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 v ork to cure these faults, and produced a truly wonderful work, (. litandre. 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 Bounded it, in a speech forty verses long. This, however, was his only attempt of the kind. His next four pieces were comedies. They are not particularly comic, and they labour under the same defect of construction as Melite. But there is claimed for them the introduction of some important improvements, such as the choos ing for scenes places well known in actual life (as in the Gulcrie du P-ilais), and the substitution as a stock comic character of thu s nibrette in place of the old inconvenient and grotesque nurse. It is certain, however, that there is more interval between these six Jilays and Medee 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 role is, however, the only good one, and as a whole the play is heavy. Much the same may be raid 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 involu tion, 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, cr who so strongly object to the forms of the French drama that they cannot relish anything so presented. To relish Iphigenie one nust in some sort make oneself of the age of its first spectators. But Kodrigune, Chimene, Don Diegue 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 no one who has ever felt either can be indifferent to their representation in the &quot; strong style &quot; which was Corneille s own. Of the many objec tions 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 gene rally considered the poet s masterpiece, and it undoubtedly contains the finest single scene in all French tragedy, a scene which may take rank with any other perhaps ever written. The blot on it is certainly the character of Emilie, who is spiteful and thankless, not heroic. Polycucte 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 Gcncst of llotrou or the Virgin Martyr of Massinger. On the other hand, the entire parts of Pauline and Severe 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 Pompie (for La Mart de Pompee, though the more appropriate, was not the original title) the splendid declamation of Cornelie is the chief thing to be remarked. Lc Mcntcur, which in its English form is well known to play-goers on this side the Channel, fully deserves the honour which Moliere paid to it. Its continuation, notwithstanding the judgment of some French critics, we cannot think so happy. But Theodore 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 &quot;one of the coolest and most insignificant&quot; heroines overdrawn, 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 Cleopatre, 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. Hcraclius, despite great art and much fine poetry, is injured by the extreme complication of its argument and by the blustering part of Pulcherie. Andromede, with the later spectacle piece, the 2 oisond Or, do not call for comment, and we have already alluded to the chief merit of Don Sanche, a play which, however, deserves both admiration and study. Nicomede, often considered one of Corneille s best plays, is chiefly remarkable for the curious and unusual character of its hero. Of Pcrtharite it need only be said that no single critic has to our knowledge disputed the justice of its damnation. CEdipe 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 from its many splendid verses and for the nobility of its sentiment, but from the fact that not one of its charac ters 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 iiem,Agesilas, is almost wholly worthless. Its irregular verses make one very glad that they found few imitators. In the others, though the spectator would not be likely to appreciate tlu in, yet the reader will find not a little verse of the brand which only Corneille could impose. Not a few speeches of Surena 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 a Kempis, iiuk ed, which was in its day im mensely popular (it passed through many editions), condemns it self. Yet these, as well as his greater works, deserve honour as the instruments by which Corneille wrought, prehaps, a mightier change in his mother tongue than any one man ever effected. Of him much rather than of Dryden might it be said, Latcritiam invenit, reliquit marmorcam. And in so saying it need not be forgotten that for some purposes brick is better than marble. The subject of the bibliography of Corneille has been recently Bib; treated in the most exhaustive manner by M. E. Picot in his graj Bibliographic Cornelicnne (Paris, 1875). Less elaborate but still ample information may be found in Taschereau s Vie and ir. M. Marty Laveaux s edition of the Works. A short but useful list is given in Louandre s edition, vol. i. p. 47. The chief collected editions in the poet s lifetime were those of 1644, 1648, 1G52, 166C (with important corrections), 1664, and 1682. In 1692 T. Corneille published a complete Theatre in 5 vols. 12mo. Numerous editions appeared in the early part of the 18th century, that of 1740 (6 vols. 12mo, Amsterdam) containing the (Euvres diverscs as well as the plays. Eight editions are recorded between this and that of Vol taire (12 vols. 8vo ; Geneva, 1764, 1776, 8 vols. 4to), whose Commen- taires 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. Lefevre s (12 vols. 8, Paris, 1854), well printed and with a useful variorum ccnnnp.ntary, lacks biblio graphical information and is disfigured by hideous engravings. Louaudre s (2 vols. 18mo, Paris, 1853), though entitled (Euvres des