Page:Grierson Herbert - First Half of the Seventeenth Century.djvu/332

Rh passion of Cinna and Æmilie does not interest. "L'amour" in Corneille's tragedies is merely a conventional pretext for desperate resolutions and subtle casuistry. It is the wisdom and eloquence, combined with dramatic propriety and impressiveness, of the two great scenes between Augustus and Cinna, which lend the play a singular elevation and charm. The Senecan drama had cultivated argument and eloquence on moral and political themes, but never with a dramatic effect. When Corneille himself essayed it again in Sertorius he saved a poor play from complete failure, but was unable to give the scene any real dramatic justification.

In Polyeucte Christian zeal takes the place of moral wisdom. This play and Theodore, with Rotrou's St Genest, like Vondel's Maeghden, Peter en Pauwel, and Maria Stuart, are a result of the Catholic revival, and the quickened enthusiasm for the martyr and virgin reflected in so much of the poetry and the literature of the day. There is no reason to suppose that Corneille's work has—even so much as Vondel's—any direct relation with the mediæval drama. Each dramatises his saint's legends in the form he uses for other subjects. Neither makes any reference to the Mysteries, but both justify their choice of sacred subjects by the authority of Buchanan, Grotius, and Heinsius. Corneille's saint is almost as outrageous as his Roman patriot, but around him, and coming under the influence of his exalted character and triumphant death, stand three peculiarly interesting figures—Pauline, Sevère,