Page:Grierson Herbert - First Half of the Seventeenth Century.djvu/333

Rh and Félix. In variety of character-interest the play is superior to any of its predecessors. Pompée, which followed Polyeucte immediately, is wanting in distinct, intelligible purpose, but Cornélie is a very characteristic figure.

After Pompée, Corneille turned aside for a moment from tragedy to try his hand once again at comedy. He found his inspiration and model in a Spanish play. Le Menteur (1642) is a clever adaptation to the not always congenial conditions of the classic stage of a comedy of character and intrigue by Juan Ruiz de Alarçón y Mendoza. Viguier's analysis in Marty-Laveaux's edition brings out clearly his main contention, that as an elaborate and yet naturally evolved intrigue the play has suffered from being forced into the rigid Unities, but that as a study of a "humour" Corneille's comedy has preserved, and at times heightened, all that is most piquant and delightful in the original. In the history of French comedy it marks the highest limit attained before Molière. Corneille's earlier plays, though original in design, are somewhat colourless. In Le Menteur we have happy touches of contemporary manners set off by humour of character and situation; while the dialogue, especially between Dorante the liar and his amazed valet Cliton, is sparkling and witty. La Suite du Menteur (1643) is not a "suite" at all. Corneille has merely spoiled a fine romantic comedy of Lope de Vega's by attempting to connect it with the brilliantly successful predecessor. The Dorante of the second play has as little to do with the hero of