BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL THE admirers of Corneille, including Madame de Sévigné, who was never thoroughly impartial in the opinions she expressed about Racine, used to say that, had the author of the Cid never existed, the tragedies of his rival would never have seen the light. Nothing can, in our estimation, be farther from the truth; and no two individuals, pursuing the same career, ever had fewer points of resemblance. Both represent the times in which they lived; and if throughout Corneille's pieces we trace the influence of the stormy scenes of the Fronde, and of the struggle between Queen and Cardinal, we are no less sure, in the works of Racine, to meet with constant reminiscences of the court, by turns martial, sentimental, gallant, or devout, of which the Grand Monarque was the supreme arbiter. Corneille is naturally inclined towards subjects and situations requiring vigour of conception and energy of execution. Power of reasoning, elevation of thought, and the striking results of eloquence, are what we principally mark in his tragedies. It is probable he would have been an excellent orator, either in the Roman senate or in our own parliament; and Napoleon used to say that, had he lived in his time, he would have appointed him prime minister. There is an evident predilection for military and political topics in the author of Nicomède, and a certain rough way of handling his subjects that clearly denotes a mind cast in a less refined, though perhaps a sterner mould than that of the tender Racine, as he is called. The habitual studies, too, of the Norman bard contributed to foster his personal inclinations. His favorite authors, Lucan, Seneca, and the Spanish dramatists, impregnated his style with their beauties, as also with some of their defects. Lucan carried him, by his love of the sublime, now and then even to the verge of the ridiculous; Seneca led him on, by the love of argumentation and conceit, into intricate and refined subtilities; and the Spaniards induced him to exaggerate both sentiments and situations, in order to obtain dramatic effects. But Corneille was decidedly a man of genius, and as such, liable to a thousand capital defects; to be found wanting in judgment, in good sense, in correctness, but most of all in good taste. Racine, whom we look upon as exhibiting the personification of talent, carried to the highest extreme, short of genius, never sinned by any of these defeets. His excellence is uniform, and his perfection all but monotonous. "Compose an Essay on Racine !" cried Voltaire, to whom it was proposed to comment upon the plays of this latter poet, as he had done on those of Corneille: "Why all that I need do would be to write at the bottom of each page, beautiful, perfect, harmonious, sublime !'” Corneille has the disadvantage of being the first poet of his age who succeeded in his efforts to reform the system of dramatic representation. His fame gained by this, but had he not been a man of genius his talent would have inevitably have been the loser. It is a decided disadvantage to an eminent artist to be the discoverer, and consequently for some length of time the oracle, of a new code in art or literature. Not only those who ought to be his judges have no point of comparison to oppose to him, not only is he thus deprived of the help always afforded to an author by the salutary criticisms of the public; but he himself, standing alone and foremost of his kind, cannot profit by the good examples, or take warning from the errors of his predecessors. Another inconvenience attached to this species of isolated greatness arises from the general mutability of taste. The public, without estimating the difficulties inseparable from the position of the original founder of a style, is too prone to lavish applause upon the new instruments of its present pleasure, and scarcely ever fails to exalt the Improver above the Creator. This was, up to a certain point, the case with Racine. His admirers place him far above Corneille, for qualities alien to a first Inventor. Corneille's votaries, on the other hand, depreciate Racine for the absence of attributes not properly belonging to his talent. The Racinists complain that the author of Cinna is often incorrect in his language, and exaggerated in his sentiments; the Corneillists affirm that Racine is wanting in force, grandeur, and heroic sublimity. It is the eternal error of mankind to require from one species of excellence qualities which strictly appertain to another. The genius which could conceive the characters of Auguste, Horace, Don Diègue, and Sevère, could no more have imagined those of Titus, Zipharès, Antiochus, or Bajazet, than the creator of Monime, Bérénice, Iphigénie, and Esther, could have originated the types of Emilie, Camille, Viriate, or Cleopatre. Their qualities and styles are so essentially different that it is only to be wondered at how any one could think seriously for a moment of comparing them. In their total dissimilarity lies their principal merit. Each author has dared to be himself, which is the cause of their respective originality and greatness. To use the terms introduced into philosophical language by the Germans, Racine evinces in his works more objectivity, and Corneille, in his, more subjectivity. Racine has perhaps considered more the abstract nature of tragedy in itself, Corneille the particular nature of his own genius. The same sum of force and talent is to be discerned in both of them, but it is applied in opposite directions. With Corneille it is expended upon the powerful, the grand, and the sublime. With Racine it is developed in the tender and the impassioned; and in the profound analysis of the human heart. No portion of Racine is so full of manly energy, so heroic, as are certain parts of Les Horaces, of the Cid, or of Cinna, nor has Corneille any passages which can vie in exquisite delicacy of sentiment with many scenes of Bérénice, thridate, or Britannicus: but the tenderness of the one and the vehemence of the other require in both the same amount of talent and power. We have stated sufficient to show that, in our estimation, Corneille, as a man of genius, must rank higher than Racine; as a man of talent, "Corneille," as Molière used to say, "has, like Socrates, a familiar demon. At certain times this sprite visits him, and taking the pen out of his hand, writes whole pages, of whose incomparable beauty Old Peter (le vieux Pierre) is quite unconscious; for when the genius is gone, he quietly resumes the pen, and does not perceive the difference." Corneille's greatest enemies (for, like all transcendant geniuses, he counted many) could not help every now and then admitting his superiority, against their own will; and his principal detractor, Voltaire, when speaking of a certain passage of Les Horaces, says, "I have sought in vain throughout the theatre of the ancients for a similar situation; for a similar mixture of moral elevation, of grief, and of dignified decorum, and I have been unable to find one;" and, further on, commenting upon the famous "qu'il mourût" of old Horatius, he calls it "that most sublime word! that expression to which nothing, even in the days of antiquity, can be compared!" In concluding his commentary on this piece, the author of the Henriade cannot refrain from allowing that "these and similar traits of genius have gained for Corneille the surname of "the Great," not only to distinguish him from his brother, but also from the rest of mankind!" But to return to Racine. We have endeavoured to prove that he attains to as great excellence in his pictures of the tenderer passions, as Corneille in his mode of treating the sterner feelings of the mind. We do not mean by this to infer that Racine has no energy and Corneille no tenderness; far from it; we merely say that those are not the respective qualities which constitute perfection in each. To a certainty Roxane, Athalie, Aromat, Néron, and many other characters, sufficiently prove that Racine had no want of energy when energy is required. We do not place Phèdre in this class, because the Phèdre of Racine is, : like the Hamlet of Shakspere, and the Misanthrope of Molière, a creation by itself. We can learn from Chimère and Pauline how well Corneille understood the employment of sensibility in a female part; but the difference lies in this: that, generally speaking (we would always avoid making opinions of this kind arbitrary), Racine's characters derive their poetical existence from a principle which in the creations of Corneille is only used as an accessory. For instance, Roxane arrives at ambition through love; Emilie makes her affection subservient to her ambition. The heroines of Corneille are all, more or less, political personages, with a touch of the Amazon about them-capable of haranguing the senate, or leading an army on to battle, and prouder than the proudest conquerors, as Racine himself expresses it. We know of no more perfect picture of Corneille's style generally than the few following lines, which we borrow from one of the most esteemed, and certainly the most elaborate critic of the present day in France. St. Beuve, in an article, published in 1828, says: "In our opinion the style of Corneille is, notwithstanding all its negligences, one of the finest productions of the age which possessed Molière and Bossuet. The touch of the poet is hard, severe, and vigorous. I would fain compare him to a sculptor who should aim at fashioning heroic figures out of clay, and who, using no instrument but his thumb, should give to his model an inimitable air of life, with all its inequalities and roughnesses. But the work is incorrect, it is neither smooth nor neat as some people say. There is little colour in Corneille's style, it is warm rather than brilliant; it leans readily towards the abstruse, and in it imagination decidedly yields the palm to reflection and reasoning. Corneille cannot fail to be a favorite with statesmen, mathemati cians, military men, and all those who admire Demos. thenes, Pascal, and Cæsar." The same excellent essayist, speaking of Racine, observes: "The qualities which above all distinguish him, in the style of his language as well as in the composition of his pieces, are-the logical inferences, and the uninterrupted chain of ideas and |