). In this year also
_Cinna_ appeared. A brief but very serious illness attacked him, and the
death of his father the year before had increased his family anxieties
by leaving his mother in very indifferent circumstances. It has,
however, been recently denied that he himself was at any time poor, as
older traditions asserted.

In the following year Corneille figured as a contributor to the
_Guirlande de Julie_, a famous album which the marquis de Montausier,
assisted by all the literary men of the day, offered to his lady-love,
Julie d'Angennes. 1643 was, according to the latest authorities (for
Cornelian dates have often been altered), a very great year in the
dramatist's life. Therein appeared _Polyeucte_, the memorable comedy of
_Le Menteur_, which though adapted from the Spanish stood in relation to
French comedy very much as _Le Cid_, which owed less to Spain, stood to
French tragedy; its less popular and far less good _Suite_,--and perhaps
_La Mort de Pompee_. _Rodogune_ (1644) was a brilliant success;
_Theodore_ (1645), a tragedy on a somewhat perilous subject, was the
first of Corneille's plays which was definitely damned. Some amends may
have been made to him by the commission which he received next year to
write verses for the _Triomphes poetiques de Louis XIII_. Soon after
(22nd of January 1647) the Academy at last (it had twice rejected him on
frivolous pleas) admitted the greatest of living French writers.
_Heraclius_ (1646), _Andromede_ (1650), a spectacle-opera rather than a
play, _Don Sanche d'Aragon_ (1650) and _Nicomede_ (1651) were the
products of the next few years' work; but in 1652 _Pertharite_ was
received with decided disfavour, and the poet in disgust resolved, like
Ben Jonson, to quit the loathed stage. In this resolution he persevered
for six years, during which he worked at a verse translation of the
_Imitation of Christ_ (finished in 1656), at his three _Discourses on
Dramatic Poetry_, and at the _Examens_ which are usually printed at the
end of his plays. In 1659 Fouquet, the Maecenas of the time, persuaded
him to alter his resolve, and _OEdipe_, a play which became a great
favourite with Louis XIV., was the result. It was followed by _La Toison
d'or_ (1660), _Sertorius_ (1662) and _Sophonisbe_ (1663). In this latter
year Corneille (who had at last removed his residence from Rouen to
Paris in 1662) was included among the list of men of letters pensioned
at the proposal of Colbert. He receiv