heir
correspondents, the "Recit des grands jours d'Auvergne," by Flechier,
etc. On the oratorical peculiarities of this style cf. Sainte-Beuve,
"Port-Royal," 2nd ed. I. 515.]

[Footnote 3223: Voltaire, 'Esay sur le poeme epique', "Our nation,
regarded by strangers as superficial is, with the pen in its hand, the
wisest of all. Method is the dominant quality of all our writers."]

[Footnote 3224: Milton's works are built up with 8,000. "Shakespeare,
who displayed a greater variety of expression than probably any writer
in any language, produced all his plays with about 15,000 words and the
Old Testament says all it has to say with 5,642 words." (Max Mueller,
"Lectures on the Science of language," I. 309.)--It would be interesting
to place alongside of this Racine's restricted vocabulary. That of
Mme. de Scudery is extremely limited. In the best romance of the XVIIth
century, the "Princesse de Cleves," the number of words is reduced to
the minimum. The Dictionary of the old French Academy contains 29,712
words; the Greek Thesaurus, by H. Estienne, contains about 150,000.]

[Footnote 3225: Compare together the translations of the Bible made by
de Sacy and Luther; those of Homer by Dacier, Bitaube and Lecomte de
Lisle; those of Herodotus, by Larcher and Courrier, the popular tales of
Perrault and those by Grimm, etc.]

[Footnote 3226: See the "Discours academique," by Racine, on the
reception of Thomas Corneille: "In this chaos of dramatic poetry your
illustrious brother brought Reason on the stage, but Reason associated
with all the pomp and the ornamentation our language is capable of."]

[Footnote 3227: Voltaire, "Essay sur le poeme epique," 290. "It must be
admitted that a Frenchman has more difficulty in writing an epic poem
than anybody else. . . . Dare I confess it? Our own is the least poetic
of all polished nations. The works in verse the most highly esteemed in
France are those of the drama, which must be written in a familiar style
approaching conversation."]

[Footnote 3228: Except in "Pensees," by Pascal, a few notes dotted down
by a morbidly exalted Christian, and which certainly, in the perfect
work, would not have been allowed to remain as they are.]

[Footnote 3229: See in the Cabinet of Engravings the theatrical costumes
of the middle of the XVIIIth century.--Nothing could be more opposed
to the spirit of the classic drama than the parts of Esther and
Brittannicus, as they are played nowadays,