s the
close. _Saint Genest_ (1645), which is derived, but in no servile
fashion, from Lope de Vega, recalls _Polyeucte_; an actor of the time
of Diocletian, in performing the part of a Christian martyr, is
penetrated by the heroic passion which he represents, confesses his
faith, and receives its crown in martyrdom. The tragi-comedy _Don
Bernard de Cabrere_ and the tragedy _Venceslas_ of the following year
exhibit the romantic and passionate sides of Rotrou's genius. The
intemperate yet noble Ladislas has rashly and in error slain his
brother; he is condemned to death by his father Venceslas, King of
Poland, and he accepts his doom. The situation is such as Corneille
might have imagined; but Rotrou's young hero in the end is pardoned
and receives the kingdom. If their careless construction and unequal
style in general forbade the dramas of Rotrou to hold the stage, they
remained as a store from which greater artists than he could draw
their material. His death was noble: the plague having broken out
at Dreux, he hastened from Paris to the stricken town, disregarding
all affectionate warnings, there to perform his duty as a magistrate;
within a few days the inhabitants followed Rotrou's coffin to the
parish church.

THOMAS CORNEILLE, the faithful and tender brother of "le grand
Corneille," and his successor in the Academy, belongs to a younger
generation. He was born in 1625, and did not die until near the close
of the first decade of the eighteenth century. As an industrious
playwright he imitated his brother's manner, and reproduced his
situations with a feebler hand. Many of his dramas are of Spanish
origin, comic imbroglios, tragic extravagances; they rather diverted
dramatic art from its true way than aided its advance. Perhaps for
this reason they were the more popular. His _Timocrate_ (1656), drawn
from the romance of _Cleopatre_, and itself a romance written for
the stage, had a success rarely equalled during the century. The hero
is at once the enemy and the lover of the Queen of Argos; under one
name he besieges her, under another he repels his own attack; he is
hated and adored, the conquered and the conqueror. The languors of
conventional love and the plaintive accents of conventional grief
suited the powers of the younger Corneille. His _Ariane_ (1672)
presents a heroine, Ariadne, abandoned by Theseus, who reminds us
of one of Racine's women, drawn with less certain lines and fainter
colours. In _Le Comte