Spanish, Marino the
Italian, and Lyly the English representative, asserted its dominion over
the favourite authors of French society; the pastoral romance of Honore
d'Urfe--the text-book of pseudo-pastoral gallantry--was the parent of
the romances of the Scuderys, de La Calprenede and Mme de La Fayette;
the Hotel de Rambouillet was in its glory; the true (not the false)
_precieuses_ sat on the heights of intellectual society; and J. L. G. de
Balzac (ridiculed in the earliest French dramatic parody)[95] and
Voiture were the dictators of its literature. Much of the French drama
of this age is of the same kind as its romance-literature, like which it
fell under the polite castigation of Boileau's satire. Heroic love
(quite a technical passion), "fertile in tender sentiments," seized hold
of the theatre as well as of the romances; and La Calprenede, G. de
Scudery[96] and his sister and others were equally fashionable in both
species. The Gascon Cyrano de Bergerac, though not altogether
insignificant as a dramatist,[97] gained his chief literary reputation
by a Rabelaisian fiction. Meanwhile, Spanish and Italian models
continued to influence both branches of the drama. Everybody knew by
heart Gongora's version of the story of "young Pyramus and his love
Thisbe," as dramatized by Th. Viaud (1590-1626); and the sentiment of
Tristan[98] (1601-1655) overpowered Herod on the stage, and drew tears
from Cardinal Richelieu in the audience. J. Mairet was noted for
superior vigour.[99] P. Du Ryer's style is described as, while otherwise
superior to that of his contemporaries, Italian in its defects. A
mixture of the forms of classical comedy with elements of Spanish and of
the Italian pastoral was attempted with great temporary success by A.
Hardy, a playwright who thanked Heaven that he knew the precepts of his
art while preferring to follow the demands of his trade. The mixture of
styles begun by him was carried on by the marquis de Racan,[100] J. de
Rotrou and others; and among these comedies of intrigue in the Spanish
manner the earliest efforts of Corneille himself[101] are to be classed.
Rotrou's noteworthier productions[102] are later in date than the event
which marks an epoch in the history of the French drama, the appearance
of Corneille's _Cid_ (1636).

Corneille.

P. Corneille is justly revered as the first, and in some respects the
unequalled, great master of French tragedy, whatever may have been
unsound in his the