least facetious
of his burlesques.

PETER CORNEILLE.

Exact Racine and Corneille's noble fire
Show'd us that France had something to admire.

POPE.

The great Corneille having finished his studies, devoted himself to the
bar; but this was not the stage on which his abilities were to be
displayed. He followed the occupation of a lawyer for some time, without
taste and without success. A trifling circumstance discovered to the
world and to himself a different genius. A young man who was in love
with a girl of the same town, having solicited him to be his companion
in one of those secret visits which he paid to the lady, it happened
that the stranger pleased infinitely more than his introducer. The
pleasure arising from this adventure excited in Corneille a talent which
had hitherto been unknown to him, and he attempted, as if it were by
inspiration, dramatic poetry. On this little subject he wrote his comedy
of Melite, in 1625. At that moment the French drama was at a low ebb:
the most favourable ideas were formed of our juvenile poet, and comedy,
it was expected, would now reach its perfection. After the tumult of
approbation had ceased, the critics thought that Melite was too simple
and barren of incident. Roused by this criticism, our poet wrote his
Clitandre, and in that piece has scattered incidents and adventures with
such a licentious profusion, that the critics say he wrote it rather to
expose the public taste than to accommodate himself to it. In this piece
the persons combat on the theatre; there are murders and assassinations;
heroines fight; officers appear in search of murderers, and women are
disguised as men. There is matter sufficient for a romance of ten
volumes; "And yet," says a French critic, "nothing can be more cold and
tiresome." He afterwards indulged his natural genius in various other
performances; but began to display more forcibly his tragic powers in
Medea. A comedy which he afterwards wrote was a very indifferent
composition. He regained his full lustre in the famous Cid, a tragedy,
of which he preserved in his closet translations in all the European
languages, except the Sclavonian and the Turkish. He pursued his
poetical career with uncommon splendour in the Horaces, Cinna, and at
length in Polyeucte; which productions, the French critics say, can
never be surpassed.

At length the tragedy of "Pertharite" appeared, and proved un