h "The Cid." Let us
go at once to that tragedy of Corneille's which, by the general consent
of French critics, is the best work of its author, the "Polyeuctes." The
following is the rhetorical climax of praise in which Gaillard, one of
the most enlightened of Corneille's eulogists, arranges the different
masterpieces of his author: "'The Cid' raised Corneille above his
rivals; the 'Horace' and the 'Cinna' above his models; the 'Polyeuctes'
above himself." This tragedy will, we doubt not, prove to our readers
the most interesting of all the tragedies of Corneille.

"The great Corneille"--to apply the traditionary designation which,
besides attributing to our tragedian his conceded general eminence in
character and genius, serves also to distinguish him by merit from his
younger brother, who wrote very good tragedy--was an illustrious figure
at the Hotel de Rambouillet, that focus of the best literary criticism
in France. Corneille reading a play of his to the _coterie_ of wits
assembled there under the presidency of ladies whose eyes, as in a kind
of tournament of letters, rained influence on authors, and judged the
prize of genius, is the subject of a striking picture by a French
painter. Corneille read "Polyeuctes" at the Hotel de Rambouillet, and
that awful court decided against the play. Corneille, like Michel
Angelo, had to a good degree the courage of his own productions; but, in
the face of adverse decision so august on his work, he needed
encouragement, which happily he did not fail to receive, before he would
allow his "Polyeuctes" to be represented. The theatre crowned it with
the laurels of victory. It thus fell to Corneille to triumph
successively, single-handed, over two great adversary courts of critical
appreciation,--the Academy of Richelieu and the not less formidable
Hotel de Rambouillet.

The objection raised by the Hotel de Rambouillet against the
"Polyeuctes" was that it made the stage encroach on the prerogative of
the pulpit, and preach instead of simply amusing. And, indeed, never,
perhaps, since the Greek tragedy, was the theatre made so much to serve
the solemn purposes of religion. (We except the miracle and passion
plays and the mysteries of the middle ages, as not belonging within the
just bounds of a comparison like that now made.) Corneille's final
influence was to elevate and purify the French theatre. In his early
works, however, he made surprising concessions to the lewd taste in the
d