Mon travail sans appui monte sur le théâtre,
Chacun en liberté l'y blâme ou l'idolâtre.
Then he had the ball at his feet, and all the world was before him. He
had just made his name, and was honored by Richelieu—being appointed
one of his five paid authors. But minister and poet did not like each
other. The autocrat was in something of the same position towards his
inferior as is the big boy towards the little boy who gets above him at
school. The big boy wanted to thrash the little boy, and the little boy
wouldn't have it; but at last he had to suffer for his precociousness.
The big boy summoned other little boys to his assistance, and made them
administer chastisement to the offender. This was the examination of
the _Cid_ by the Academy.
“En vain, contre le _Cid_ un ministre se ligue,
Tout Paris pour Chimène a les yeux de Rodrigue;
L'Académie en corps a beau le censurer,
Le public révolté s'obstine à l'admirer.”
Corneille was a voluminous writer. He wrote nearly as many plays as
Shakespeare, but his later ones are not equal to those of his best
days. And he wrote a translation in verse of the _Imitatione Christi_.
This was a pecuniary success. The book was bought and eagerly read,
though now it is rarely taken down from the shelf. But his prose,
unlike Racine's, which charms by its grace, is insignificant. And,
unlike Racine, his speech when he was received into the French Academy
was dull, and disappointed everybody. An Academical reception is one
of the occasions in which Frenchmen have always expected that the
recipient of honor should distinguish himself. But it was not in
Corneille's power to please his audience by making a speech. We need
not be too heavy upon him because his glory was not universal. As he
said of himself, he was none the less Pierre Corneille. Readers have
generally extolled Corneille too highly, or have not given him his due
praise. This is partly from the fact that after his great success he
wrote much that was unworthy of his former self; and partly, we believe
at least, that even in his best plays he is too spasmodic. His fine
lines come out too much by starts, amidst much that is uninteresting.
The famous “Qu'il mourût” (_Horace_, Act III., sc. 6) is very grand,
and the next line, though not English in sentiment, is fine. But the
four succeeding lines are washy, and take away from the dignity of what
has just gone before. Instinctively Corneille was a dramatist, and
had it not been for the laws of the unities which bound him down to
conventional and unwise rules, he would in all probability have risen
higher in the world's esteem. He was also a poet, having the gift of
poetical expression more at his command than the larger measure of
composition in prose. His lines are often sweet and very stirring,
for he was moved towards his subject with a true feeling of poetic
chivalry. None of his lines is more quoted than one in which he proudly
spoke of himself:—
Je ne dois qu'à moi seul toute ma renommée.
—_Gentleman's Magazine._