tried to detract from the merit of the successful play, and to show that
at least it _ought_ not to have succeeded. Scuderi published a bitter
and elaborate attack, remarkable chiefly for the entire ignorance it
displays of all the real springs of human passion and human interest. He
calls Chimene a monster, and speaks of "the odious struggle of love
and honour." He appealed to the French academy to decide on the justice
of his criticism. The academy, not long before instituted by the
cardinal de Richelieu, penetrated the minister's annoyance at
Corneille's success, and his wish to have a rival crushed; so they by no
means liked to come forward in defence of the poet; nor, on the other
hand, did they relish the invidious task of pronouncing against him;
they signified, therefore, that they should remain silent, unless
invited by the author himself to decide on his merits. The cardinal,
eager for a blow against the young poet, commissioned Corneille's
intimate friend Boisrobert to write to him at Rouen on the subject.
Corneille evaded giving an assent, on the score that the task in
question was unworthy to occupy the academy; but, pressed by reiterated
letters, he at last replied, that the academy could do as it liked;
adding, "and as you say that his eminence would be glad to see their
decision, and be diverted by it, I can have no objection." On this,
Richelieu urged the academy to its task. Three of their number. De
Bourzey, Des Marets, and Chapelain, were commissioned to draw up a
judgment: each performed his work apart; and Chapelain cooked it into
form, and presented it to the cardinal for his approbation. Richelieu
wrote his observations in the margin, and his grudge against the poet
suggested at least one ill-natured one. The academy, as an excuse for
their criticisms, remarked, that the discussions concerning the greatest
works, the "Jerusalem" of Tasso, and the "Pastor Fido," tended to
improve the art of poetry. Richelieu observed on this, "The praise and
blame of the 'Cid' is a dispute between the learned and the ignorant,
while the discussions on the other works mentioned were between clever
men."[14] The work of the academy was, however, not over. The cardinal
recommended that a few handsful of flowers should be scattered over
Chapelain's criticism; but, when these flowers were added, he found them
far too fragrant and ornamental, and had them plucked up and thrown away.
[Sidenote: 1637.
Ætat.
31.]
After a good deal of discussion, and five months' labour, the judgment
of the academy was got up and printed. Scuderi hailed it as a sentence
in his favour: Corneille was not so well pleased; but, after some
indecision, he resolved to abstain from all reply. Such a course was the
most dignified; and he excused the failure of respect it might show to
the academy on the score that it marked a higher degree towards the
cardinal.
He never, it may be believed, forgot the cardinal's ill offices on this
occasion, though his fear of offending caused him to dedicate his play
of "Horace" to him in an adulatory address.
[Sidenote: 1639.
Ætat.
33.]
This tragedy shows a considerable advance in the power of expressing
noble and heroic sentiments. The framework is too slight, being the duel
of the Horatii and the Curiatii, and the subsequent murder of his sister
by the surviving Horatius, when she reproached him for slaying her
betrothed. Such a subject in the hands of Shakspeare had not, indeed,
been threadbare. He would have brought the jealousies of the states of
Rome and Alba in living scenes before our eyes. We should have beheld
the collision of turbulent, ambitious spirits, and felt that the world
was not large enough for both. The pernicious rule of unity of time and
place prevented this: the ambition of Rome could be displayed only in
the single person of Horatius. All we have, therefore, are various
scenes between him, his sister, his wife, and the Curiatius, betrothed
to the former, and brother to the latter; and these scenes are, for the
most part, repetitions one of another; for the same rules confining the
time of action, restrict the whole play to the delineation of the
catastrophe; variety of incident and feeling is excluded, and the art of
the French dramatist consists principally in petty devices, to delay the
catastrophe, and so to drag it through long _tête-à-tête_
conversations, till the fifth act: often they are unable to defer it
beyond the fourth, and then the fifth is an appendix of little account.
"Horace" is, however, a masterpiece. Corneille could speak as a Roman,
and the character of the hero is conceived with a simplicity and
severity of taste worthy of his country.
In his next piece Corneille rose yet higher. "Cinna" is usually
considered his _chef d'œuvre_. It contains admirable scenes,
unsurpassed by any author. Did the scene in which Augustus asks the
advice of Cinna and Maximus as to his meditated abdication pass between
the personages (Mecænas and Agrippa) who really were called into
consultation on the subject, it had been faultless. The mixture of
admirable reasoning, covert and delicate flattery, forcible eloquence,
and happy versification, is perhaps unequalled in any work that exists.
It is, to a degree, spoiled as it stands; for the false part which the
conspirators act, and the peculiarly base conduct of Cinna, deteriorate
from the interest of the whole drama; and, although in subsequent
portions of the play he appears in the more interesting light of a man
struggling between remorse and love, we cannot recover from the
impression, and thus the character wants that congruity and likelihood
necessary for an ideal hero. As works of art, we may say, once for all,
Corneille's tragedies are far from perfect. Very inferior poets have
attained happier combinations of plot: but not one among his
countrymen--few of any nation--have equalled him in scenes; in
declamations full of energy and poetry; in single expressions that
embody the truth of passion and the result of a life of experience; in
noble sentiments, such as made the great Condé weep from admiration. In
this play he did not happily confine himself to absolute unity of place.
Such was his erroneous notion that he mentions this as a fault; while
Voltaire drolly, yet seriously, observes that unity of place had been
preserved had the stage represented two apartments at once. How far this
would have helped the imagination it is impossible to say; but in real
life no spectator commands a view of the interior of two separate rooms
at once, except, indeed, in a penitentiary.
[Sidenote: 1640.
Ætat.
34.]
The tragedies that followed "Cinna" continued to sustain the reputation
of the poet. "Polyeucte," which succeeded to it the following year, is,
perhaps, the most delightful of all his plays. I know no other work of
the imagination in which a woman, loving one man and marrying another,
preserves at once dignity and sweetness. Pauline loves Severus with all
the enthusiasm of a girl's first passion;--she fears to see him again,
so well does she remember the power of that love; but, though she fears,
she does not lament: we perceive that conjugal tenderness for a young
and virtuous husband, a sense of duty, hallowed by purity of feeling and
softened by affection, have gathered over the ruins of a former
attachment for another, while the heroism and generosity of Severus adds
dignity to the character of her who once loved him so fondly. The only
fault that strikes at all forcibly in this piece is a sort of
_brusquerie_, or want of keeping, in the character of the martyr. The
tragedy opens with his wishing to defer the sacrament of baptism because
his wife had had a bad dream; and, after this, we are not prepared for
his sudden resolution to overthrow the altars of his country, and to
devote himself on the instant to martyrdom. The poet meant that we
should feel this increase of fervour as the effect of baptism; but he
has somewhat failed, by not making us expect it: and to raise
expectation, so that no event should appear startling, is the great art
of dramatic writing. The real fault is in the senseless notion of unity
of time: had the author given his personages space to breathe, all had
been in harmony. It must not be omitted, that when Corneille read this
play, before its representation, to an assembly of _beaux esprits_, at
the hotel de Rambouillet, the learned conclave came to the decision that
it would not succeed, and deputed Voiture to persuade the author to
withdraw it, as Christianity introduced on the stage had offended many.
Corneille, frightened at this sentence, endeavoured to get it out of the
hands of the actors, but was persuaded by one among them to let it take
its chance.[15] The fine people of Paris could not imagine that a
Christian martyr would command the interest and sympathy of an audience.
Where the scene, however, is founded on truth and nature, the hearts of
the listeners are carried away; and Corneille could always command
admiration for his heroes, through the power of the situations he
conceived, and the elevation and beauty of his language.
Corneille again attempted a comedy. Voltaire justly observes, that the
French owe their first tragedy and their first comedy of character to
the Spanish. The "Menteur" of Corneille is taken from "El Verdad
sospechosa" of Lope de Vega; and bears marks of its Spanish origin in
the intricacy of its intrigue, and its love-making out of window, so
usual in Spain, and unnatural elsewhere. This comedy had the greatest
success; many of the verses passed into sayings--the very situations
became proverbs. "The Liar" had just arrived from Poietiers; and it grew
into a fashion, when any man told an incredible story, to ask whether he
had come from Poietiers?
[Sidenote: 1646.
Ætat.
40.]
"Rodogune," which succeeded, is (with the lamentable defect of the
unlucky unity of time and place) more like a Spanish or an English play
than any other of Corneille's, except the "Cid." The very intricacy and
faults of the plot, founded, as it is, on some old forgotten tale, give
it the same wild romantic interest. Corneille, indeed, says he took the
story from Appian and other historical sources; but, as the tale
existed, perhaps he saw that first, and then consulted the ancient
authorities. Voltaire, in his remarks, scarcely knows what to say to it.
It succeeded brilliantly, kept possession of the stage, and always ranks
as one of Corneille's best tragedies. He is forced, therefore, to
acknowledge its merit, although the fault in the conduct and story
struck him forcibly. He repeats, perpetually, "The pit was pleased; so
we must allow this play to have merit, though there is so much in it to
shock an enlightened critic." Corneille himself favoured this tragedy
with particular regard. "I have often been asked at court," he says,
"which of my poems I preferred; and I found all those who questioned me
so partial either to 'Cinna or the 'Cid,' that I never dared declare all
the tenderness I felt for this one, to which I would willingly have
given my suffrage, had I not feared to fail in some degree in the
respect I owed to those who inclined the other way. My preference is,
perhaps, the result of one of those blind partialities which fathers
sometimes feel for one child rather than another: perhaps some self-love
mingles with it, since this tragedy seems to me more entirely my own
than any of its predecessors, on account of its surprising incidents,
which are all my own invention, and which had never before been
witnessed on the stage; and, finally, perhaps a little real merit
renders this partiality not entirely unjust." Fontenelle mentions, as
another cause for it, the labour he bestowed; since he spent a year in
meditating the subject. There might be another reason, to which neither
Corneille nor his biographer allude--that this play occasioned him a
triumph over a rival. Gilbert brought out a tragedy on the same subject
a few months before: as it is acknowledged that Corneille's was written
first, he, perhaps, heard of the subject, and took the details from the
novel in question. However that may be, Gilbert's play was never acted a
second time; yet it met with powerful patrons in its fall, and was
published, with a flourishing dedication to the king's brother; but
nothing could preserve it from oblivion. The German critics are
particularly severe on "Rodogune," and with some justice: there is want
of nature in the situations and sentiments; we are attached to none of
the characters; and the heroine herself is utterly insignificant.
Corneille had now reached the acme of his fame. Other plays succeeded,
which did not deserve the name of tragedies, but ought, as Voltaire
remarks, to be entitled heroic comedies.[16] These pieces were of
unequal merit; having here and there traces of the great master's hand,
but defective as wholes. Usually, he introduces one character of power
and interest that elevates them, and which, when filled by a good actor,
rendered them successful; but they were not hailed with the enthusiasm
that attended his earlier plays. The great Condé looked cold on "Don
Sancho," and it was heard of no more; while the fastidious taste of the
French revolted from the subject of "Theodore." Worse overthrow was in
store. "Pertharite," founded on a Lombard story, failed altogether; and
its ill fortune, he tells us, so disgusted him as to induce him to
retreat entirely from the theatre. He turned his thoughts to other
works. He wrote his "Essays on the Theatre," which contain much acute
and admirable criticism; though, like all French writers on that
subject, he misses the real subject of discussion. He translated, also,
the "Imitation of Jesus Christ" into French--being persuaded to this
design by the jesuits. He fails, as our poets are apt to fail, when they
versify the psalms; the dignified simplicity of the original being lost
in the frippery of modern rhyme.
It had been happy for Corneille had he adhered to his resolves to write
no more for the theatre. But M. Fouquet, the celebrated and unfortunate
minister of finances to Louis XIV., caused him to break it. Fouquet
begged him to dramatise one of three subjects which he mentioned.
Corneille chose Œdipus, "Its success," he writes, "compensated to me
for the failure of the other; since the king was sufficiently pleased to
cause me to receive solid testimonials of his satisfaction; and I took
his liberality as a tacit order to consecrate to the amusement of his
majesty all the invention and power which age and former labours had
spared." This was a melancholy resolve--his subsequent plays were not
worthy of their predecessors. They contain fine scenes and eloquent
passages; but a hard dry spirit crept over him, which caused him to
mistake exaggerated sentiments for nobleness of soul. The plots, also,
were bad; the conduct enfeebled by uninteresting episodes, or by the
worse expedient of giving the hero himself some under amatory interest
that lowered him entirely. Voltaire remarks, "Corneille's genius was
still in force. He ought to have been severe on himself, or to have had
severe friends. A man capable of writing fine scenes might have written
a good play. It was a great misfortune that no one told him that he
chose his subjects badly." It is sad to be obliged to make excuses for
genius. No doubt Corneille failed in invention as he grew older. His
former power of boldness and felicity of expression often shed rays of
light upon his feebler works; but he could no longer conceive a whole,
whose parts should be harmonious, whose entire effect should be sublime.
The bounty of the king in bestowing a pension on him, it is probable,
was one cause of his establishing himself in Paris, and his brother's
recent success as a dramatist a yet more urgent one. Hitherto Corneille
had resided at Rouen, visiting the capital only at intervals, when he
brought out any new play. In 1642 he had been elected member of the
French academy; but that circumstance caused no change in his mode of
life. He was not formed to shine at court, nor in the gay Parisian
circles. Simple, almost rustic, in his manners and appearance, his
genius was not discernible to the casual observer. "The first time I saw
him," says a writer of the day, "I took him for a merchant of Rouen--his
exterior gave no token of his talents, and he was slow, and even dull,
in conversation." Corneille certainly neglected the refinements of
society too much; or, rather, nature, who had been so liberal to him in
rich gifts, had withheld minor ones. When his familiar friends, who
desired to see him perfect, spoke to him of his defects, he replied with
a smile, "I am not the less Pierre Corneille." La Bruyère bears the same
testimony: "Simple and timid; tiresome in conversation--he uses one word
for another--he knows not how to recite his own verses."[17]
In truth, Corneille's merit did not, as with many Frenchmen, lie on the
surface. Conscious of his own desert, ambitious of glory, proud, yet
shy, he shrunk from society where all excellence is despised that does
not sparkle and amuse. We are inclined to believe from these
considerations that his migration to Paris is attributable rather to his
brother than to himself.
Thomas Corneille was twenty years the junior. The brothers had married
two sisters of the name of De Lampériere, between whom existed the same
difference of age. The family was united by all the bonds of affection
and virtue. Their property, even, was in common; and it was not until
after Corneille's death that the inheritance of their wives was divided,
and that each sister received her share. The brothers were fondly
attached, and lived under the same roof. We are told that Thomas wrote
verses with much greater facility than Pierre, and he well might,
considering what his verses are; and, when Pierre wanted a rhyme, he
opened a trap door communicating with his brother's room, and asked him
to give one. Nor was Pierre less attached to his sister, to whom he was
accustomed to read his pieces when written. She had good taste and an
enlightened judgment, and was worthy of her relationship to the poet.
Thomas Corneille had lately met with success in the same career as his
brother. His play of "Timocrates" was acted for six months together; and
the king went to the unfashionable theatre of the Marais, at which it
was brought out, for the purpose of seeing it. Nothing could be more
dissimilar than the productions of the brothers. Thomas Corneille had
merit, and one or two of his plays ("Le Comte d'Essex" in particular)
kept possession of the stage: he had, however, knack instead of genius.
He could contrive interesting situations to amuse the audience; but his
verses are tame, his dialogue trivial, his conceptions altogether
mediocre. Still, in its day, success is success, and, under its
influence, the younger Corneille aspired to the delights of a brilliant
career in the capital.
[Sidenote: 1662.
Ætat.
56.]
The establishment of the family in Paris is ascertained by a procuration
or power of attorney given by the brothers, empowering a cousin to
manage their affairs at Rouen. Corneille seemed to feel the change as a
new spur to exertion; but, unfortunately, invention no longer waited on
industry, as of old. Considering it his duty to write for the stage, he
brought out piece after piece, in which he mistook involved intrigue for
interest, crime on stilts for heroism, and declamation for passion. His
tragedies fell coldly on the public ear; and, as he could not understand
why this should he, he always alleges some trivial circumstance as the
cause of his ill success; for, having laboured as sedulously as in his
early plays, he was insensible to the fact, that arid though pompous
dialogues were substituted for sublime eloquence. Boileau's epigram on
these unfortunate testimonies of decayed genius is well known:--when the
wits of Paris repeated after him:
"J'ai vu l'Agésilas;
Hélas!
Mais après Attila,
Hola!"
Corneille might well regret that he had not persevered in the silence to
which he condemned himself when Pertharite failed.
A young rival also sprung up--a rival whose graceful diction, whose
impassioned tenderness, and elegant correctness, are the delight of
French critics to this day. Yet, though Voltaire and others have set
Racine far above Corneille, and though Saint Evremond wrote at the time
that the advanced age of Corneille no longer alarmed him, since the
French drama would not die with him, the younger poet's superiority was
by no means universally acknowledged in his own time. Corneille had a
party who still adhered to their early favourite, and called Racine's
elegance feebleness, compared with the rough sublimity of the father of
the art. "Racine writes agreeably," says madame de Sévigné, in a
letter to her daughter; "but there is nothing absolutely beautiful,
nothing sublime--none of those tirades of Corneille which thrill. We
must never compare him with Racine; but be aware of the difference. We
must excuse Corneille's bad verses in favour of those divine and sublime
beauties which fill us with transport--these are traits of genius which
are quite inimitable. Despréaux says even more than me,--in a word,
this is good taste; let us preserve it." If, therefore, Corneille had
ceased to write, if he had let his nobler tragedies remain as trophies
of past victory, and not aimed at new, he might have held a proud
position, guarded by numerous partisans, who exalted him far above his
rival. But he continued to write, and he was unsuccessful--thus it
became a living struggle, in which he had the worst. He did not like to
appear envious: he felt what he said, and he said justly, that Racine's
Greek or Mahometan heroes were but Frenchmen with ancient or Turkish
names; but he was aware that this remark might be considered invidious.
Yet he could not conceal his opinion, nor the offence he took, when
Racine transplanted a verse from the Cid into his comedy of The
"Plaideurs"--
"Ses rides sur son front ont gravés ses exploits."
"It ill becomes a young man," he said, "to make game of other people's
verses." It was still worse when he was seduced into what the French
have named a duel with Racine. Henrietta, daughter of our Charles I.,
wife of the brother of Louis XIV., was a principal patroness of men of
genius;--her talents, her taste, her accomplishments; the generosity and
kindness of her disposition, made her respected and loved. Louis and she
had been attached to one another; their mutual position forced them to
subdue the passion; but their triumph over it was not achieved without
struggles, which, no doubt, appeared romantic and even tragical to the
poor princess. She wished this combat to be immortalised; and, finding
in the loves and separation of Titus and Berenice a similarity with her
own fate, she deputed the marquis de Dangeau to engage Corneille and
Racine, unknown to one another, each to write a tragedy on this
subject--not a very promising one at best--and still more difficult on
the French stage, where the catastrophe alone forms the piece. But
Racine conquered these difficulties;--tenderness and truth of passion
interested in place of incident--the audience wept--and criticism was
mute. Corneille floundered miserably: love with him is always an adjunct
and an episode, but not the whole subject: it helps as a motive--it is
never the end. He fancied that his young rival was angry with him for
competing with him; and he gave signs of a querulousness which he had no
right to feel[18]; but there is something so _naïve_ in his self
praises, and such ingenuousness in his repinings, that we look on them
as traits portraying the simplicity and singleness of his character,
rather than as marks of vanity or invidiousness.
After "Berenice," he wrote two other plays, "Pulcherie" and "Surena,"
and then, happily, gave up composition. Though he saw the pieces of his
young rival hailed with delight, he had the gratification of knowing
that his own _chef-d'œuvres_ were often acted with applause, that the
best critics regarded them with enthusiasm, and that his position was
firmly established as the father of French tragedy. He lived to a
considerable age; and his mind became enfeebled during the last year of
his life. He died on the 1st September, 1584, in the seventy-ninth year
of his age.
There is a harmony between the works of Corneille and his character,
which his contemporaries, who appreciated only the brilliant, mistook,
but which strikes forcibly. He was proud and reserved. Though his
dedications are phrased according to the adulatory ceremonial of the
day, his conduct was always dignified and independent. He seldom
appeared at court, where his lofty, though simple, character found
nothing to attract. He was, besides, careless of the gifts of fortune:
he detested the cares of property, shrinking, with terror, from such
details. Serious, and even melancholy, trifles had no charms for him:
dramatic composition absorbed his whole thoughts; his studies tended to
improvement in that vocation only. Strait-forward and simple in
manner,--his person, though tall, was heavy--his face was strongly
marked and expressive--his eyes full of fire,--there was something in
the whole man that bespoke strength, not grace--yet a strength full of
dignity.