The winter of 1641–42 produced La Mort de Pompée and Le Menteur.
The opening of La Mort de Pompée has been frequently commended for grandeur of conception and originality; and the skill cannot be denied, by which the enunciation of the circumstances producing the interest of the piece is rendered consistent with the dignity of the subject and characters. The same praise cannot be conceded to the inflation of the dialogue and the intolerable length of the speeches. But the concluding speech of Cæsar to the second scene of the third act, and the whole of the fourth act, notwithstanding the censure of Dryden, both on this tragedy and the Cinna, that “they are not so properly to be called plays, as long discourses of reason and state,” may be selected as favourable specimens of the style and power of French dialogue.
A short notice will be sufficient for the comedy of Corneille; and the production of Le Menteur, his most celebrated piece, affords the fittest opportunity. As the Cid was imitated from Guillen de Castro, Lopé de Vega furnished the groundwork of Le Menteur. It is considered to be the first genuine example of the comedy of intrigue and character in France; for Melite was at best but a mere attempt. Before this time, there was no unsophisticated nature, no conventional manners, no truth of delineation. Mirth was raised by extravagance, and curiosity by incidents bordering on the impossible. Corneille appealed to nature and to truth: however imperfect the execution, in comparison with that of his next successor in comedy, he proved that he knew how Thalia as well as Melpomene ought to be drawn. The greatest compliment, perhaps, that can be paid to his genius is, that he pointed out the road both to Racine and Moliere.
The year 1645 gave birth to Rodogune, in which, having before touched the springs of wonder and pity, he worked on his audience by the more powerful engine of terror. His subsequent pieces were below his former level, and betrayed, not so much the decay of genius from the growing infirmities of nature, as that fatal mistake in writing themselves out, so common to authors in the province of imagination. The cold reception of Pertharite disgusted the poet, and he renounced the stage in a splenetic little preface to the printed play, complaining that “he had been an author too long to be a fashionable one.” The turmoil of the court and the gaiety of the theatre had not effaced his early sentiments of piety and religion; he therefore betook himself to the translation of Kempis’s Imitation of Jesus Christ, which he performed very finely. This gave rise to a ridiculous and unfounded story, that the first book was imposed on him as a penance; the second, by the Queen’s command; and the third, by the terrors of conscience during a severe illness.
As the mortification of failure faded away with time, his passion for the theatre revived. Notwithstanding some misgivings, he was encouraged by Fouquet Destrin in 1659, after six years’ absence. He began again, with more benefit to his popularity than to his true fame, with Œdipus;—the noblest and most pathetic subject, most nobly treated, of ancient tragedy. La Toison d’Or came next; a spectacle got up for the King’s marriage;—a species of piece in which the poet always plays a subordinate part to the scene-painter and the dressmaker. Sertorius is to be noticed as having given scope to the fine declamatory powers of Mademoiselle Clairon, the Siddons of the French stage.
Berenice rose to an unenviable fame, principally in consequence of the following circumstances. Henrietta of England, then Duchess of Orleans, whom Fontenelle had the good manners to compliment as “a princess who had a high relish for works of genius, and had been able to call forth some sparks of it even in a barbarous country,” privately set Corneille and Racine to work on the same subject. Their pieces were represented at the same time; and the struggle between a worn-out veteran and a champion in the vigour of youth, terminated, as might have been expected, in the victory of the latter. This literary contest was known by the title of “the duel.” The experiment proves the love of mischief, but says little for the good taste or benevolence of the royal instigator. Pulchérie and Surena were his last productions: both better than Berenice, with sufficient merit to render the close of his literary life respectable, if not splendid.
The personal history of Corneille furnishes little anecdote; we have only further to state, that he was chosen a Member of the French Academy in 1647, and was Dean of that society at the time of his death, which took place in 1684, in his seventy-ninth year.
He is said to have been a man of a devout and melancholy cast. He spoke little in company, even on subjects which his pursuits had made his own. The author of ‘Melanges d’Histoire et du Literature,’ a work published under the name of Vigneut Marville, but really written by the Pêre Bonaventure d’Ayounne, a Cistercian monk of Paris, says, that “the first time he saw him, he took him for a tradesman of Rouen. His conversation was so heavy as to be extremely tiresome if it lasted long.” But whatever might be the outward coarseness or dulness of the man, he was mild of temper in his family, a good husband, parent, and friend. His worth and integrity were unquestionable; nor had his connexion with the court, of which he was not fond, taught him that art of cringing so necessary to fortune and promotion. Hence his reputation was almost the only advantage accruing to him from his productions. His works have been often printed, and consist of more than thirty plays, tragedies and comedies.
Those who wish for a more detailed account of this great writer will find it in his life, by Fontenelle, in Voltaire’s several prefaces, in Racine’s Speech to the French Academy on the admission of his brother Thomas, and in Bayle. Many scattered remarks on him may also be found throughout Dryden’s critical prefaces.
