that one of the characters jumps on another's back, and the rather
promiscuous kissing which takes place, are nothing to the liberties
usually taken in contemporary plays. A worse fault is the [Greek:
stichomythia], or, to borrow Butler's expression, the Cat-and-Puss
dialogue, which abounds. But the common objection to the play at the
time was that it was _too_ natural and too devoid of striking incidents.
Corneille accordingly, as he tells us, set to work to cure these faults,
and produced a truly wonderful work, _Clitandre_. Murders, combats,
escapes and outrages of all kinds are provided; and the language makes
_The Rehearsal_ no burlesque. One of the heroines rescues herself from a
ravisher by blinding him with a hair-pin, and as she escapes the seducer
apostrophizes the blood which trickles from his eye, and the weapon
which has wounded it, in a speech forty verses long. This, however, was
his only attempt of the kind. For his next four pieces, which were
comedies, there is claimed the introduction of some important
improvements, such as the choosing for scenes places well known in
actual life (as in the _Galerie du palais_), and the substitution of the
soubrette in place of the old inconvenient and grotesque nurse. It is
certain, however, that there is more interval between these six plays
and _Medee_ than between the latter and Corneille's greatest drama. Here
first do we find those sudden and magnificent lines which characterize
the poet. The title-role is, however, the only good one, and as a whole
the play is heavy. Much the same may be said of its curious successor
_L'Illusion comique_. This is not only a play within a play, but in part
of it there is actually a _third_ involution, one set of characters
beholding another set discharging the parts of yet another. It contains,
however, some very fine lines, in particular, a defence of the stage and
some heroics put into the mouth of a braggadocio. We have seen it said
of the _Cid_ that it is difficult to understand the enthusiasm it
excited. But the difficulty can only exist for persons who are
insensible to dramatic excellence, or who so strongly object to the
forms of the French drama that they cannot relish anything so presented.
Rodrigue, Chimene, Don Diegue are not of any age, but of all time. The
conflicting passions of love, honour, duty, are here represented as they
never had been on a French stage, and in the "strong style" which was
Corneille's own. O