ert--have remained outside
it; while all the most fruitful developments in French literary theory
have come about only after a bitter and desperate resistance on its
part. On the whole, perhaps the most important function performed by the
Academy has been a more indirect one. The mere existence of a body of
writers officially recognized by the authorities of the State has
undoubtedly given a peculiar prestige to the profession of letters in
France. It has emphasized that tendency to take the art of writing
seriously--to regard it as a fit object for the most conscientious
craftsmanship and deliberate care--which is so characteristic of French
writers. The amateur is very rare in French literature--as rare as he is
common in our own. How many of the greatest English writers have denied
that they were men of letters!--Scott, Byron, Gray, Sir Thomas Browne,
perhaps even Shakespeare himself. When Congreve begged Voltaire not to
talk of literature, but to regard him merely as an English gentleman,
the French writer, who, in all his multifarious activities, never forgot
for a moment that he was first and foremost a follower of the profession
of letters, was overcome with astonishment and disgust. The difference
is typical of the attitude of the two nations towards literature: the
English, throwing off their glorious masterpieces by the way, as if they
were trifles; and the French bending all the resources of a trained and
patient energy to the construction and the perfection of marvellous
works of art.

Whatever view we may take of the ultimate influence of the French
Academy, there can be no doubt at all that one of its first actions was
singularly inauspicious. Under the guidance of Cardinal Richelieu it
delivered a futile attack upon the one writer who stood out head and
shoulders above his contemporaries, and whose works bore all the marks
of unmistakable genius--the great CORNEILLE. With the production, in
1636, of Corneille's tragedy, _Le Cid_, modern French drama came into
existence. Previous to that date, two main movements are discernible in
French dramatic art--one carrying on the medieval traditions of the
mystery-and miracle-play, and culminating, early in the seventeenth
century, with the rough, vigorous and popular drama of Hardy; and the
other, originating with the writers of the Renaissance, and leading to
the production of a number of learned and literary plays, composed in
strict imitation of the tragedies o