, but the
_acheve d'imprimer_ is dated Dec. 10, 1664, and as a second edition was
finished by Jan. 10, 1665, it is practically certain that the book was
out before the end of the year.

[232] Ed. Fournier. Paris, 1873.

CHAPTER II.

DRAMATISTS.

While the influence of Malherbe was thus cramping and withering poetry
proper in France, it combined with some other causes to enable drama to
attain the highest perfection possible in the particular style
practised. In non-dramatic poetry, the only name of the seventeenth
century which can be said even to approach the first class is that of La
Fontaine, whose verse, except for its technical excellence, is almost as
near to prose as to poetry itself. But the names of Corneille, Racine,
and Moliere stand in the highest rank of French authors, and their works
will remain the chief examples of the kind of drama which they
professed. Nor is this difference in any way surprising. It has been
already shown that the style of drama introduced into France by the
Pleiade, and pursued with but little alteration afterwards, was a highly
artificial and a highly limited kind. It lent itself successfully to
comparatively few situations; it excluded variety of action on the
stage; it gave no opening for the display of complicated character. But
these very limitations made it susceptible of very high polish and
elaboration within its own limited range, and made such polish and
elaboration almost a necessity if it was to be tolerable at all. The
correct and cold language and style which Malherbe preached; the
regularity and harmony of versification on which he insisted; the strict
attention to rule rather than impulse which he urged, all suited a thing
in itself so artificial as the Senecan tragedy. They were not so
suitable to the more libertine genius of comedy. But here, fortunately
for France, the regulations were less rigid, and the abiding popularity
of the indigenous farce gave a healthy corrective. The astonishing
genius of Moliere succeeded in combining the two influences--the lawless
freedom of the old farce, and the ordered decency of the Malherbian
poetry. Even his theatre shows some sign of the taint with which
'classical' drama is so deeply imbued, but its force and truth almost or
altogether redeem the imperfections of its scheme.

[Sidenote: Montchrestien.]

We have seen that the early tragedy, which was more or less directly
reproductive of Seneca, attained its hi