erses in the world, but sometimes the familiar deserts him, and
then he writes no better than anybody else.' The most fertile familiar
cannot suggest fifty or sixty thousand of these finest lines in the
world; and the consequence is that, what with the lack of central
interest which follows from Corneille's own plan, with the absence of
subsidiary interest and relief which is inevitable in the French
classical model, and with the drawbacks of his somewhat declamatory
style, there are long passages, sometimes whole scenes and acts, if not
whole plays of his, which are but dreary reading, and could hardly be,
even with the most appreciative and creative acting, other than dreary
to witness. It was Corneille's fault that, while bowing himself to the
yoke of the Senecan drama, he did not perceive or would not accept the
fact that there is practically but one situation, by the working out of
which that drama can be made tolerable to modern audiences. This
situation is love-making, which in real life necessitates a vast deal of
talking, and about which, even on the stage, a vast deal of talking is
admissible. The characters of the French classic or heroic play are
practically allowed to do nothing but talk, and the author who would
make them interesting must submit himself to his fate. Corneille would
not submit wholly and cheerfully, though he has, as might be expected,
been obliged to introduce love-making into most of his plays.

To a modern reader the detached passages already referred to, and the
magnificent versification which is displayed in them, make up the real
charm of Corneille except in a very few plays, such as the _Cid_,
_Polyeucte_, _Rodogune_, and perhaps a few others. Du Bartas, D'Aubigne,
and Regnier, had indicated the capacities of the Alexandrine; Corneille
demonstrated them and illustrated them almost indefinitely. He did not
indulge in the pedantry of _rimes difficiles_, by which Racine attracted
his hearers, nor was his verse so uniformly smooth as that of his
younger rival. But what it lacked in polish and grace it more than made
up in grandeur and dignity. The best lines of Corneille, like those of
D'Aubigne, of Rotrou, from whom, comparatively stammering as was the
teacher, Corneille perhaps learnt the art, and of Victor Hugo, have a
peculiar crash of sound which hardly any other metre of any other
language possesses. A slight touch of archaism (it is very slight) which
is to be discovered in his wor