assionate invective not unworthy to be compared with Corneille's,
but with more of a feminine character about it, appears. This was
followed by Racine's only attempt in the comic sock, _Les Plaideurs_,
1668, a most charming trifle which has had, and has deserved, more
genuine and lasting popularity than any of his tragedies. He returned to
tragedy, and rapidly showed the defects of the stereotyped mannerism
inevitably imposed on him by his plan. _Britannicus_, 1669, _Berenice_,
1670, _Bajazet_, 1672, and _Mithridate_, 1673, with all their perfection
of _technique_, announce, as clearly as anything can well do, the fatal
monotony into which French tragedy had once more fallen, and in which it
was to continue for a century and a half. _Iphigenie_, 1674, has much
more liveliness and variety, the deep pathos and terror of the situation
making even Racine's interminable love casuistry natural and
interesting. But _Phedre_, 1677, the last of the series, is
unquestionably the most remarkable of Racine's regular tragedies. By it
the style must stand or fall, and a reader need hardly go farther to
appreciate it. _Britannicus_ was indeed preferred by eighteenth-century
judges; but for excellence of construction, artful beauty of verse,
skilful use of the limited means of appeal at the command of the
dramatist, no play can surpass _Phedre_; and if it still is found
wanting, as it undoubtedly is by the vast majority of critics (including
nowadays a powerful minority even among Frenchmen themselves), the fault
lies rather in the style than in the author, or at least in the author
for adopting the style. _Esther_, 1689, and _Athalie_, 1691, on the
other hand, while retaining a certain similarity of form and machinery,
are radically different from the other plays. It is evident that Racine
before writing them had attentively studied the sixteenth-century drama,
to the strict form of which with its choruses he returns, and from which
he borrows, in some cases directly, the _Aman_ of Montchrestien having
clearly suggested passages in _Esther_. His great poetical faculty has
freer play; he escapes the monotonous 'soupirs et flammes' altogether,
and the result is in _Esther_ on the whole, in _Athalie_ wholly,
admirable.

Racine's peculiarities as a dramatist have been already indicated, but
may now be more fully described. He was emphatically one of those
writers--Virgil and Pope are the other chief notable representatives of
the class--w