larity. Campistron, a follower rather than a rival of
Racine, was a better writer than Pradon, but pushed to an extreme the
softness and almost effeminacy of subject and treatment which made
Corneille contemptuously speak of his younger rival and his party as
'les doucereux.' Quinault, before writing good operas and fair comedies,
wrote bad tragedies. The only other authors of the day worth mentioning
are Duche and Lafosse. Lafosse is a man of one play, though as a matter
of fact he wrote four. In _Manlius_ he gave Roman names and setting to
the plot of Otway's _Venice Preserved_, and achieved a decided success.

[Sidenote: Development of Comedy.]

The history of French comedy is remarkably different from that of French
tragedy. In the latter case a foreign model was followed almost
slavishly; in the former the actual possessions of the language received
grafts of foreign importation, and the result was one of the capital
productions of European literature. Whether the popularity of the
indigenous farce of itself saved France from falling into the same false
groove with Italy it is not easy to say, but it is certain that at the
time of the Renaissance there was some danger. At first it seemed as if
Terence was to serve as a model for comedy just as Seneca served as a
model for tragedy. The first comedy, _Eugene_, is strongly Terentian,
though even here a greater freedom of movement, a stronger infusion of
local colour is observable than in _Didon_ or _Cleopatre_. So, too, when
the Italian Larivey adapted his remarkable comedies the vernacular
savour became still stronger. Yet it was very long before genuine comedy
was produced in France. The farces continued, and kinds of dramatic
entertainment, lower even than the farce, such as those which survive in
the work of the merry-andrew Tabarin[239], were relished. The Spanish
comedy, with its strong spice of tragi-comedy, was imitated to a
considerable extent. A few examples of the _Commedia erudita_, or
Terentian play, continued to be produced at intervals; and the stock
personages of the _Commedia dell'arte_, Harlequin, Scaramouch, etc., at
one time invaded France, and, under cover of the comic opera and the
_Foire_ pieces, made something of a lodgment. In the earlier years of
the seventeenth century, moreover, a considerable number of fantastic
experiments were tried. We have a _Comedie des Proverbes_, in which the
action is altogether subordinate to the introduction of t