1829.] [ 609 ] 



COENKILLE ; HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS. 



CoKNKiLLE has been called, and justly, " the creator of the French 

 drama." It is true, that before he wrote, France was not wholly without 

 a theatre ; but it had never, until his time, produced any dramatic w'ork 

 which entitled it to rank, in that respect, with most of the other nations 

 of Europe. While Italy, Spain, and England— the last, all national 

 prejudice apart, infinitely the worthiest— could boast of dramatic poets 

 whose fame will last as long as the language of the several nations is 

 spoken, France had seen nothing on her stage worthy of the genius and 

 power which her sons had displayed in all other polite arts. The French 

 actors were even at this period excellent, and it was their merit that com-f 

 pensated for, and perhaps in some degree occasioned the deficiency of 

 authors, t when Corneille, by a play, which, compared with his subse- 

 quent efforts, is as worthless as those of his predecessors Avere compared 

 with that, at once roused the national genius, and opened a path to the 

 progress of that true poesy with which he was himself inspired. It is 

 reported that Buonaparte, speaking of liim in one of those conversations 

 to which the fallen conqueror's exile has given an interest they would 

 not otherwise have possessed, said, " La tragedie echauffe I'ame, eleve le 

 coeur, pent et doit creer des heros. Sous ce rapport peut-etre la France 

 doit a Corneille une partie de ses belles actions : aussi. Messieurs, s'il vivait, 

 je le ferai prince." — Note, Memorial de Ste. Helene, t. it. p. 304. 



In the belles actions to which the Emperor alluded, France had been 

 nobly eminent before the poet appeared, and would in all probabihty 

 have been so, though he had never written ; but in the triumphs of her 

 stage— as the precursor of INIoliere, and as the first in point of time of 

 the glorious band of writers who have made the age of Louis XIV. the 

 most brilliant in the literary history of France, his title to lasting reputa- 

 tion is unquestionable. 



The able pen of J\I. Jules Tascheraud, whose recent life of Moliere has 

 gained him a well deserved repuation, has just produced a biography ot 

 Corneille, which is in no respect inferior to his former work, and which sup- 

 plies a deficiency that has been long felt in the literature of France. To 

 great careand research in collecting the particulars respecting the life of this 

 eminent poet, (a task which the obscurity of his condition, and the modest 

 simplicity and love of retirement that marked his life, had rendered some- 

 what difficult) M. Tascheraud adds very considerable discrimination and 

 critical skill. The combination of those powers, and that fondness for 

 his subject, which is an almost indispensable requisite in such a work, 

 have made it an extremely agreeable and useful one— at once honourable 

 to its author, and worthy of the poet whom it celebrates. 



Pierre Corneille was born at Rouen on the 6th of June, 1606, in which 

 city his father held the offices of Avocat du Roi a la table de viarbre de^ 

 Nonnandie ; and of Maitre particulier des eaux etforels, in the district of 

 Rouen. He was the eldest of seven children, the youngest of which was 



• Histoire de la Vie et des Ouvrages de Pierre Corneille, par M. Jules Taschereau. 



+ Madame Beaupre, a celebrated actress of the time, complained some years afterwards 

 of the change which tlie poet's works had produced upon tlie fortunes of the actors. 31. 

 de CornciUe," she said, « has done us much mischief. AV'c used formerly to get our plays 

 wriuen for tljree crowns a piece, and an author could make one of them in a snigle night. 

 The people were satisfied with tliem, and they brought us largo profits. ISow, sucli plays 

 as M. Corncille's cost us a great deal of money, and we gain but httlc by them. 



M.M. Nero Series.— Yoh.YlU. No. 48. 4 I 



