Renieic of Revietrs, 119106. 



Leading Articles, 



275 



THE CORNEILLE TERCENTENARY. 



Pierre Corneille was born at Rouen on June 6th, 

 1606, and the tercentenary anniversary of his birth 

 is celebrated in several magazines. An interesting 

 article on Corneille has been contributed to the 

 June number of the Deutsche Rundschau by Hein- 

 rich Morf. 



Corneille is best known by his tragi-comedy " The 

 Cid.' The story is based on GuUem de Castro's 

 drama " Las Morcedades del Cid" (1612), a sort of 

 dramatised biography of the Spanish national hero 

 Rodrigo, from the day of his knightly deed at 

 Burgos to his marriage eighteen months later with 

 Chimene or Jimena, daughter of the Count Gor- 

 niaz, whom he had slain, in a combat. Corneille 

 cut out the epic parts, and selected for his subject 

 the conflict between love and duty in the hearts of 

 the Cid and Chimene, making out of the dramatic 

 biography of a national hero a drama of young love. 

 The pjav, when it was performed in January, 1637, 

 called forth the greatest enthusiasm, and "beau 

 comme le Cid " became a common expression. The 

 Academy, however, was very hostile, and a fierce 

 dispute arose, but the censure of the Academy had 

 no effect on the popular enthusiasm. 



After writing a number of other plays, some of 

 which did not meet with success, Corneille ceased 

 to write for the stage for some time, and in 165 1 we 

 find him busy with a verse translation of the " Imi- 

 tation of Christ," the paraphrase extending to over 

 13,000 verses. In 1659 his drama " QEdipe " ap- 

 peared, and this was followed by ten other dramas 

 in the next fifteen years. He died in 1684. 



Herr Morf compares Corneille with Racine 

 N'either the scenic nor the psychological art of 

 Corneille, he says, is striking. He does not belong 

 fo the great poets. He is at his best in dealing 

 with the heroism of fiery youth, as in the Cid, and 

 it is not as a poet who has created abiding pictures 

 of men and life, but as the poetical rhetorician 

 of heroism, that he lives in the hearts of his coun- 

 trymen to-day. 



The great poet of French tragedv is Racine. He 

 began by dramatising the horrors of Theban history 

 in the manner of Corneille. but gradually he came 

 to represent real life, and he filled a decade with 

 uorks of the finest poetry. He was as averse to the 

 declamatory style of the Seneca heroes as he was 

 to Corneille's exaggerations. He wrote with the 

 idea in his mind, " What would Homer and Sopho- 

 cles say if they could read my verses?" In his 

 dramas the leading character is almost always a 

 woman. 



The second June number of Za Rei'ue com- 

 memorates the Corneille tercentary bv a short ar- 

 ticle, in which Gaston Vincent quotes an unpub- 

 lished letter and poem which he attributes to 

 Corneille, while the Mercure de France of June 

 15th contains an interesting article on Corneille and 



Paris. The scenes of several of Corneille's plays 

 are laid at Paris, and Emile Magne, the writer of 

 this article, deals with the Palace Royale and the 

 Palais de Justice. 



THE PROBLEM OF AFFORESTATION. 



The exclusion of afforestation of waste land from 

 the reference of the forthcoming Royal Commission 

 leads Mr. John Nisbet, late of the Indian Forest 

 Service, to discuss the whole problem afresh in the 

 Nineteenth Century. He recalls a report of a de- 

 partmental committee on forestry in 1902, which 

 declares that " the world is rapidly approaching a 

 shortage, if not actual dearth, in its supply of coiii- 

 ferous timber." Germany and the United States, 

 once sources of supply, are competitors for the tim- 

 ber now chiefly supplied from Canada, Russia and 

 Scandina\'ia. In 1882 we paid for imports of wood 

 _;£i8,3oo,ooo ; in 1903, ^29.300,000; an increase 

 of over fifty per cent., though the population only 

 increased nineteen per cent. 



HOW LITTLE TIMBER WE CAN GROW. 



E^■en if we attempt to pro\ide home-grown lim- 

 ber, Mr. Nisbet points out serious limitations. Of 

 the 16.710,788 acres classed as waste land in the 

 United Kingdom, he reckons that — 



the \v.i.8tes and poor pasturage suitable tor planting (with 

 a fair chance of profit) may probably aggregate something 

 between 2.100,000 and 3.330,000 acres, the reolaraation and 

 planting of which would, at an average of about £6 per 

 acre, denuind a total outlay of froni about thirteen to 

 twenty million pounds sterling, spread over the next thirty 

 to fifty years according to the rate of planting. Even sup- 

 posing, however, that we had now — in addition to our exists 

 ing 3,029.000 acres classed as woods and plantations, but a 

 great part of which are mainly ornamental or protective 

 in character — as many as three million acres of pine and 

 fir plantations ranging in regular gradation up to forty 

 years of .age, this would only give an annual fall of 75,000 

 acres, yielding probably between 300,000,000 and 350.000,000 

 cubic feet of timber, which is nothing like one-half of the 

 quantity of coniferous wood annually imported for the 

 maintenance of our industries. Above and beyond all that 

 our existing British woodlands now produce for this pur- 

 pose, file imports of hewn timber merely for pit-wood and 

 mine-props during 1903 and 1904 averaged two and a third 

 million loads, or over 93.000,000 cubic feet, valued at 

 £2,500,000 per annum. 



WANTED, A DEPARTMENT OF FORESTRY. 



. To provide the requisite departmental machinery, 

 Mr. Nisbet advises the nation — 



(1) To .amend the Board of .Agriculture .-icts of 1899 and 

 1903, so aa to constitute a Board of Agriculture, Fisheries 

 and Forestry, with a special Forestry branch under an 

 As8ist.ant Secretary; and (2) to jibolish the Commission of 

 Woods. Forests, and Land Revenues of the Crown by in- 

 corporating it with, and distrilnitiiig its work between, the 

 Board of Agriculture and the Board of Works and Public 

 Buildings, which was formed in 1832 to perform certain 

 duties previously belonging t.o the office of Woods and 

 Forests. 



Legislation would be necessary to acquire land 

 compulsorily for timber planting ; and for the pro- 

 vision of funds Mr. .\islx-t roun.sels the format'on 

 of a " Waste Land Planting Fund " through the issue 

 of guaranteed 2f per cent, stock, like the Irish Land 

 Purchase Fund. Prevention of ruin by rabbits and 

 railway engine sparks and by exorbitant railway rates 

 would also have to be secured by law. 



Mr. Nisbet's careful survey of the problem places 

 all intere.sted in its solution under obligation. 



