is as sound in fact as it is smart in expression. The _Cid_ appeared in 1636, and for some years Corneille produced a succession of masterpieces. _Horace_, _Cinna_, _Polyeucte_, _Le Menteur_ (a remarkable comic effort, to which Moliere acknowledged his indebtedness), and _Rodogune_, in some respects the finest of all, succeeded each other at but short intervals. Half-a-dozen plays, somewhat inferior in actual merit, and which had the drawback of coming before a public used to the author and his method, followed, and the last and least good of them, _Pertharite_, was damned. Corneille, always the proudest of writers, was deeply wounded by this ill-success, and publicly renounced the stage. He devoted himself for some years to a strange task, the turning of the _Imitation_ of A'Kempis into verse. At last Fouquet, the Maecenas of the day, prevailed on him to begin again. He did so with _Oedipe_, which was successful. It was followed by many other plays, which had varying fates. Racine, with a method refined upon Corneille's own, and a greater sympathy with the actual generation, became the rival of the elder poet, and Corneille did not obey the wise maxim, _solve senescentem_. Yet his later plays have far more merit than is usually allowed to them. The private life of Corneille was not unhappy, though his haughty and sensitive temperament brought him many vexations. His gains were small, never exceeding two hundred louis for a play, and though this was supplemented by occasional gifts from rich dedicatees and by a scanty private fortune, the total was insufficient. 'Je suis saoul de gloire et affame d'argent' is one of the numerous sayings of scornful discontent recorded of him. He had a pension, but it was in his later days very ill paid. Nor was he one of the easy-going men of letters who console themselves by Bohemian indulgence. In general society he was awkward, constrained, and silent: but his home, which was long shared with his brother Thomas--they married two sisters--seems to have been a happy one. He retained till his death in 1684, if not the favour of the King and the general public, that of the persons whose favour was best worth having, such as Saint-Evremond and Madame de Sevigne, and his own confidence in his genius never deserted him.