Racine is a more general favourite than Corneille, because he paints feelings more commonly experienced; but he wants his great and heroic sentiments. No one ever thought of calling him the Great. Less deeply embued with the lofty spirit of chivalry, less romantic in his structure, less commanding in his ideas, he is more polished, more equal, and has a greater command of the pathetic. He is to Corneille what Virgil was to Homer, what Raphael to Michael Angelo. The anguish of the human heart was what he chiefly loved to represent, because he felt that there he excelled; and hence his tragedies are chiefly formed on the Greek model, and on the subjects already treated by Sophocles and Euripides. Agamemnon, Achilles, Alcestes, Orestes, Clytemnestra, Iphigenia, Oedipus, Hermione, Jocasta, Antigone, reappear on his pages, as in those of the masters of the Greek drama. But they reappear in a modern dress. They are very different from the inimitable simplicity of the originals. The refinements, conceits, extravagant flattery, politeness, and stately manners of the Grand Monarque, shine through every line. Achilles makes love to Iphigenia as if she were in the marbled gardens of Versailles; the passion of Phedre for Hippolyte, is the refined effusion of modern delicacy, not the burning fever and maniac delirium of Phaedra in Euripides. His Greek heroes and heroines address each other as if they were in the _Oeil de Boeuf_; it is "monsieur" and "madame" at every step. Under classical names, and with the scene laid in distant lands, it is still the ancient _regime_ of France which is portrayed in all his pieces--it is the passions and distresses of an old and highly civilized society which are depicted. Even _Athalie_, his masterpiece, has none of the ancient Jewish spirit in it; it is the modern priesthood which is represented as resisting oppression in the temple of Jerusalem. But the beauty of language, the melody of versification, the delicacy of sentiments, the frequent touches of the pathetic which his writings exhibit, will for ever secure him a high place in the opinion of men; and justify the saying of Voltaire, that whoever would acquire a pure and elegant French style, must have the _Petit Careme_ of Massillon, and _Athalie_ of Racine, constantly lying on his writing table.