and that peculiar knowledge of theatrical art and of the taste of the theatrical public which since his time has been the special possession of the French playwright. It is instructive to compare the influence of his irregular and faulty genius with that of the regular and precise Malherbe. From Hardy to Rotrou is, in point of literary interest, a great step, and from Rotrou to Corneille a greater. Yet the theory of Hardy only wanted the genius of Rotrou and Corneille to produce the latter. Jean de Rotrou (1610-1650) has been called the French Marlowe, and there is a curious likeness and yet a curious contrast between the two poets. The best parts of Rotrou's two best plays, _Venceslas_ and _St Genest_, are quite beyond comparison in respect of anything that preceded them, and the central speech of the last-named play will rank with anything in French dramatic poetry. Contemporary with Rotrou were other dramatic writers of considerable dramatic importance, most of them distinguished by the faults of the Spanish school, its declamatory rodomontade, its conceits, and its occasionally preposterous action. Jean de Schelandre (d. 1635) has left us a remarkable work in _Tyr et Sidon_, which exemplifies in practice, as its almost more remarkable preface by Francois Ogier defends in principle, the English-Spanish model. Theophile de Viau in _Pyrame et Thisbe_ and in _Pasiphae_ produced a singular mixture of the classicism of Garnier and the extravagancies of Hardy. Scudery in _l'Amour tyrannique_ and other plays achieved a considerable success. The _Marianne_ of Tristan (1601-1655) and the _Sophonisbe_ of Jean de Mairet (1604-1686) are the chief pieces of their authors. Mairet resembles Marston in something more than his choice of subject. Another dramatic writer of some eminence is Pierre du Ryer (1606-1648). But the fertility of France at this moment in dramatic authors was immense; nearly 100 are enumerated in the first quarter of the century. The early plays of Pierre Corneille (1606-1684) showed all the faults of his contemporaries combined with merits to which none of them except Rotrou, and Rotrou himself only in part, could lay claim. His first play was _Melite_, a comedy, and in _Clitandre_, a tragedy, he soon produced what may perhaps be not inconveniently taken as the typical piece of the school of Hardy. A full account of Corneille may be found elsewhere. It is sufficient to say here that his importance in French literature is quite as great in the way of influence and example as in the way of intellectual excellence. The _Cid_ and the _Menteur_ are respectively the first examples of French tragedy and comedy which can be called modern. But this influence and example did not at first find many imitators. Corneille was a member of Richelieu's band of five poets. Of the other four Rotrou alone deserves the title; the remaining three, the prolific abbe de Boisrobert, Guillaume Colletet (whose most valuable work, a MS.