_Lives of Poets_, was never printed, and burnt by the Communards in 1871), and Claude de Lestoile (1597-1651), are as dramatists worthy of no notice, nor were they soon followed by others more worthy. Yet before many years had passed the examples which Corneille had set in tragedy and in comedy were followed up by unquestionably the greatest comic writer, and by one who long held the position of the greatest tragic writer of France. Beginning with mere farces of the Italian type, and passing from these to comedies still of an Italian character, it was in _Les Precieuses ridicules_, acted in 1659, that Moliere (1622-1673), in the words of a spectator, hit at last on "la bonne comedie." The next fifteen years comprise the whole of his best known work, the finest expression beyond doubt of a certain class of comedy that any literature has produced. The tragic masterpieces of Racine (1639-1699) were not far from coinciding with the comic masterpieces of Moliere, for, with the exception of the remarkable aftergrowth of _Esther_ and _Athalie_, they were produced chiefly between 1667 and 1677. Both Racine and Moliere fall into the class of writers who require separate mention. Here we can only remark that both to a certain extent committed and encouraged a fault which distinguished much subsequent French dramatic literature. This was the too great individualizing of one point in a character, and the making the man or woman nothing but a blunderer, a lover, a coxcomb, a tyrant and the like. The very titles of French plays show this influence--they are _Le Grondeur_, _Le Joueur_, &c. The complexity of human character is ignored. This fault distinguishes both Moliere and Racine from writers of the very highest order; and in especial it distinguishes the comedy of Moliere and the tragedy of Racine from the comedy and tragedy of Shakespeare. In all probability this and other defects of the French drama (which are not wholly apparent in the work of Moliere and Corneille, are shown in their most favourable light in those of Racine, and appear in all their deformity in the successors of the latter) arise from the rigid adoption of the Aristotelian theory of the drama with its unities and other restrictions, especially as transmitted by Horace through Boileau. This adoption was very much due to the influence of the French Academy, which was founded unofficially by Conrart in 1629, which received official standing six years later, and which continued the tradition of Malherbe in attempting constantly to school and correct, as the phrase went, the somewhat disorderly instincts of the early French stage. Even the Cid was formally censured for irregularity by it. But it is fair to say that Francois Hedelin, abbe d'Aubignac (1604-1676), whose _Pratique du theatre_ is the most wooden of the critical treatises of the time, was not an academician. It is difficult to say whether the subordination of all other classes of composition to the drama, which