warriors and politicians.[128] And it must not be forgotten that Shakspeare is almost alone in his times, whilst after Corneille comes Racine, who would suffice for the poetical glory of a nation. Racine assuredly cannot be compared with Corneille for dramatic genius; he is more the man of letters; he has not the tragic soul; he neither loves nor understands politics and war. When he imitates Corneille, for example, in Alexander, and even in Mithridates, he imitates him badly enough. The scene, so vaunted, of Mithridates exposing his plan of campaign to his sons is a morsel of the finest rhetoric, which cannot be compared with the political and military scenes of Cinna and Sertorius, especially with that first scene of the Death of Pompey, in which you witness a counsel as true, as grand, as profound as ever could have been one of the counsels of Richelieu or Mazarin. Racine was not born to paint heroes, but he paints admirably man with his natural passions, and the most natural as well as the most touching of all, love. So he particularly excels in feminine characters. For men he has need of being sustained by Tacitus or holy Scripture.[129] With woman he is at his ease, and he makes them think and speak with perfect truth, set off by exquisite art. Demand of him neither Emilie, Cornelie, nor Pauline; but listen to Andromaque, Monime, Berenice, and Phedre! There, even in imitating, he is original, and leaves the ancients very far behind him. Who has taught him that charming delivery, those graceful troubles, that purity even in feebleness, that melancholy, sometimes even that depth, with that marvellous language which seems the natural accent of woman's heart? It is continually repeated that Racine wrote better than Corneille:--say only that the two wrote very differently, and like men in very different epochs. One has two sovereign qualities, which belong to his own nature and his times, a _naivete_ and grandeur, the other is not _naive_, but he has too much taste not to be always simple, and he supplies the place of grandeur, forever lost, with consummate elegance. Corneille speaks the language of statesmen, soldiers, theologians, philosophers, and clever women; of Richelieu, Rohan, Saint-Cyran, Descartes, and Pascal; of mother Angelique Arnaud and mother Madeleine de Saint-Joseph; the language which Moliere still spoke, which Bossuet preserved to his last breath. Racine speaks that of Louis XIV. and the women who were the ornament of his court. I suppose that thus spoke Madame, the amiable, sprightly, and unfortunate Henriette; thus wrote the author of the _Princesse de Cleves_ and the author of _Telemaque_. Or, rather, this language is that of Racine himself, of that feeble and tender soul, which passed quickly from love to devotion, which uttered its complaints in lyric poetry, which was wholly poured out in the choruses of _Esther_ and _Athalie_, and in the _Cantiques Spirituels_;