At page 326, we are told: “If, in fact, Shakespeare comes across a heroic character worthy of Corneille, a Roman, such as the mother of Coriolanus, he will explain by passion[8] what Corneille would have explained by heroism.” “_Reason_,” M. Taine further informs us, “_tells us that our manners should be measured_; this is why the manners which Shakespeare paints are not so.” Again, “Shakespeare paints us as we are; his heroes bow, ask people for news, speak of rain and fine weather,” etc. (p. 312). As M. Taine finds that Shakespeare’s heroes bow, we should like to know his opinion of the exordium of the grand rhetorical effort which Corneille puts in the mouth of the master of the world, Cæsar Augustus: “_Prends un siège, Cinna._”[9] It cannot in reason be expected that the man who admires the stiff and frigid artificiality of French tragedy should reach any clear perception of Shakespeare. Nor can we expect the appreciator of Shakespeare to find any superiority in Corneille and Racine. A distinguished German scholar (Grimm) admirably expresses the general German and English estimate of these French poets in a letter he addressed to Michelet: “Must I tell you the opinion commonly expressed among us here in Germany? With the greatest possible amount of good-will, I have again and again opened Racine, Corneille, and Boileau, and I fully appreciate their superior talents; but I cannot read them for any length of time [_mais je ne puis en soutenir la lecture_], so strong upon me is the impression that a portion of the most profound sentiments awakened by poetry are a sealed book for these authors.” A French writer so able and so thoroughly skilled as M. Taine, is at home in _persiflage_, and throughout his work he freely indulges in it at the expense of “those excellent English.” From the moment the Norman sets his foot in England, he is the Englishman’s superior. With the Norman came in education and intelligence. These poor Anglo-Saxons appear to have been their inferiors. Wherever opportunity occurs, English models suffer in comparison with French throughout the work, which closes with an extravagant rhapsody on Alfred de Musset, and this line: “I prefer Alfred de Musset to Tennyson.” Many scholars of high acquirements, admirers of Shakespeare, having exhausted with praise the catalogue of Shakespeare’s serious and solid qualities, find that his pre-eminent superiority lies in wit and humor--the wit bright and sparkling, the humor kindly and genial, more akin to wisdom than to wit, and, indeed, in itself a particular form of wisdom, so that it might almost be said that his fools give us more wisdom than the philosophers of ordinary dramatists. M. Taine is of a diametrically opposite opinion. Here it is: “The mechanical imagination produces Shakespeare’s fool-characters: a quick, venturesome, dazzling, unquiet imagination produces his men of wit.” Would you know what is true wit? You may learn from page 320, vol. i.: