would he be entrapped into the folly of believing in the common sense of a patron. Shortly after this mishap, while wandering about in listless pursuit of an object at Rouen, his native place, he fell in accidentally with a gentleman who had read his first poetic efforts, and discerned through their faults and trammels the promise of true genius that lay beneath. “Why do you waste and hamper your talent in the threadbare conventionalities of French art?” inquired M. de Chalan. “You want a higher and a wider scope; read Guillen de Castro, and there you will find a subject worthy of you, and which will bring out your powers with a fire and force unsuspected by yourself.” “Unfortunately, I am not acquainted with Spanish,” replied the young man. “But I am,” returned M. de Chalan, “and, if you like, I will teach it to you.” Corneille, having nothing else to do, accepted the proposal, and to this chance circumstance the world apparently owes _The Cid_. That masterly composition came upon the dramatic world of France—hitherto fed on threadbare conventionalities, as de Chalan had well said—like a revelation, and raised such a tempest of senseless vituperation and malignant opposition as has no parallel in the history of literary cyclones. Richelieu, who was far too good a judge not to see the rare merits of the poem, had not the magnanimity to proclaim his opinion, and thus quell the storm, but fell in with the rioters, and was one of the loudest in crying down the new tragedy. He could not forgive the young poet who, without his patronage, nay, in spite of his own disgrace, had succeeded in climbing to the topmost round of the ladder. Corneille’s star rose steady and clear above the stormy waters, and he lived to see it shine out in glorious lustre through the clouds of envy and hostile criticism. His career was one of unparalleled triumph, till the appearance of his last work, _Pertharite_, written in 1653. It was played on the boards of the Palais Cardinal theatre, that had echoed to so many of his previous triumphs, and was received with a coldness that was equivalent to condemnation. Corneille saw in this isolated defeat the ruin of his poetic fame; he became possessed by a morbid despair, flung away his lyre, and gave up the theatre in disgust. During the interval of depression that followed this fancied humiliation, he devoted himself to the translation of Thomas à Kempis’ _The Imitation of Christ_, sacrificing, as he said himself, “his own reputation to the glory of a sovereign author.”