, one of the most celebrated French poets, and called by his countrymen
, one of the most celebrated
French poets, and called by his countrymen the Shakspeare of France, was born at Roan, June 6, 1606, of considerable parents, his father having been ennobled for his
services by Louis XIII. He was brought up to the bar,
which he attended some little time; but having no turn for
business, he soon deserted it. At this time he had given
the public no specimen of his talents for poetry, nor appears to have been conscious of possessing any such: and
they tell us, that it was purely a trifling affair of gallantry,
which gave occasion to his first comedy, called “Melite.
”
The drama was then extremely low among the French;
their tragedy fiat and languid, their comedy more barbarous than the lowest of the vulgar would now tolerate.
Corneille was astonished to find himself the author of a
piece entirely new, and at the prodigious success with
which his “Melite
” was acted. The French theatre
seemed to be raised, and to flourish at once; and though
deserted in a manner before, was now filled on a sudden
with a new company of actors. After so happy an essay,
he continued to produce several other pieces of the same
kind; all of them, indeed, inferior to what he afterwards
wrote, but much superior to any thing which the French
had hitherto seen. His “Medea
” came forth next, a tragedy, borrowed in part from Seneca, which succeeded, as
indeed it deserved, bul indifferently; but in 1637 he presented the “Cid,
” another tragedy, in which he shewed
the world how high his genius was capable of rising, and
seems to confirm Du Bos’s assertion, that the age of thirty,
or a few years more or less, is that at which poets and
painters arrive at as high a pitch of perfection as their geniuses will permit. All Europe has seen the Cid: it has
been translated into almost all languages: but the reputation which he acquired by this play, drew all the wits of his
time into a confederacy against it. Some treated it contemptuously, others wrote against it. Cardinal de Richelieu himself is said to have been one of this cabal; for, not
content with passing for a great minister of state, he affected to pass for a wit and a critic; and, therefore, though
he had settled a pension upon the poet, could not abstain
from secret attempts against his play . It was supposed
to be under his influence that the French Academy drew
up that critique upon it, entitled, “Sentiments of the
French academy upon the tragi-comedy of Cid:
” in which,
however, while they censured some parts, they did not
scruple to praise it very highly in others. Corneille now
endeavoured to support the vast reputation he had gained,
by many admirable performances in succession, which, as
Bayle observes, “carried the French theatre to its highest
pitch of glory, and assuredly much higher than the ancient
one at Athens;
” yet still, at this time, he had to contend
with the bad taste of the most fashionable wits. When he
read his “Polyeucte,
” one of his best tragedies, before a
company of these, where Voiture presided, it was very
coldly received; and Voiture afterwards told him, it was
the opinion of his friends that the piece would not succeed.
In 1647 he was chosen a member of the French academy;
and was what they call dean of that society at the time of
his death, which happened in 1684, in his 79th year.