The admirers of Corneille gave him the strongest praise for the quality, sublimity. This is a quality not' easily defined, and in straining after it it is only too eaiy to fall into faults very much opposed to sublimity. The faults found with Corneille in his wealcer productions are precisely such as might be produced by such an effort, declamation, inflatation, abuses of sen tences and great words. His versification is less accurate and polished than that of Racine, as when he began to write the language was less formed, and his own taste in this respect probably less fastidious. There may also be observed in Corneille's delineation of character a straining after a heroic ideal, rather than a true and profound analysis of the real springs of human sentiment and emotion, in which alone an inexhaustible fund of dramatic action is to be found. He was, like Racine, strongly impressed with religious convictions, and ex tremely scrupulous in his writings. He had a high idea of .his own powers, but was deficient in social tact and in conversational ability to such an extent that it is said he did not always express himself grammatically. When re
proached for his carelessness in cultivating the graces of society, he would reply, ((je suis tou jours Pierre Corneille?' The best edition of Corneille is that by Marty-Laveaux (12 vols., 1W-68). Consult Le Verdier and Pelay, (Additions a la bibliographie Cornelienne' (1908) ; Picot, (Bibliographic Cornelienne' (Paris 1865). Consult also Brunetiere, (Epoques du theatre frangais) (ib. 1892); Faguet, (Propos de Theatre' (3 vols., Paris 1906) ; Guizot, (Corneille et son temps> (7th ed., ib. 1880) ; Huszar, (Pierre Corneille et le theatre espagnoP (ib. 1903) ; Canfield, 'Cor neille and Racine in England' (New York 1904) ; Lanson, (Corneille' (Paris 1898); Lemaitre, (Corneille et la poitique d'Aristote) (ib. 1888) ; Raab, (Pierre Corneille in deutschen trebersetzungen' (Heidelberg 1911) ; Wendt, (Pierre Corneille und Jean RotrotP (Leipzig 1911).