PREFACE. Le Cid, Horace, Polyeucte and Cinna are generally regarded as the four principal works of Pierre Corneille. The best critics place them on the same level in point of merit; and whilst selecting the last for publication in this series of French Classics, I have been led by the consideration that it is less known to the majority of readers than the three others. More than twenty years ago, the late M. Victor Cousin pointed out the necessity of giving, from a careful survey of the original MSS., accurate editions of the great French writers of the seventeenth century1; he proved, for instance, that the negligence or timidity of Jansenist annotators had quite disfigured the text of Pascal's Pensées. Other savants have since made out an equally clear case for Bossuet 2, Madame de Sévigné 3, and Racine 4: enthusiasm has been excited, and the enterprising firm of Messrs. Hachette are now engaged upon the gigantic task of publishing a complete series of the Grands Écrivains de la France which will, when terminated, realize, and more than realize, M. Cousin's expectations. Such being the case, the best (the only thing I could do) was to give Corneille's Cinna verbatim from the excellent recension of M. Marty-Laveaux; I have put together at the end of the play the most important various readings collected by the French editor, together with a selection of remarks from the chief commentators, and a number of other notes 1 See his work Des Pensées de Pascal. Paris 1843, 8vo. 2 See M. Gandar's recent volume, Bossuet Orateur, études critiques sur les sermons de la jeunesse de Bossuet. Paris 1867, 8vo. 3 See the Preface to M. Hachette's edition of Madame de Sévigné. See M. Hachette's edition, Preface. grammatical, historical, and critical. As an introduction to the play I have added Fontenelle's Life of Corneille: it is justly popular as a masterpiece in its way, and is, besides, extremely accurate. I should feel happy if the perusal of the present volume led my readers to study for themselves the whole works of Corneille in the only trustworthy edition which exists of them—that of M. Marty-Laveaux 5. With respect to Cinna, I need only say here that it was performed for the first time in 1640. Boileau remarks in his Épitre à Racine: 66 Par les envieux un génie excité Au comble de son art est mille fois monté; Plus on veut l'affaiblir, plus il croît et s'élance: Some persons have likewise supposed that the tragedy we are now examining was intended by Corneille as a kind of eloquent appeal to the clemency of Cardinal Richelieu on behalf of the inhabitants of Rouen who were rigorously punished for their rebellion in 1639 against the officers of the excise. The story does not seem probable, and whether or no it is founded upon fact, the result at any rate did not answer Corneille's expectations: Richelieu persisted in carrying out his measures of repression 6. The first edition of Cinna was published in 1643 (4to. pp. 1107); a duodecimo reprint appeared in the course of the same year. Besides these two editions of the separate play, the following impressions of Corneille's entire works have been collated:-1648, 12mo.; 1652, 12mo.; 1654, 12mo. ; 1655, 12mo.; 1656, 12mo.; 1660, 8vo.; 1663, fol.; 1664, 8vo.; 1668, 12mo.; 1682, 12mo. It would be useless to quote here the notices which Mr. Hallam, Lord Jefferey, Sir Walter 5 The edition of Corneille in M. Hachette's collection will form twelve octavo volumes. 6 See M. Marty-Laveaux's Preface. 7 The exact title is as follows: 66 Cinna ov la Clémence d'Avgvste, tragédie. Imprimé à Paris aux despens de l'Autheur, et se vendent à Paris chez Toussainct Quinet. M.D.C.XLIII. avec priuilege du Roy." Scott, and other English writers have given of Pierre Corneille; but I must beg leave to transcribe the following extract from a work quite recently published, and therefore not generally known. In one of his lectures delivered at Edinburgh, Mr. Bridges says: "Corneille is known to us by name, and very little more. The loss is ours, and I venture to say it is a very serious loss; one reason is, perhaps, that no great poet ever produced so many works, which though grand in parts, yet as a whole are faulty. But if those who open him for the first time limit their reading to his four masterpieces, the Cid, the Horace, the Cinna, and the Polyeucte, they will find themselves brought face to face with a spirit of heroic stamp. They had best put all comparisons with the great English dramatist utterly aside. Between the 'myriad-minded' magician of our own land, and the manly, limited, straightforward simplicity of Corneille, there is no similarity whatever. If Corneille is to be compared to other poets, it would be to the Greek dramatists, to Virgil and Lucan, or to our own Milton. The motive in each of his works is simple, and usually the same—the conflict between private and public passions, between love and duty, between love and honour, between love and religion;—eternal problems which will vex the noblest natures to the end of time 8." Surely such a eulogy amply justifies us in giving Corneille a distinguished place on the list of educational books published by the Delegates of the Clarendon Press. GUSTAVE MASSON. HARROW ON THE HILL, March, 1867. 8 H. Bridges, France under Richelieu and Colbert, pp. 183, 184. |