II. 18-20. Phèdre to Œnone (Act I, Scène iii

1. 37. Last verse of Act III, Scène iv (Phèdre to Thésée). Page 91. 1. 1. Ttmanthe, Timanthes (about 400 b.c.). A Greek painter of Sicyon, who is chiefly known as tlae painter of one of the great pictures of antiquity, the Sacrifice of Iphigenia, in which Agamemnon conceals his uncontroUable grief by covering his head with his mantle. The picture was a favourite with Cicero.

1. 16. Ilécrivait l'histoire de Port-Royal From 1677 to 1688, Racine, besides his contributions to a History of the reign of Louis XIV, in collaboration with Boileau (see note to p. 86, 1. 21), composed an Histoire de Port-Royal in prose, some Ca»tiqttes spirituels, translated or imitated from the Scriptures,

and scveral Discours ttcndt'miques, whicli aie ail in thc complète éditions of his works.

I. 1 9. Madame de Mainte/ion Je tira de son inaction vers 1688, f« lui deniandayit une pièce pour Saint-Cyr. On IMadanic de Maintcnon and Saint-Cyr, sec note to p. 84, I. 2.

Madame de Maintcnon had tiied to make thc ' demoiselles de Saint-Cyr ' pcrform sonic of the former tragédies of Racine, but she was soon frightcncd by thc very enthusiasm which those young ladies displayed in the acting of siich profane subjects ; hence the wish she expressed to Racine that hc should compose tragédies founded on biblical stories, and particularly suitable to the éducation of the young persons of whom she had charge. Esther, in 1689, and Athalie in 1691, answercd that purposc. They showed that thc poct had not, though inactive, lost any of his genius, and that hc was quite as much at home on scriptural ground as hc had been formerly on Greek and Roman. Madame de Scvignc wrote on January 28, 1689, two days after the first performance of£j//w: 'Racine s'est surpassé; il aime Dieu comme il aimait ses maîtresses ; il est pour les choses saintes comme il était pour les profanes. La Sainte-Écriture est suivie exactement dans cette pièce, tout y est beau, tout y est grand, tout y est traité avec dignité.'-

It is advisable to read, on the circumstances in which Esther appeared, Racine's préface to that play.

Page 92. 1. 2. Bossuet (1627-1704). The famous religious orator, best known for his Oraisons funèbres (sec first lines of his Oraison funèbre d'Henriette d'Angleterre — which is well worth reading in fuil— at the end of note to p. 84, 1. 11), and for scveral weighty works such as Le Traité de la connaissance de Dieu et de soi-même, La Politique tirée de l'Ecriture sainte (hère referred to), and the Discours sur l'Histoire Uniirrselle, in the second part of which he points out the way in which Christianity is linked to the old dogmas of the Jewish faith.

Joseph de Maistre (1754-1821). The author of several politico-theological works, such as his Essai sur les Principes générateurs des Constitutions politiques et des autres Institutions humaines (published in St. Pctersburg, 18 10), his traité Sur les délais de la Justice divine dans la punition des coupables (1816), Du Pape (181 9), Les Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg, ou Entretiens sur le gouvernement temporel de la Providence (1821) — his most popular work, &c,

1. 3. Martin (i 789-1 854), an English painter born at Haydon Bridge, near Hexham (Northumberland). He went

NOTES. PAGES (Jl-ÇjZ I75

to London in 1806, and in 1812 exhibited Saduk in search of the ivaters of obli'v'ion, the first of his sixteen ' sublime ' works, with regard to which Bulwer Lytton pronounced him to be ' more original, more self-dependent than Raphaël and Michael Angelo.'

1. 7. V architecture du temple dans 'Athalie.' The scène of Athalie is ' dans le temple de Jérusalem, dans un vestibule de l'appartement du grand prêtre.'

In the subséquent criticism Saintc-Beuvea gain shows his sympathy with the Romantic movement (see note to p. 88, I. 24). He reproaches Racine with not having given the scène sufïicient 'couleur locale,' not only in the action of the whole play,— ' un péristyle grec un peu nu,'— but also in the ' caractères et discours des personnages.' On the scriptural basis of the play see 2 Kings ix-xiii and 2 Chron. xxi-xxiii, and Racine's préface to Athalie.

I. 13. les deux fameuses colonnes de bronze. * And he reared up the pillars before the temple, one on the right hand, and the other on the left ; and called the name of that on the right hand Jachin, and the name of that on the left Boaz.' 2 Chron. iii. 17. See also 1 Kings vii. 21.

1. 15. Je ne vois ni la mer d'airain, ni les douze bœufs d' airain. ' Also he made a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and five cubits the height thereof ; and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about ... It stood upon twelve oxen, three looking toward the north, and three looking toward the west, and three looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east : and the sea was set above upon them, and ail their hinder parts were inward. And the thickness of it was an handbreadth, and the brim of it like the work of the brim of a cup, with fiowers of lilies ; and it received and held three thousand baths.' 2 Chron. iv. 2-5.

1. 17. ces chérubins . . . qui ejifeloppent F arche de leurs ailes. . . . ' the chariot of the cherubims, that spread out their wings and covered the ark of the covenant of the Lord.' i Chron. xxviii, 18.

1. 22. où Salomon . . . égorgea pour hosties pacifiques, &c. ' And Solomon offered a sacrifice of peace offerings, which he offered unto the Lord, two and twenty thousand oxen, and an hundred and twenty thousand sheep.' i Kings viii. 63.

1. 27. Mathan, high-priest of Baal, formerly a priest of Jehovah.

1. 28. f aurais voulu entrevoir, grâce à lui, ces temples impurs de Baal. . . . Où siégeaient, sur de riches carreaux, . . . It is worth pointing out that Sainte-Beuve, when he was no longer a Romantic (on the three phases of Sainte-Beuve's

176 IROIS rORIRAITS LI'nÉRMRF.S

litcrary carecr, see Introduction), altcred liis opinions grcatly in this respect. Hère is a note which lie inscrtcd in latcr éditions of his tortrait, in ordcr to attenuate his former criticisin : —

'J'aurais plus d'un point ii modifier aujourd'hui dans mon premier jugement; il a commence à me para'tre moins juste, quand des continuateurs exagérés me l'ont rendu comme dans un miroir grossissant. Je reprendrai le Racine chrétien au complet dans mon ouvrage sur Port- Royal ; en attendant, je me borne à en tirer les remarques que voici : " Qjiellc erreur nous avons soutenue autrefois! Il nous paraissait qu'j^tha/ie aurait été plus belle s'il y avait eu les grandes statues dans le vestibule, le bassin d'airain, etc. . . . Cela, au contraire, présenté disproportionnément, nous eût caché le vrai sujet, le Dieu un et spirituel, invisible et qui remplit tout. Peu de décors dans Racine ; et il a raison au fond : l'unité du Dieu invisible en ressort mieux. Lorsque Pompée, usant du droit de conquête, entra dans le Saint des Saints, il observa avec étonnement, dit Tacite, qu'il n'y avait aucune image et que le sanctuaire était vide. C'était un dicton populaire, en pirlant des Juifs, que

Nil praeter nubes et coeli numen adorant.'"

Juvenal, xiv. 97.

Page 93. 1. 1. y^oici ce que dit le Seigneur, &c, The Unes are a quotation from Exodus xxxii. 27.

I. 7. Joad, 'grand-prêtre,' says in Act IV, Scène iii : — Dans l'infidèle sang baignez-vous sans horreur; Frappez et Tyriens, et même Israélites.

Ne descendez-vous pas de ces fameux lévites, &c.

1. 16. Racine n'y a pas pénétré l'essence même de la poésie hébraïque orientale. Subséquent note of Sainte-Beuve : ' De la poésie, c'est possible ; mais de la religion, certes, il en avait pénétré l'essence. . . .' See note to p. 92, 1. 28.

1. 21. Osias n'était plus . . . The Unes are a quotation from La Poésie sacrée, one of the Premières Méditations of Lamartine.

1. 32. Ainsi quon choisit une rose . • • , from La Sagesse, by Lamartine, in the Nowvelles Méditations poétiques.

Page 94. 1. 5. O tombeau ! "vous êtes mon père . . . , from La Poésie sacrée, by Lamartine, in Premières Méditations poétiques. After Job xvii. 14.

1. 8. Va-vouerai-je? Esther, ai<ec ses douceurs charmantes et ses aimables peintures . . . Jthalie is generally considered as being the most ' finished ' of ail the masterpieces of Racine.

Boileau, in spite of the gênerai indifférence amid which the play was received, called it ' le chef-d'œuvre de Racine,' froin the very first, and later on Voltaire did not hesitate to describe it as ' le chef d'œuvre de l'esprit humain.' Hence the sort of timidity wilh which Sainte-Beuve introduces the subséquent remark, in support of his personal préférence for Esther.

1. 25. il composa four Saint-Cyr quatre cantiques spirituels. Thèse are : —

Cantique premier : A la louange de la Charité. Tiré de St. Paul I aux Corinthiens, chap. xiii.

Cantique 1 1 : Sur le bonheur des justes, et sur le malheur des réprowvés. Tiré de La Sagesse, chap. v.

Cantique II I : Plainte d'un Chrétien sur les contrariétés qu'il éprouve au dedans de lui-même. Tiré de St. Paul aux Romains, chap. vii.

Cantique I \ ; Sur les vaines occupations des gens du siècle. Tiré de divers endroits d'Isa'ie et de Jérémie.

The first three were written in 1697, and the fourth in

Page 95. 1, 27. M. de Torcy (Jean - Baptiste Colbert, Marquis de) (i 655-1 746), nephew of the illustrious minister Colbert, himself 'secrétaire d'État aux affaires étrangères,' author of interesting Mémoires, which give an account of the diplomatie negotiations in which he played an active part, from J697 (Treaty of Ryswick) until 17 13 (Treaty of Utrecht).

Page 96. 1. i. Melim, an important town on the Seine^ about twenty-five miles south-east of Paris.

I. 7. c'était comme l'huile verseé du vase de Marie. St. John's Gospel xii. 3 : * Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jésus.'

1. 10. re^et mortel que causa à Racine le mot de Louis XIF. A legend surrounds the last days of Racine, which, although its accuracy has been contested lately, is still looked upon by many as one of the most direct explanations of the illness and death of the poet in 1699. According to this legend, Racine wrote a mémorandum on the miseries of the people, and the législative reforms which might remedy them. Madame de INIaintenon, to whom Racine had handed his pétition, allowed the King to read it, and learn its author's name. Louis XIV blamed Racine's inconsiderate zeal sharply, saying: 'Parce qu'il sait faire parfaitement des vers, croit-il tout savoir? Et parce qu'il est grand poète, veut-il être ministre?' Racine, from that time, appeared at the H. F. xi\ N

178 IROIS PORIRAITS LIITÉRAIRES

Court but larcly ; hc wcnt now and then to Marly and N'ersailles, but everything theie scemcd to bc changed for liini ; once Louis XIV passed through the gallcry where the poet was standing without giving him a look. . . . Racine, who was not, says Voltaire, ' aussi philosophe que bon poète,' lelt liis disgrâce deeply, and died of a brokcn heart.

1. 19. Rolini (1661-1741), historian and critic. liis chiet work is the Traité des études (1726-31), in which he advocated some reforms in éducation, which hâve ail passed into practice now, a proof that they were sound and far-reaching. (See Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du Lundi.)

!. 20. UOli'vet (1682-1768). See note to p. 25, 1. 32. Duché de Vancy (i 668-1 704), a poet of médiocre talent, author of three tragédies, Débora, Jonathas, and Âbsalon, in ail of which the conscious or sub-conscious imitation of Racine's pathos is constantly seen. The last is the best of the three ; La Harpe describes it as ' un ouvrage de mérite, . . .'

Campistron (1656-1725), a dramatist whom Racine helped with his advice and personal influence, author of some tragédies such as Andronic, Âlcibiade, Tiridate, which were very much applauded at the time, their success bcing largely due to the talent of the actor Baron, who produced them (on Baron, see note to p. 40, 1. 35), but which subsequently fell into deep and rightly deserved oblivion. ' On a loué,' says La Harpe, ' la sagesse de ses plans : ils sont raisonnables, il est vrai ; mais on n'a pas songé qu'ils sont aussi faiblement connus qu'exécutés. Campistron n'avait de force d'aucune espèce, pas un caractère marqué, pas une situation frappante, pas une scène approfondie, pas un vers nerveux. Il cherche sans cesse à imiter Racine; mais ce n'est qu'un a;)prenti qui a devant lui le tableau d'un ma'tre, et qui, d'une main timide et indécise, crayonne des figures inanimées. La versification de cet auteur n'est que d'un degré au-dessus de Pradon ; elle n'est pas ridicule, mais, en général, c'est une prose commune, assez facilement rimée. . . .' Campistron became a member of the French Academy in 1701.

1. 21. Jean- Baptiste Rousseau (1671-1741), a lyrical and satirical poet, whose life was fuil of adventures, and whose réputation has passed through strange vicissitudes. His Odes, which are written in harmonious style, but lack real émotion and sincerity, were much admired by the readers of the eighteenth century, previous to Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. He was until then held to be ' le prince des poètes lyriques français.' But he suffered from the reaction which, originated by Rousseau, reached its

NOTES. PAGES 96-97 Ijf)

climax at the period of romantic exaltation, in the vcry midst of which Sainte-Beuve coinposed xMs portrait. The beauties so much adinircd in Rousseau's Odes were shown by the 'New Sohool' to be purely conventional and arlificial, and he fell froni his throne of 'prince of lyrical poets' to the secondary rank which he still occupies, that of a once glorious poet whose name is little known and whose verses are never read save by students of litcrature.

1. 21. Louis Racine (1692- 1763), son of Jean Racine, the author of several religions poems, the best known of which is La Religion. He had ihe inodcsty never to attempt to compare his litcrary merits with those of his father. In fact, the name of Racine was one which it was not easy to bear. It is reported that Boileau said once to *he young Louis: ' Il faut que vous soyez bien hardi pour oser faire des vers avec le nom que vous portez ! Ce n'est pas que je regarde comme impossible que vous deveniez un jour capable d'tn faire de bons ; mais je me méfie de ce qui est sans exemple, et depuis que le monde est le monde, on n'a pas vu de grand poète fils d'un grand poète . . .' Louis Racine, in spite of Boilcau's warning, wrote poetry, and not unsuccessfully. But he never lost sight of the distance which separated his talent from the genius of his father, and he had his own portrait painted holding his illustrions father's masterpieces, and pointing with his finger to this verse of Phèdre :

Et moi, fils inconnu d'un si glorieux père . . .

Page 97. 1. n. imbroglio. See note to p. 17, 1. 33.

1. 12. badigeonnage, from badigeon, ' pâte qui sert à remplir les trous et les défauts des figures sculptées et du bois.'— LiTTRÉ.

1. 25. M. Etienne (i 778-1 845), a French dramatist, whose comedy Les Deux Gendres, in five acts and in verse, played in 181 1, is considered the best comedy produced under the First Empire. He was admitted to the French Academy in 181 1, but was excluded from it after Xapoleon's fall. As a member of the Opposition, he became an editor of the Constitutionnel, in which he wrote some clever and popular articles. ' Élégant,' says Sainte-Beuve, ' d'une élégance assez commune et monotone, fin, facile, adroit à trouver les prétextes de l'opposition et les thèmes chers au public français, il n'oubliait de caresser aucun lieu commun national toutes les fois que cela servait à ses fins ; il savait le point de chaque préjugé pour y entrer à la rencontre.' Etienne was elected member of Parliament in 1822 and 1829, and re-entered the French Academy in 1829, on which occasion he delivered a

l80 IROI? PORTRAITS MITÉRAIRES

speech against Romanticism. It is to this discoun de réception tliat Sainte-Beuve refers.

Page 08, 1. 18. Beau>7uirchais. Sec note to p. 43, I. 19. 1. 25. Tnncrède, Tancrcd (died 1112), one of the principal hcroes of tlie First Crusade. His virtucs and achievements arc celebrated in Tasso's Jérusalem Delivered.

1. 26. La rehie Mah, the qucen of the fairies, according to Shakespeare. In Shellc) 's Queen Mab she has a wider sphère, and is niade to ruie ovcr mcn's thoughts. I. 27. /Iriel, in The Tempes t.

Ptick, in A Midsummer Nighfs Dream, 1. 28. Scapiii, in Les Fourberies de Scapin (Molière). Doritie, in Tartufe (id.).

Chérubin, in Le Mariage de Figaro (Beaumarchais). Fenella, in Pei-eril (f the Peak (Scott). 1. 33. le divin Tirésiaj. Tiresias was in Greek legend a blind Theban seer. At the request of Circe, Odysseus descended into Hadcs to consuit him.

le fieil Anchise. Anchiseswas in Greek legend a prince of the royal house of Troy and father of Aeneas,

1. 37. Diana Vernon, the heroine of Scott's Rob Roy, one of the most charniing of ail his femalc characters. I. 40. Agnès, in V Ecole des Femmes (Molière).

Page 99. 1. i. la moqueuse Susanne, in Beaumarchais' Le Mariage de Figaro ; Sainte-Beuve has written elsewhere : ' Rien de charmant, de vif, d'entraînant comme les deux premiers actes (du Mariage de Figaro) ; la comtesse, Susanne, le Page, cet adorable Chérubin, qui exprime toute la fraîcheur et le premier ébattenicnt des sens, n'ont rien perdu . . .'

1, 20. . . . comte de Fuentès dont parle Bossuet. Sainte- Beuve mistakes don Enriquez d'Azevedo, count of P'uentes, who fought in the Netherlands on the side of the Spaniards, for the Comte de Fontaine, born in 1570, who died at Rocroi in 1643. The mistake is a very common one. A référence to Bossuet's Oraison Funèbre de Louis de Bourbon, Prince de Condé—near the beginning— will show that the great divine speaks of the Count de Fontaine and not of Fuentes.

1. 21. Rocroi, a town in the modem department of the Ardennes, close to the Belgian frontier. A victory was gained near it by the French under the Duc d'Enghien (' le grand Condé ') over the Spaniards on May 19, 1643.