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Updated: May 28, 2025
As for the claim which the French advance to set themselves up, in spite of all their one-sidedness and inadequacy of view, as the lawgivers of taste, it must be rejected with becoming indignation. Use at first made of the Spanish Theatre by the French General Character of Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire Review of the principal Works of Corneille and of Racine Thomas Corneille and Crebillon.
Some he has made tribunes, prefects, or legislators; others he has appointed his Ministers in foreign countries, and on those to whom he has not yet been able to given places, he bestows much greater pensions than any former Sovereign of this country allowed to a Corneille, a Racine, a Boileau, a Voltaire, a De Crebillon, a D' Alembert, a Marmontel, and other heroes of our literature and honours to our nation.
Finally, the president of the agricultural society put an end to the sedition by remarking judicially that "before the Revolution the greatest nobles admitted men like Dulcos and Grimm and Crebillon to their society men who were nobodies, like this little poet of L'Houmeau; but one thing they never did, they never received tax-collectors, and, after all, Chatelet is only a tax-collector."
The king pensioned the successful poet; and the coffee-houses pronounced that Voltaire was a clever man, but that the real tragic inspiration, the celestial fire which had glowed in Corneille and Racine, was to be found in Crébillon alone. The blow went to Voltaire's heart.
Henry Fielding, of the graceful and fantastic Monsieur Crebillon the younger, whom our immortal poet Gray so much admired, and of the universal Monsieur de Voltaire. Once, when Mr. Crawley asked what the young people were reading, the governess replied "Smollett." "Oh, Smollett," said Mr. Crawley, quite satisfied. "His history is more dull, but by no means so dangerous as that of Mr. Hume.
"Yes," replied the poet, "but it is a maison de force, a prison!" A complete edition of his works was published after his death in 1751. His father, Prosper Crebillon, was a very famous French dramatic poet, and discarded the profession of the law for the sake of the Muses. Idomeneus, Atreus Electra, Rhadamistus, and the Triumvirate were some of his works.
Voltaire's expression is somewhat strong, when he says that in reading the tragedies which succeeded those of Racine we might fancy ourselves perusing the romances of Mademoiselle Scuderi, which paint citizens of Paris under the names of heroes of antiquity. He alluded herein more particularly to Crebillon.
Mademoiselle DESBROSSES. The public say nothing of her, and I think this is all she can wish for. I have now passed in review before you those who are charged to display to advantage the dramatic riches bequeathed to the French nation by CORNEILLE, RACINE, MOLIERE, CREBILLON, VOLTAIRE, REGNARD, &c. &c. &c.
CREBILLON complains of this: "They charge me with all the iniquities of Atreus, and they consider me in some places as a wretch with whom it is unfit to associate; as if all which the mind invents must be derived from the heart." This poet offers a striking instance of the little alliance existing between the literary and personal dispositions of an author.
Some he has made tribunes, prefects, or legislators; others he has appointed his Ministers in foreign countries, and on those to whom he has not yet been able to given places, he bestows much greater pensions than any former Sovereign of this country allowed to a Corneille, a Racine, a Boileau, a Voltaire, a De Crebillon, a D' Alembert, a Marmontel, and other heroes of our literature and honours to our nation.
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