Long live our old friend Corneille! Let us forgive his bad verses for the sake of those divine and sublime beauties which transport us.

They are master-strokes which are inimitable." Corneille had seen _Bajazet_.

"I would take great care not to say so to anybody else," he whispered in the ear of Segrais, who was sitting beside him, "because they would say that I said so from jealousy; but, mind you, there is not in _Bajazet_ a single character with the sentiments which should and do prevail at Constantinople; they have all, beneath a Turkish dress, the sentiments that prevail in the midst of France." The impassioned loyalty of Madame de Sevigne, and the clear-sighted jealousy of Corneille, were not mistaken; Bajazet is no Turk, but he is none the less very human.

"There are points by which men recognize themselves, though there is no resemblance; there are others in which there is resemblance without any recognition.

Certain sentiments belong to nature in all countries; they are characteristic of man only, and everywhere man will see his own image in them." [_Corneille et son temps,_ by M.Guizot.] Racine's reputation went on continually increasing; he had brought out _Mithridate_ and _Iphigenie; Phedre_ appeared in 1677.