A careless reader is apt to dismiss the tragedies of Racine as mere tours de force; and, in one sense, the careless reader is right.  For, as mere displays of technical skill, those works are certainly unsurpassed in the whole range of literature.  But the notion of ’a mere tour de force’ carries with it something more than the idea of technical perfection; for it denotes, not simply a work which is technically perfect, but a work which is technically perfect and nothing more.  The problem before a writer of a Chant Royal is to overcome certain technical difficulties of rhyme and rhythm; he performs his tour de force, the difficulties are overcome, and his task is accomplished.  But Racine’s problem was very different.  The technical restrictions he laboured under were incredibly great; his vocabulary was cribbed, his versification was cabined, his whole power of dramatic movement was scrupulously confined; conventional rules of every conceivable denomination hurried out to restrain his genius, with the alacrity of Lilliputians pegging down a Gulliver; wherever he turned he was met by a hiatus or a pitfall, a blind-alley or a mot bas.  But his triumph was not simply the conquest of these refractory creatures; it was something much more astonishing.  It was the creation, in spite of them, nay, by their very aid, of a glowing, living, soaring, and enchanting work of art.  To have brought about this amazing combination, to have erected, upon a structure of Alexandrines, of Unities, of Noble Personages, of stilted diction, of the whole intolerable paraphernalia of the Classical stage, an edifice of subtle psychology, of exquisite poetry, of overwhelming passion—­that is a tour de force whose achievement entitles Jean Racine to a place among the very few consummate artists of the world.

Voltaire, unfortunately, was neither a poet nor a psychologist; and, when he took up the mantle of Racine, he put it, not upon a human being, but upon a tailor’s block.  To change the metaphor, Racine’s work resembled one of those elaborate paper transparencies which delighted our grandmothers, illuminated from within so as to present a charming tinted picture with varying degrees of shadow and of light.  Voltaire was able to make the transparency, but he never could light the candle; and the only result of his efforts was some sticky pieces of paper, cut into curious shapes, and roughly daubed with colour.  To take only one instance, his diction is the very echo of Racine’s.  There are the same pompous phrases, the same inversions, the same stereotyped list of similes, the same poor bedraggled company of words.  It is amusing to note the exclamations which rise to the lips of Voltaire’s characters in moments of extreme excitement—­Qu’entends-je?  Que vois-je?  Ou suis-je?  Grands Dieux!  Ah, c’en est trop, Seigneur!  Juste Ciel!  Sauve-toi de ces lieux!  Madame, quelle horreur ... &c.  And it is amazing to discover that these are the very phrases with which Racine has managed to express all the violence of human terror, and rage, and love.  Voltaire at his best never rises above the standard of a sixth-form boy writing hexameters in the style of Virgil; and, at his worst, he certainly falls within measurable distance of a flogging.  He is capable, for instance, of writing lines as bad as the second of this couplet—­