Upon English ears the rhymed couplets of Racine sound strangely; and how many besides Mr. Bailey have dubbed his alexandrines 'monotonous'!

It is for him to sit up all night with the spectral heroes of Byron; it is for him to exchange innumerable alexandrines with the faded heroines of Voltaire.

Does he consider "To justice, that justice seizes: what knows the law" an alexandrine,and an alexandrine worthy of a student and admirer of Spenser?

Blank verse is certainly better adapted to tragedy than rhymed alexandrines, but then the French language does not admit of blank verse, and to write tragedies in prose, unless they be tragedies in modern life, would deprive them of all charm; but after all I find the harmonious pomp and to use a phrase of Pope's "The long majestic march and energy divine" of the French alexandrine, very pleasing to the ear.

But Frederick was not content with mere appreciation; he too would create; he would write alexandrines on the model of Racine, and madrigals after the manner of Chaulieu; he would press in person into the sacred sanctuary, and burn incense with his own hands upon the inmost shrine.