may be especially instructive from a literary, historical, or
grammatical point of view.

The appendix contains, in addition to a brief statement of the rules of
French verse, a systematic presentation of quotations from the play
illustrating a few of the grammatical points on which experience
teaches that the student's knowledge, in spite of grammars, is likely
to be vague.

The editor desires to acknowledge gratefully his indebtedness to M.
Paul Mesnard's exhaustive work in the _Collection des Grands Écrivains
de la France_, published under the direction of M. Ad. Régnier (Paris,
1865), and also to the excellent editions of Mr. G. Saintsbury (Oxford,
1886), and of Prof. E. S. Joynes (New York, 1882).

I. H. B. SPIERS.


WILLIAM PENN CHARTER SCHOOL, PHILADELPHIA. INTRODUCTION.

1. LIFE OF RACINE.

Jean Racine, unquestionably the most perfect of the French tragic
poets, was born in 1639, at La Ferté-Milon, near Paris. He received a
sound classical education at Port-Royal des Champs, then a famous
centre of religious thought and scholastic learning. At the early age
of twenty he was so fortunate as to attract, by an ode in honor of the
marriage of King Louis XIV., the favor of that exacting monarch,--a
favor which he was to enjoy during forty years. Yet more fortunate in
the friendship of Molière, of La Fontaine, and especially of his trusty