[1] Whence the kings of Italy derive their title of kings of Cyprus
and Jerusalem.
CORNARO, LUIGI (1467-1566), a Venetian nobleman, famous for his
treatises on a temperate life. In his youth he lived freely, but after a
severe illness at the age of forty, he began under medical advice
gradually to reduce his diet. For some time he restricted himself to a
daily allowance of 12 oz. of solid food and 14 oz. of wine; later in
life he reduced still further his bill of fare, and found he could
support his life and strength with no more solid meat than an egg a day.
At the age of eighty-three he wrote his treatise on _The Sure and
Certain Method of Attaining a Long and Healthful Life_, the English
translation of which went through numerous editions; and this was
followed by three others on the same subject, composed at the ages of
eighty-six, ninety-one and ninety-five respectively. The first three
were published at Padua in 1558. They are written, says Addison
(_Spectator_, No. 195), "with such a spirit of cheerfulness, religion
and good sense, as are the natural concomitants of temperance and
sobriety." He died at Padua at the age of ninety-eight.
CORNBRASH, in geology, the name applied to the uppermost member of the
Bathonian stage of the Jurassic formation in England. It is an old
English agricultural name applied in Wiltshire to a variety of loose
rubble or "brash" which, in that part of the country, forms a good soil
for growing corn. The name was adopted by William Smith for a thin band
of shelly limestone which, in the south of England, breaks up in the
manner indicated. Although only a thin group of rocks (10-25 ft.), it is
remarkably persistent; it may be traced from Weymouth to the Yorkshire
coast, but in north Lincolnshire it is very thin, and probably dies out
in the neighbourhood of the Humber. It appears again, however, as a thin
bed in Gristhorpe Bay, Cayton Bay, Wheatcroft, Newton Dale and Langdale.
In the inland exposures in Yorkshire it is difficult to follow on
account of its thinness, and the fact that it passes up into dark shales
in many places--the so-called "clays of the Cornbrash," with _Avicula
echinata_.
The Cornbrash is a very fossiliferous formation; the fauna indicates a
transition from the Lower to the Middle Oolites, though it is probably
more nearly related to that of the beds above than to those below. Good
localities for fossils are Radipole near Weymouth, Closworth, Wincanton,
Trowbridge, Cirencester, Witney, Peterborough and Sudbrook Park near
Lincoln. A few of the important fossils are: _Waldheimia lagenalis_,
_Pecten levis_, _Avicula echinata_, _Ostrea flabelloides_, _Myacites
decurtatus_, _Echinobrissus clunicularis_; _Macrocephalites
macrocephalus_ is abundant in the midland counties but rarer in the
south; belemnites are not known. The remains of saurians
(_Steneosaurus_) are occasionally found. The Cornbrash is of little
value for building or road-making, although it is used locally; in the
south of England it is not oolitic, but in Yorkshire it is a rubbly,
marly, frequently ironshot oolitic limestone. In Bedfordshire it has
been termed the Bedford limestone.
See JURASSIC; also H. B. Woodward, "The Jurassic Rocks of Britain,"
vol. iv. (1894); and C. Fox Strangways, vol. i.; both _Memoirs of the
Geological Survey_. (J. A. H.)
CORNEILLE, PIERRE (1606-1684), French dramatist and poet, was born at
Rouen, in the rue de la Pie, on the 6th of June 1606. The house, which
was long preserved, was destroyed not many years ago. His father, whose
Christian name was the same, was _avocat du roi a la Table de Marbre du
Palais_, and also held the position of _maitre des eaux et forets_ in
the _vicomte_ (or _bailliage_, as some say) of Rouen. In this latter
office he is said to have shown himself a vigorous magistrate,
suppressing brigandage and plunder without regard to his personal
safety. He was ennobled in 1637 (it is said not without regard to his
son's distinction), and the honour was renewed in favour of his sons
Pierre and Thomas in 1669, when a general repeal of the letters of
nobility recently granted had taken place. There appears, however, to be
no instance on record of the poet himself assuming the "de" of nobility.
His mother's name was Marthe le Pesant.
After being educated by the Jesuits of Rouen, Corneille at the age of
eighteen was entered as _avocat_, and in 1624 took the oaths, as we are
told, four years before the regular time, a dispensation having been
procured. He was afterwards appointed advocate to the admiralty, and to
the "waters and forests," but both these posts must have been of small
value, as we find him parting with them in 1650 for the insignificant
sum of 6000 livres. In that year and the next he was _procureur-syndic
des Etats de Normandie_. His first play, _Melite_, was acted in 1629. It
is said by B. le B. de Fontenelle (his nephew) to have been inspired by
personal experiences, and was extremely popular, either because or in
spite of its remarkable difference from the popular plays of the day,
those of A. Hardy. In 1632 _Clitandre_, a tragedy, was printed (it may
have been acted in 1631); in 1633 _La Veuve_ and the _Galerie du
palais_, in 1634 _La Suivante_ and _La Place Royale_, all the last-named
plays being comedies, saw the stage. In 1634 also, having been selected
as the composer of a Latin elegy to Richelieu on the occasion of the
cardinal visiting Rouen, he was introduced to the subject of his verses,
and was soon after enrolled among the "five poets." These officers (the
others being G. Colletet, Boisrobert and C. de l'Etoile, who in no way
merited the title, and J. de Rotrou, who was no unworthy yokefellow even
of Corneille) had for task the more profitable than dignified occupation
of working up Richelieu's ideas into dramatic form. No one could be less
suited for such work than Corneille, and he soon (it is said) incurred
his employer's displeasure by altering the plan of the third act of _Les
Thuileries_, which had been entrusted to him.
Meanwhile the year 1635 saw the production of _Medee_, a grand but
unequal tragedy. In the next year the singular extravaganza entitled
_L'Illusion comique_ followed, and was succeeded about the end of
November by the _Cid_, based on the _Mocedades del Cid_ of Guillem de
Castro. The triumphant success of this, perhaps the most "epoch-making"
play in all literature, the jealousy of Richelieu and the Academy, the
open attacks of Georges de Scudery and J. de Mairet and others, and the
pamphlet-war which followed, are among the best-known incidents in the
history of letters. The trimming verdict of the Academy, which we have
in J. Chapelain's _Sentiments de l'Academie francaise sur la
tragi-comedie du Cid_ (1638), when its arbitration was demanded by
Richelieu, and not openly repudiated by Corneille, was virtually
unimportant; but it is worth remembering that no less a writer than
Georges de Scudery, in his _Observations sur le Cid_ (1637), gravely and
apparently sincerely asserted and maintained of this great play that the
subject was utterly bad, that all the rules of dramatic composition were
violated, that the action was badly conducted, the versification
constantly faulty, and the beauties as a rule stolen! Corneille himself
was awkwardly situated in this dispute. The _esprit bourru_ by which he
was at all times distinguished, and which he now displayed in his rather
arrogant _Excuse a Ariste_, unfitted him for controversy, and it was of
vital importance to him that he should not lose the outward marks of
favour which Richelieu continued to show him. Perhaps the pleasantest
feature in the whole matter is the unshaken and generous admiration with
which Rotrou, the only contemporary whose genius entitled him to
criticise Corneille, continued to regard his friend, rival, and in some
sense (though Rotrou was the younger of the two) pupil. Finding it
impossible to make himself fairly heard in the matter, Corneille (who
had retired from his position among the "five poets") withdrew to Rouen
and passed nearly three years in quiet there, perhaps revolving the
opinions afterwards expressed in his three _Discours_ and in the
_Examens_ of his plays, where he bows, somewhat as in the house of
Rimmon, to "the rules." In 1639, or at the beginning of 1640, appeared
_Horace_ with a dedication to Richelieu. The good offices of Madame de
Combalet, to whom the _Cid_ had been dedicated, and perhaps the
satisfaction of the cardinal's literary jealousy, had healed what breach
there may have been, and indeed the poet was in no position to quarrel
with his patron. Richelieu not only allowed him 500 crowns a year, but
soon afterwards, it is said, though on no certain authority, employed
his omnipotence in reconciling the father of the poet's mistress, Marie
de Lamperiere, to the marriage of the lovers (1640). In this year also
_Cinna_ appeared. A brief but very serious illness attacked him, and the
death of his father the year before had increased his family anxieties
by leaving his mother in very indifferent circumstances. It has,
however, been recently denied that he himself was at any time poor, as
older traditions asserted.
In the following year Corneille figured as a contributor to the
_Guirlande de Julie_, a famous album which the marquis de Montausier,
assisted by all the literary men of the day, offered to his lady-love,
Julie d'Angennes. 1643 was, according to the latest authorities (for
Cornelian dates have often been altered), a very great year in the
dramatist's life. Therein appeared _Polyeucte_, the memorable comedy of
_Le Menteur_, which though adapted from the Spanish stood in relation to
French comedy very much as _Le Cid_, which owed less to Spain, stood to
French tragedy; its less popular and far less good _Suite_,--and perhaps
_La Mort de Pompee_. _Rodogune_ (1644) was a brilliant success;
_Theodore_ (1645), a tragedy on a somewhat perilous subject, was the
first of Corneille's plays which was definitely damned. Some amends may
have been made to him by the commission which he received next year to
write verses for the _Triomphes poetiques de Louis XIII_. Soon after
(22nd of January 1647) the Academy at last (it had twice rejected him on
frivolous pleas) admitted the greatest of living French writers.
_Heraclius_ (1646), _Andromede_ (1650), a spectacle-opera rather than a
play, _Don Sanche d'Aragon_ (1650) and _Nicomede_ (1651) were the
products of the next few years' work; but in 1652 _Pertharite_ was
received with decided disfavour, and the poet in disgust resolved, like
Ben Jonson, to quit the loathed stage. In this resolution he persevered
for six years, during which he worked at a verse translation of the
_Imitation of Christ_ (finished in 1656), at his three _Discourses on
Dramatic Poetry_, and at the _Examens_ which are usually printed at the
end of his plays. In 1659 Fouquet, the Maecenas of the time, persuaded
him to alter his resolve, and _OEdipe_, a play which became a great
favourite with Louis XIV., was the result. It was followed by _La Toison
d'or_ (1660), _Sertorius_ (1662) and _Sophonisbe_ (1663). In this latter
year Corneille (who had at last removed his residence from Rouen to
Paris in 1662) was included among the list of men of letters pensioned
at the proposal of Colbert. He received 2000 livres. _Othon_ (1664),
_Agesilas_ (1666), _Attila_ (1667), and _Tite et Berenice_ (1670), were
generally considered as proofs of failing powers,--the cruel quatrain of
Boileau--
"Apres l'_Agesilas_
Helas!
Mais apres l'_Attila_
Hola!"
in the case of these two plays, and the unlucky comparison with Racine
in the _Berenice_, telling heavily against them. In 1665 and 1670 some
versifications of devotional works addressed to the Virgin had appeared.
The part which Corneille took in _Psyche_ (1671), Moliere and P.
Quinault being his coadjutors, showed signs of renewed vigour; but
_Pulcherie_ (1672) and _Surena_ (1674) were allowed even by his faithful
followers to be failures. He lived for ten years after the appearance of
_Surena_, but was almost silent save for the publication, in 1676, of
some beautiful verses thanking Louis XIV. for ordering the revival of
his plays. He died at his house in the rue d'Argenteuil on the 30th of
September 1684. For nine years (1674-1681), and again in 1683, his
pension had, for what reason is unknown, been suspended. It used to be
said that he was in great straits, and the story went (though, as far as
Boileau is concerned, it has been invalidated), that at last Boileau,
hearing of this, went to the king and offered to resign his own pension
if there were not money enough for Corneille, and that Louis sent the
aged poet two hundred pistoles. He might, had it actually been so, have
said, with a great English poet in like case, "I have no time to spend
them." Two days afterwards he was dead.
Corneille was buried in the church of St Roch, where no monument marked
his grave until 1821. He had six children, of whom four survived him.
Pierre, the eldest son, a cavalry officer who died before his father,
left posterity in whom the name has continued; Marie, the eldest
daughter, was twice married, and by her second husband, M. de Farcy,
became the ancestress of Charlotte Corday. Repeated efforts have been
made for the benefit of the poet's descendants, Voltaire, Charles X. and
the _Comedie francaise_ having all borne part therein.
The portraits of Corneille (the best and most trustworthy of which is
from the burin of M. Lasne, an engraver of Caen), represent him as a man
of serious, almost of stern countenance, and this agrees well enough
with such descriptions as we have of his appearance, and with the idea
of him which we should form from his writings and conduct. His nephew
Fontenelle admits that his general address and manner were by no means
prepossessing. Others use stronger language, and it seems to be
confessed that either from shyness, from pride, or from physical defects
of utterance, probably from all three combined, he did not attract
strangers. Racine is said to have assured his son that Corneille made
verses "cent fois plus beaux" than his own, but that his own greater
popularity was owing to the fact that he took some trouble to make
himself personally agreeable. Almost all the anecdotes which have been
recorded concerning him testify to a rugged and somewhat unamiable
self-contentment. "Je n'ai pas le merite de ce pays-ci," he said of the
court, "Je n'en suis pas moins Pierre Corneille," he is said to have
replied to his friends as often as they dared to suggest certain
shortcomings in his behaviour, manner or speech, "Je suis saoul de
gloire et affame d'argent" was his reply to the compliments of Boileau.
Yet tradition is unanimous as to his affection for his family, and as to
the harmony in which he lived with his brother Thomas who had married
Marguerite de Lamperiere, younger sister of Marie, and whose household
both at Rouen and at Paris was practically one with that of his brother.
No story about Corneille is better known than that which tells of the
trap between the two houses, and how Pierre, whose facility of
versification was much inferior to his brother's, would lift it when
hard bestead, and call out "Sans-souci, une rime!" Notwithstanding this
domestic felicity, an impression is left on the reader of Corneille's
biographies that he was by no means a happy man. Melancholy of
temperament will partially explain this, but there were other reasons.
He appears to have been quite free from envy properly so called, and to
have been always ready to acknowledge the excellences of his
contemporaries. But, as was the case with a very different
man--Goldsmith--praise bestowed on others always made him uncomfortable
unless it were accompanied by praise bestowed on himself. As Guizot has
excellently said, "Sa jalousie fut celle d'un enfant qui veut qu'un
sourire le rassure contre les caresses que recoit son frere."
Although his actual poverty has been recently denied, he cannot have
been affluent. His pensions covered but a small part of his long life
and were most irregularly paid. He was no "dedicator," and the
occasional presents of rich men, such as Montauron (who gave him a
thousand, others say two hundred, pistoles for the dedication of
_Cinna_), and Fouquet (who commissioned _OEdipe_), were few and far
between, though they have exposed him to reflections which show great
ignorance of the manners of the age. Of his professional earnings, the
small sum for which, as we have seen, he gave up his offices, and the
expression of Fontenelle that he practised "sans gout et sans succes,"
are sufficient proof. His patrimony and his wife's dowry must both have
been trifling. On the other hand, it was during the early and middle
part of his career impossible, and during the later part very difficult,
for a dramatist to live decently by his pieces. It was not till the
middle of the century that the custom of allowing the author two shares
in the profits during the first run of the piece was observed, and even
then revivals profited him nothing. Thomas Corneille himself, who to his
undoubted talents united wonderful facility, untiring industry, and
(gift valuable above all others to the playwright) an extraordinary
knack of hitting the public fancy, died, notwithstanding his simple
tastes, "as poor as Job." We know that Pierre received for two of his
later pieces two thousand livres each, and we do not know that he ever
received more.
But his reward in fame was not stinted. Corneille, unlike many of the
great writers of the world, was not driven to wait for "the next age" to
do him justice. The cabal or clique which attacked the _Cid_ had no
effect whatever on the judgment of the public. All his subsequent
masterpieces were received with the same ungrudging applause, and the
rising star of Racine, even in conjunction with the manifest inferiority
of Corneille's last five or six plays, with difficulty prevailed against
the older poet's towering reputation. The great men of his time--Conde,
Turenne, the marechal de Grammont, the knight-errant duc de Guise--were
his fervent admirers. Nor had he less justice done him by a class from
whom less justice might have been expected, the brother men of letters
whose criticisms he treated with such scant courtesy. The respectable
mediocrity of Chapelain might misapprehend him; the lesser geniuses of
Scudery and Mairet might feel alarm at his advent; the envious Claverets
and D'Aubignacs might snarl and scribble. But Balzac did him justice;
Rotrou, as we have seen, never failed in generous appreciation; Moliere
in conversation and in print recognized him as his own master and the
foremost of dramatists. We have quoted the informal tribute of Racine;
but it should not be forgotten that Racine, in discharge of his duty as
respondent at the Academical reception of Thomas Corneille, pronounced
upon the memory of Pierre perhaps the noblest and most just tribute of
eulogy that ever issued from the lips of a rival. Boileau's testimony is
of a more chequered character; yet he seems never to have failed in
admiring Corneille whenever his principles would allow him to do so.
Questioned as to the great men of Louis XIV.'s reign, he is said to have
replied: "I only know three,--Corneille, Moliere and myself." "And how
about Racine?" his auditor ventured to remark. "He was an extremely
clever fellow to whom I taught the art of elaborate rhyming" (_rimer
difficilement_). It was reserved for the 18th century to exalt Racine
above Corneille. Voltaire, who was prompted by his natural benevolence
to comment on the latter (the profits went to a relation of the poet),
was not altogether fitted by nature to appreciate Corneille, and
moreover, as has been ingeniously pointed out, was not a little wearied
by the length of his task. His partially unfavourable verdict was
endorsed earlier by Vauvenargues, who knew little of poetry, and later
by La Harpe, whose critical standpoint has now been universally
abandoned. Napoleon I. was a great admirer of Corneille ("s'il vivait,
je le ferais prince," he said), and under the Empire and the Restoration
an approach to a sounder appreciation was made. But it was the glory of
the romantic school, or rather of the more catholic study of letters
which that school brought about, to restore Corneille to his true rank.
So long, indeed, as a certain kind of criticism was pursued, due
appreciation was impossible. When it was thought sufficient to say with
Boileau that Corneille excited, not pity or terror, but admiration which
was not a tragic passion; or that
"D'un seul nom quelquefois le son dur ou bizarre
Rend un poeme entier ou burlesque ou barbare;"
when Voltaire could think it crushing to add to his exposure of the
"infamies" of _Theodore_--"apres cela comment osons-nous condamner les
pieces de Lope de Vega et de Shakespeare?"--it is obvious that the _Cid_
and _Polyeucte_, much more _Don Sanche d'Aragon_ and _Rodogune_, were
sealed books to the critic.
Almost the first thing which strikes a reader is the singular inequality
of this poet, and the attempts to explain this inequality, in reference
to his own and other theories, leave the fact untouched. Producing, as
he certainly has produced, work which classes him with the greatest
names in literature, he has also signed an extraordinary quantity of
verse which has not merely the defects of genius, irregularity,
extravagance, _bizarrete_, but the faults which we are apt to regard as
exclusively belonging to those who lack genius, to wit, the dulness and
tediousness of mediocrity. Moliere's manner of accounting for this is
famous in literary history or legend. "My friend Corneille," he said,
"has a familiar who inspires him with the finest verses in the world.
But sometimes the familiar leaves him to shift for himself, and then he
fares very badly." That Corneille was by no means destitute of the
critical faculty his _Discourses_ and the _Examens_ of his plays (often
admirably acute, and, with Dryden's subsequent prefaces, the originals
to a great extent of specially modern criticism) show well enough. But
an enemy might certainly contend that a poet's critical faculty should
be of the Promethean, not be Epimethean order. The fact seems to be that
the form in which Corneille's work was cast, and which by an odd irony
of fate he did so much to originate and make popular, was very partially
suited to his talents. He could imagine admirable situations, and he
could write verses of incomparable grandeur--verses that reverberate
again and again in the memory, but he could not, with the patient
docility of Racine, labour at proportioning the action of a tragedy
strictly, at maintaining a uniform rate of interest in the course of the
plot and of excellence in the fashion of the verse. Especially in his
later plays a verse and a couplet will crash out with fulgurous
brilliancy, and then be succeeded by pages of very second-rate
declamation or argument. It was urged against him also by the party of
the _Doucereux_, as he called them, that he could not manage, or did not
attempt, the great passion of love, and that except in the case of
Chimene his principle seemed to be that of one of his own heroines:--
"Laissons, seigneur, laissons pour les petites ames
Ce commerce rampant de soupirs et de flammes."
(Aristie in _Sertorius_.)
There is perhaps some truth in this accusation, however much some of us
may be disposed to think that the line just quoted is a fair enough
description of the admired ecstasies of Achille and Bajazet. But these
are all the defects which can be fairly urged against him; and in a
dramatist bound to a less strict service they would hardly have been
even remarked. They certainly neither require, nor are palliated by,
theories of his "megalomania," of his excessive attention to conflicts
of will and the like. On the English stage the liberty of unrestricted
incident and complicated action, the power of multiplying characters and
introducing prose scenes, would have exactly suited his somewhat
intermittent genius, both by covering defects and by giving greater
scope for the exhibition of power.
How great that power is can escape no one. The splendid soliloquies of
Medea which, as Voltaire happily says, "annoncent Corneille," the entire
parts of Rodogune and Chimene, the final speech of Camille in _Horace_,
the discovery scene of _Cinna_, the dialogues of Pauline and Severe in
_Polyeucte_, the magnificently-contrasted conception and exhibition of
the best and worst forms of feminine dignity in the Cornelie of _Pompee_
and the Cleopatre of _Rodogune_, the singularly fine contrast in _Don
Sanche d'Aragon_, between the haughtiness of the Spanish nobles and the
unshaken dignity of the supposed adventurer Carlos, and the characters
of Aristie, Viriate and Sertorius himself, in the play named after the
latter, are not to be surpassed in grandeur of thought, felicity of
design or appropriateness of language. "Admiration" may or may not
properly be excited by tragedy, and until this important question is
settled the name of tragedian may be at pleasure given to or withheld
from the author of _Rodogune_. But his rank among the greatest of
dramatic poets is not a matter of question. For a poet is to be judged
by his best things, and the best things of Corneille are second to none.
_The Plays._--It was, however, some time before his genius came to
perfection. It is undeniable that the first six or seven of his plays
are of no very striking intrinsic merit. On the other hand, it requires
only a very slight acquaintance with the state of the drama in France at
the time to see that these works, poor as they may now seem, must have
struck the spectators as something new and surprising. The language and
dialogue of _Melite_ are on the whole simple and natural, and though the
construction is not very artful (the fifth act being, as is not unusual
in Corneille, superfluous and clumsy), it is still passable. The fact
that one of the characters jumps on another's back, and the rather
promiscuous kissing which takes place, are nothing to the liberties
usually taken in contemporary plays. A worse fault is the [Greek:
stichomythia], or, to borrow Butler's expression, the Cat-and-Puss
dialogue, which abounds. But the common objection to the play at the
time was that it was _too_ natural and too devoid of striking incidents.
Corneille accordingly, as he tells us, set to work to cure these faults,
and produced a truly wonderful work, _Clitandre_. Murders, combats,
escapes and outrages of all kinds are provided; and the language makes
_The Rehearsal_ no burlesque. One of the heroines rescues herself from a
ravisher by blinding him with a hair-pin, and as she escapes the seducer
apostrophizes the blood which trickles from his eye, and the weapon
which has wounded it, in a speech forty verses long. This, however, was
his only attempt of the kind. For his next four pieces, which were
comedies, there is claimed the introduction of some important
improvements, such as the choosing for scenes places well known in
actual life (as in the _Galerie du palais_), and the substitution of the
soubrette in place of the old inconvenient and grotesque nurse. It is
certain, however, that there is more interval between these six plays
and _Medee_ than between the latter and Corneille's greatest drama. Here
first do we find those sudden and magnificent lines which characterize
the poet. The title-role is, however, the only good one, and as a whole
the play is heavy. Much the same may be said of its curious successor
_L'Illusion comique_. This is not only a play within a play, but in part
of it there is actually a _third_ involution, one set of characters
beholding another set discharging the parts of yet another. It contains,
however, some very fine lines, in particular, a defence of the stage and
some heroics put into the mouth of a braggadocio. We have seen it said
of the _Cid_ that it is difficult to understand the enthusiasm it
excited. But the difficulty can only exist for persons who are
insensible to dramatic excellence, or who so strongly object to the
forms of the French drama that they cannot relish anything so presented.
Rodrigue, Chimene, Don Diegue are not of any age, but of all time. The
conflicting passions of love, honour, duty, are here represented as they
never had been on a French stage, and in the "strong style" which was
Corneille's own. Of the many objections urged against the play, perhaps
the weightiest is that which condemns the frigid and superfluous part of
the Infanta. _Horace_, though more skilfully constructed, is perhaps
less satisfactory. There is a hardness about the younger Horace which
might have been, but is not made, imposing, and Sabine's effect on the
action is quite out of proportion to the space she occupies. The
splendid declamation of Camille, and the excellent part of the elder
Horace, do not altogether atone for these defects. _Cinna_ is perhaps
generally considered the poet's masterpiece, and it undoubtedly contains
the finest single scene in all French tragedy. The blot on it is
certainly the character of Emilie, who is spiteful and thankless, not
heroic. _Polyeucte_ has sometimes been elevated to the same position.
There is, however, a certain coolness about the hero's affection for his
wife which somewhat detracts from the merit of his sacrifice; while the
Christian part of the matter is scarcely so well treated as in the
_Saint Genest_ of Rotrou or the _Virgin Martyr_ of Massinger. On the
other hand, the entire parts of Pauline and Severe are beyond praise,
and the manner in which the former reconciles her duty as a wife with
her affection for her lover is an astonishing success. In _Pompee_ (for
_La Mort de Pompee_, though the more appropriate, was not the original
title) the splendid declamation of Cornelie is the chief thing to be
remarked. _Le Menteur_ fully deserves the honour which Moliere paid to
it. Its continuation, notwithstanding the judgment of some French
critics, we cannot think so happy. But _Theodore_ is perhaps the most
surprising of literary anomalies. The central situation, which so
greatly shocked Voltaire and indeed all French critics from the date of
the piece, does not seem to blame. A virgin martyr who is threatened
with loss of honour as a bitterer punishment than loss of life offers
points as powerful as they are perilous. But the treatment is thoroughly
bad. From the heroine who is, in a phrase of Dryden's, "one of the
coolest and most insignificant" heroines ever drawn, to the undignified
Valens, the termagant Marcelle, and the peevish Placide, there is hardly
a good character. Immediately upon this in most printed editions, though
older in representation, follows the play which (therein agreeing rather
with the author than with his critics) we should rank as his greatest
triumph, _Rodogune_. Here there is hardly a weak point. The magnificent
and terrible character of Cleopatre, and the contrasted dispositions of
the two princes, of course attract most attention. But the character of
Rodogune herself, which has not escaped criticism, comes hardly short of
these. _Heraclius_, despite great art and much fine poetry, is injured
by the extreme complication of its argument and by the blustering part
of Pulcherie. _Andromede_, with the later spectacle piece, the _Toison
d'or_, do not call for comment, and we have already alluded to the chief
merit of _Don Sanche_. _Nicomede_, often considered one of Corneille's
best plays, is chiefly remarkable for the curious and unusual character
of its hero. Of _Pertharite_ it need only be said that no single critic
has to our knowledge disputed the justice of its damnation. _OEdipe_
is certainly unworthy of its subject and its author, but in _Sertorius_
we have one of Corneille's finest plays. It is remarkable not only for
its many splendid verses and for the nobility of its sentiment, but from
the fact that not one of its characters lacks interest, a commendation
not generally to be bestowed on its author's work. Of the last six plays
we may say that perhaps only one of them, _Agesilas_, is almost wholly
worthless. Not a few speeches of _Surena_ and of _Othon_ are of a very
high order. As to the poet's non-dramatic works, we have already spoken
of his extremely interesting critical dissertations. His minor poems and
poetical devotions are not likely to be read save from motives of duty
or curiosity. The verse translation of a Kempis, indeed, which was in
its day immensely popular (it passed through many editions), condemns
itself.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The subject of the bibliography of Corneille was
treated in the most exhaustive manner by M. E. Picot in his
_Bibliographie Cornelienne_ (Paris, 1875-1876). Less elaborate, but
still ample information may be found in J. A. Taschereau's _Vie_ and
in M. Marty-Laveaux's edition of the _Works_. The individual plays
were usually printed a year or two after their first appearance: but
these dates have been subjected to confusion and to controversy, and
it seems better to refer for them to the works quoted and to be
quoted. The chief collected editions in the poet's lifetime were those
of 1644, 1648, 1652, 1660 (with important corrections), 1664 and 1682,
which gives the definitive text. In 1692 T. Corneille published a
complete _Theatre_ in 5 vols. 12mo. Numerous editions appeared in the
early part of the 18th century, that of 1740 (6 vols. 12mo, Amsterdam)
containing the _OEuvres diverses_ as well as the plays. Several
editions are recorded between this and that of Voltaire (12 vols. 8vo;
Geneva, 1764, 1776, 8 vols. 4to), whose _Commentaires_ have often been
reprinted separately. In the year IX. (1801) appeared an edition of
the _Works_ with Voltaire's commentary and criticisms thereon by
Palissot (12 vols. 8vo, Paris). Since this the editions have been
extremely numerous. Those chiefly to be remarked are the following.
Lefevre's (12 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1854), well printed and with a useful
variorum commentary, lacks bibliographical information and is
disfigured by hideous engravings. Of Taschereau's, in the
_Bibliotheque elzevirienne_, only two volumes were published. Lahure's
appeared in 5 vols. (1857-1862) and 7 vols. (1864-1866). The edition
of Ch. Marty-Laveaux in Regnier's _Grands Ecrivains de la France_
(1862-1868), in 12 vols. 8vo, is still the standard. In appearance and
careful editing it leaves nothing to desire, containing the entire
works, a lexicon, full bibliographical information, and an album of
illustrations of the poet's places of residence, his arms, some
title-pages of his plays, facsimiles of his writings, &c. Nothing is
wanting but variorum comments, which Lefevre's edition supplies.
Fontenelle's life of his uncle is the chief original authority on that
subject, but Taschereau's _Histoire de la vie et des ouvrages de P.
Corneille_ (1st ed. 1829, 2nd in the _Bibl. elzevirienne_, 1855) is
the standard work. Its information has been corrected and augmented in
various later publications, but not materially. Of the exceedingly
numerous writings relative to Corneille we may mention the _Recueil de
dissertations sur plusieurs tragedies de Corneille et de Racine_ of
the abbe Granet (Paris, 1740), the criticisms already alluded to of
Voltaire, La Harpe and Palissot, the well-known work of Guizot, first
published as _Vie de Corneille_ in 1813 and revised as _Corneille et
son temps_ in 1852, and the essays, repeated in his _Portraits
litteraires_, in _Port-Royal_, and in the _Nouveaux Lundis_ of
Sainte-Beuve. More recently, besides essays by MM. Brunetiere, Faguet
and Lemaitre and the part appurtenant of M. E. Rigal's work on 16th
century drama in France, see Gustave Lanson's "Corneille" in the
_Grands Ecrivains francais_ (1898); F. Bouquet's _Points obscurs et
nouveaux de la vie de Pierre Corneille_ (1888); _Corneille inconnu_,
by J. Levallois (1876); J. Lemaitre, _Corneille et la poetique
d'Aristote_ (1888); J. B. Segall, _Corneille and the Spanish Drama_
(1902); and the recently discovered and printed _Fragments sur Pierre
et Thomas Corneille_ of Alfred de Vigny (1905). On the _Cid_ quarrel
E. H. Chardon's _Vie de Rotrou_ (1884) bears mainly on a whole series
of documents which appeared at Rouen in the proceedings of the
_Societe des bibliophiles normands_ during the years 1891-1894. The
best-known English criticism, that of Hallam in his _Literature of
Europe_, is inadequate. The translations of separate plays are very
numerous, but of the complete _Theatre_ only one version (into
Italian) is recorded by the French editors. Fontenelle tells us that
his uncle had translations of the _Cid_ in every European tongue but
Turkish and Slavonic, and M. Picot's book apprises us that the latter
want, at any rate, is now supplied. Corneille has suffered less than
some other writers from the attribution of spurious works. Besides a
tragedy, _Sylla_, the chief piece thus assigned is _L'Occasion perdue
recouverte_, a rather loose tale in verse. Internal evidence by no
means fathers it on Corneille, and all external testimony is against
it. It has never been included in Corneille's works. It is curious
that a translation of Statius (_Thebaid_, bk. iii.), an author of whom
Corneille was extremely fond, though known to have been written,
printed and published, has entirely dropped out of sight. Three verses
quoted by Menage are all we possess. (G. SA.)
CORNEILLE, THOMAS (1625-1709), French dramatist, was born at Rouen on
the 20th of August 1625, being nearly twenty years younger than his
brother, the great Corneille. His skill in verse-making seems to have
shown itself early, as at the age of fifteen he composed a piece in
Latin which was represented by his fellow-pupils at the Jesuits' college
of Rouen. His first French play, _Les Engagements du hasard_, was acted
in 1647. _Le Feint Astrologue_, imitated from the Spanish, and imitated
by Dryden, came next year. At his brother's death he succeeded to his
vacant chair in the Academy. He then turned his attention to philology,
producing a new edition of the _Remarques_ of C. F. Vaugelas in 1687,
and in 1694 a dictionary of technical terms, intended to supplement that
of the Academy. A complete translation of Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ (he had
published six books with the _Heroic Epistles_ some years previously)
followed in 1697. In 1704 he lost his sight and was constituted a
"veteran," a dignity which preserved to him the privileges, while it
exempted him from the duties, of an academician. But he did not allow
his misfortune to put a stop to his work, and in 1708 produced a large
_Dictionnaire universel geographique et historique_ in three volumes
folio. This was his last labour. He died at Les Andelys on the 8th of
December 1709, aged eighty-four. It has been the custom to speak of
Thomas Corneille as of one who, but for the name he bore, would merit no
notice. This is by no means the case; on the contrary, he is rather to
be commiserated for his connexion with a brother who outshone him as he
would have outshone almost any one. But the two were strongly attached
to one another, and practically lived in common. Of his forty-two plays
(this is the utmost number assigned to him) the last edition of his
complete works contains only thirty-two, but he wrote several in
conjunction with other authors. Two are usually reprinted as his
masterpieces at the end of his brother's selected works. These are
_Ariane_ (1672) and the _Comte d' Essex_, in the former of which Rachel
attained success. But of _Laodice_, _Camma_, _Stilica_ and some other
pieces, Pierre Corneille himself said that "he wished he had written
them," and he was not wont to speak lightly. _Camma_ (1661, on the same
story as Tennyson's _Cup_) especially deserves notice. Thomas Corneille
is in many ways remarkable in the literary gossip-history of his time.
His _Timocrate_ boasted of the longest run (80 nights) recorded of any
play in the century. For _La Devineresse_ he and his coadjutor de Vise
(1638-1710, founder of the _Mercure galant_, to which Thomas
contributed) received above 6000 livres, the largest sum known to have
been thus paid. Lastly, one of his pieces (_Le Baron des Fondrieres_)
contests the honour of being the first which was hissed off the stage.
There is a monograph, _Thomas Corneille, sa vie et ses ouvrages_
(1892), by G. Reynier. See also the _Fragments inedits de critique sur
Pierre et Thomas Corneille_ of Alfred de Vigny, published in 1905.
(G. SA.)
CORNELIA (2nd cent. B.C.), daughter of Scipio Africanus the Elder,
mother of the Gracchi and of Sempronia, the wife of Scipio Africanus the
Younger. On the death of her husband, refusing numerous offers of
marriage, she devoted herself to the education of her twelve children.
She was so devoted to her sons Tiberius and Gaius that it was even
asserted that she was concerned in the death of her son-in-law Scipio,
who by his achievements had eclipsed the fame of the Gracchi, and was
said to have approved of the murder of Tiberius. When asked to show her
jewels she presented her sons, and on her death a statue was erected to
her memory inscribed, "Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi." After the
murder of her second son Gaius she retired to Misenum, where she devoted
herself to Greek and Latin literature, and to the society of men of
letters. She was a highly educated woman, and her letters were
celebrated for their beauty of style. The genuineness of the two
fragments of a letter from her to her son Gaius, printed in some
editions of Cornelius Nepos, is disputed.
See L. Mercklin, _De Corneliae vita_ (1844), of no great value; J.
Sorgel, _Cornelia, die Mutter der Gracchen_ (1868), a short popular
sketch.
CORNELIUS, pope, was elected in 251 during the lull in the persecution
of the emperor Decius. Two years afterwards, under the emperor Gallus,
he was exiled to Centumcellae (Civita Vecchia), where he died. He was
very intimate with St Cyprian, and is commemorated with him on the 16th
of September, which is not, however, the anniversary of his death. He
died in June 253.
CORNELIUS, CARL AUGUST PETER (1824-1874), German musician and poet, son
of an actor at Wiesbaden, grandson of the engraver Ignaz Cornelius, and
nephew of Cornelius the painter, was born at Mainz on the 24th of
December 1824. In his childhood his bent was towards languages, but his
musical gifts were carefully cultivated and he learned to sing and to
play the violin. Cornelius the elder, anxious for his son to become an
actor, himself taught the boy the elements of the art. These theatrical
studies, however, were interrupted early by a visit paid by Peter
Cornelius to England as second violin in the Mainz orchestra. On
returning home young Cornelius made his stage debut as John Cook in
_Kean_. But after two more appearances, as the lover in the comedy _Das
war Ich_ and as Perin in Moreto's _Donna Diana_, he practically
abandoned the stage for music, his idea being to become a comic opera
composer. In 1843 his father died. Hitherto Cornelius's musical studies
had been unsystematic. Now opportunity served to remedy this, for his
relative, Cornelius the painter, summoned him in 1844 to Berlin, and
enabled him a year later to become a pupil of Siegfried Wilhelm Dehn
(1799-1858), counterpoint and theory generally being worked at
laboriously. After leaving Dehn, Cornelius proved his independence by
writing a trio in A minor, a quartet in C, as well as two comic opera
texts. In 1847 he returned to Dehn and immediately composed an enormous
mass of music, including a second trio, 30 vocal canons, several
sonatas, a Mass, a Stabat Mater; he also wrote a number of translations
of old French poems, which are classics of their kind. In 1852 he first
came in touch with Liszt, through his uncle's instrumentality. At
Weimar, whither he went in 1852, he heard Berlioz's delightful
_Benvenuto Cellini_, a work which ultimately exercised great influence
over him. For the time, however, he devoted himself, on Liszt's advice,
to further Church compositions, the influence of the Church on him at
that time being so great that he applied, but vainly, for a place in a
Jesuit college. Still his mind was bent on the production of a comic
opera, but the composition was long delayed by the work of translating
the prefaces for Liszt's symphonic poems and the texts of works by
Berlioz and Rubinstein. Between October 1855 and September in the
following year, Cornelius wrote the book of the _Barbier von Bagdad_,
and on December 15, 1858, the opera was produced at Weimar under Liszt,
and hissed off the stage. Thereupon Liszt resigned his post, and shortly
afterwards Cornelius went to Vienna and Munich, and still later came
very much under Wagner's influence. Cornelius's _Cid_ was completed and
produced at Weimar in 1865. For the last nine years of his life
(1865-1874) Cornelius was occupied with his opera _Gunlod_ and other
compositions, besides writing ably and abundantly on Wagner's
music-dramas. In 1867 he became teacher of rhetoric and harmony at the
Musikschule, Munich, and married Berthe Jung. He died on the 26th of
October 1874. Not the least of Cornelius's many claims to fame was his
remarkable versatility. Many of his original poems, as well as his
translations from the French, rank high. Among his songs, special
mention may be made of the lovely "Weihnachtslieder," and of the
"Vatergruft," an unaccompanied vocal work for baritone solo and choir.
CORNELIUS, PETER VON (1784-1867), German painter, was born in Dusseldorf
in 1784. His father, who was inspector of the Dusseldorf gallery, died
in 1799, and the young Cornelius was stimulated to extraordinary
exertions. In a letter to the Count Raczynski he says, "It fell to the
lot of an elder brother and myself to watch over the interests of a
numerous family. It was at this time that it was attempted to persuade
my mother that it would be better for me to devote myself to the trade
of a goldsmith than to continue to pursue painting--in the first place,
in consequence of the time necessary to qualify me for the art, and in
the next, because there were already so many painters. My dear mother,
however, rejected all this advice, and I felt myself impelled onward by
an uncontrollable enthusiasm, to which the confidence of my mother gave
new strength, which was supported by the continual fear that I should be
removed from the study of that art I loved so much." His earliest work
of importance was the decoration of the choir of the church of St
Quirinus at Neuss. At the age of twenty-six he produced his designs from
_Faust_. On October 14, 1811, he arrived in Rome, where he soon became
one of the most promising of that brotherhood of young German painters
which included Overbeck, Schadow, Veit, Schnorr and Ludwig Vogel
(1788-1879),--a fraternity (some of whom selected a ruinous convent for
their home) who were banded together for resolute study and mutual
criticism. Out of this association came the men who, though they were
ridiculed at the time, were destined to found a new German school of
art.
At Rome Cornelius participated, with other members of his fraternity, in
the decoration of the Casa Bartoldi and the Villa Massimi, and while
thus employed he was also engaged upon designs for the illustration of
the Nibelungenlied. From Rome he was called to Dusseldorf to remodel the
Academy, and to Munich by the then crown-prince of Bavaria, afterwards
Louis I., to direct the decorations for the Glyptothek. Cornelius,
however, soon found that attention to such widely separated duties was
incompatible with the just performance of either, and most inconvenient
to himself; eventually, therefore, he resigned his post at Dusseldorf to
throw himself completely and thoroughly into those works for which he
had been commissioned by the crown-prince. He therefore left Dusseldorf
for Munich, where he was joined by those of his pupils who elected to
follow and to assist him. At the death of Director Langer, 1824-1825, he
became director of the Munich Academy.
The fresco decorations of the Ludwigskirche, which were for the most
part designed and executed by Cornelius, are perhaps the most important
mural works of modern times. The large fresco of the Last Judgment, over
the high altar in that church, measures 62 ft. in height by 38 ft. in
width. The frescoes of the Creator, the Nativity, and the Crucifixion in
the same building are also upon a large scale. Amongst his other great
works in Munich may be included his decorations in the Pinakothek and in
the Glyptothek; those in the latter building, in the hall of the gods
and the hall of the hero-myths, are perhaps the best known. About the
year 1839-1840 he left Munich for Berlin to proceed with that series of
cartoons, from the Apocalypse, for the frescoes for which he had been
commissioned by Frederick William IV., and which were intended to
decorate the Campo Santo or royal mausoleum. These were his final works.
Cornelius, as an oil painter, possessed but little technical skill, nor
do his works exhibit any instinctive appreciation of colour. Even as a
fresco painter his manipulative power was not great. And in critically
examining the execution in colour of some of his magnificent designs,
one cannot help feeling that he was, in this respect, unable to do them
full justice. Cornelius and his associates endeavoured to follow in
their works the spirit of the Italian painters. But the Italian strain
is to a considerable extent modified by the Durer heritage. This Durer
influence is manifest in a tendency to overcrowding in composition, in a
degree of attenuation in the proportions of, and a poverty of contour
in, the nude figure, and also in a leaning to the selection of Gothic
forms for draperies. These peculiarities are even noticeable in
Cornelius's principal work of the "Last Judgment," in the Ludwigskirche
in Munich. The attenuation and want of flexibility of contour in the
nude are perhaps most conspicuous in his frescoes of classical subjects
in the Glyptothek, especially in that representing the contention for
the body of Patroclus. But notwithstanding these peculiarities there is
always in his works a grandeur and nobleness of conception, as all must
acknowledge who have inspected his designs for the Ludwigskirche, for
the Campo Santo, &c. If he were not dexterous in the handling of the
brush, he could conceive and design a subject with masterly purpose. If
he had an imperfect eye for colour, in the Venetian, the Flemish, or the
English sense, he had vast mental foresight in directing the German
school of painting; and his favourite motto of _Deutschland uber alles_
indicates the direction and the strength of his patriotism. Karl Hermann
was one of Cornelius's earliest and most esteemed scholars, a man of
simple and fervent nature, painstaking to the utmost, a very type of the
finest German student nature; Kaulbach and Adam Eberle were also amongst
his scholars. Every public edifice in Munich and other German cities
which were embellished with frescoes, became, as in Italy, a school of
art of the very best kind; for the decoration of a public building
begets a practical knowledge of design. The development of this
institution of scholarship in Munich was a work of time. The cartoons
for the Glyptothek were all by Cornelius's own hand. In the Pinakothek
his sketches and small drawings sufficed; but in the Ludwigskirche the
invention even of some of the subjects was entrusted to his scholar
Hermann.
To comprehend and appreciate thoroughly the magnitude of the work which
Cornelius accomplished for Germany, we must remember that at the
beginning of the 19th century Germany had no national school of art.
Germany was in painting and sculpture behind all the rest of Europe. Yet
in less than half a century Cornelius founded a great school, revived
mural painting, and turned the gaze of the art world towards Munich. The
German revival of mural painting had its effect upon England, as well as
upon other European nations, and led to the famous cartoon competitions
held in Westminster Hall, and ultimately to the partial decoration of
the Houses of Parliament. When the latter work was in contemplation,
Cornelius, in response to invitations, visited England (November 1841).
His opinion was in every way favourable to the carrying out of the
project, and even in respect of the durability of fresco in the climate
of England. Cornelius, in his teaching, always inculcated a close and
rigorous study of nature, but he understood by the study of nature
something more than what is ordinarily implied by that expression,
something more than constantly making studies from life; he meant the
study of nature with an inquiring and scientific spirit. "Study nature,"
was the advice he once gave, "in order that you may become acquainted
with its _essential_ forms."
The personal appearance of Cornelius could not but convey to those who
were fortunate enough to come into contact with him the impression that
he was a man of an energetic, firm and resolute nature. He was below the
middle height and squarely built. There was evidence of power about his
broad and overhanging brow, in his eagle eyes and firmly gripped
attenuated lips, which no one with the least discernment could
misinterpret. Yet there was a sense of humour and a geniality which drew
men towards him; and towards those young artists who sought his teaching
and his criticism he always exhibited a calm patience.