Chapter VII: Part 7

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.

See Forster, _Peter von Cornelius_ (Berlin, 1874). (W. C. T.)

CORNELL UNIVERSITY, one of the largest of American institutions of higher education, situated at Ithaca, New York. Its campus is finely situated on a hill above the main part of the city; it lies between Fall Creek and Cascadilla Creek (each of which has cut a deep gorge), and commands a beautiful view of the valley and of Lake Cayuga. The university is co-educational (since 1872), and comprises the graduate school, with 306 students in 1909; the college of arts and sciences (902 students); the college of law (225 students), established in 1887; the medical college (217 students, of whom 29 were taking freshman or sophomore work in Ithaca, where all women entering the college must pursue the first two years of work)--this college was established in 1898 by the gift of Oliver Hazard Payne, and has buildings opposite Bellevue hospital on First Avenue and 28th Street, New York city; the New York state veterinary college (94 students), established by the state legislature in 1894; the New York state college of agriculture (413 students), established as such by the state legislature in 1904,--the teaching of agriculture had from the beginning been an important part of the university's work,--with an agricultural experiment station, established in 1887 by the Federal government; the college of architecture (133 students); the college of civil engineering (569 students); and the Sibley College of mechanical engineering and mechanic arts (1163 students), named in honour of Hiram Sibley (1807-1888), a banker of Rochester, N.Y., who gave $180,000 for its endowment and equipment and whose son Hiram W. Sibley gave $130,000 to the college. A state college of forestry was established in connexion with the university in 1898, but was discontinued after several years. The total enrolment of regular students in 1909 was 3980; in addition, 841 students were enrolled in the 1908 summer session (which is especially for teachers) and 364 in the "short winter course in agriculture" in 1909. Nearly all the states and territories of the United States and thirty-two foreign countries were represented--e.g. there were 33 students from China, 12 from the Argentine Republic, 6 from India, 10 from Japan, 10 from Mexico, 5 from Peru, &c.

In the W. central part of the campus is the university library building, which, with an endowment (1891) of $300,000 for the purchase of books and periodicals, was the gift of Henry Williams Sage (1814-1897), second president of the board of trustees; in 1906 it received an additional endowment fund of about $500,000 by the bequest of Prof. Willard Fiske. The building, of light grey Ohio sandstone, houses the general library (300,050 volumes in 1909), the seminary and department libraries (7284 volumes), and the forestry library (1007 volumes). Among the special collections of the general library are the classical library of Charles Anthon, the philological library of Franz Bopp, the Goldwin Smith library (1869), the White architectural and historical libraries, the Spinoza collection presented by Andrew D. White (1894), the library of Jared Sparks, the Samuel J. May collection of works on the history of slavery, the Zarncke library, especially rich in Germanic philology and literature, the Eugene Schuyler collection of Slavic folk-lore, literature and history, the Willard Fiske Rhaeto-Romanic, Icelandic, Dante and Petrarch collections, and the Herbert H. Smith collection of works on Latin America (in addition there are college and department libraries--that of the college of law numbers 38,735 volumes--bringing the total to 353,638 bound volumes in 1909). Among the other buildings are: Morse Hall, Franklin Hall, Sibley College, Lincoln Hall (housing the college of civil engineering), Goldwin Smith Hall (for language and history), Stimson Hall (given by Dean Sage to the medical college), Boardman Hall (housing the college of law), Morrill Hall (containing the psychological laboratory), McGraw Hall and White Hall--these, with the library, forming the quadrangle; S. of the quadrangle, Sage chapel (with beautiful interior decorations), Barnes Hall (the home of the Cornell University Christian Association), Sage College (a dormitory for women), and the armoury and gymnasium; E. of the quadrangle, the Rockefeller Hall of Physics (1906) and the New York State College of Agriculture (completed in 1907); and S.E. of the quadrangle the New York State Veterinary College and the Fuertes Observatory. The university is well-equipped with laboratories, the psychological laboratory, the laboratories of Sibley college and the hydraulic laboratory of the college of civil engineering being especially noteworthy; the last is on Fall Creek, where a curved concrete masonry dam has been built, forming Beebe Lake. East of the campus is the university playground and athletic field (55 acres), built with funds raised from the alumni. Cayuga Lake furnishes opportunity for rowing, and the Cornell crews are famous. During their first two years all undergraduates, unless properly excused, must take a prescribed amount of physical exercise. Normally the first year's exercise for male students is military drill under the direction of a U.S. army officer detailed as commandant.

The reputation of the university is particularly high in mechanical engineering; Sibley college was built up primarily under Prof. Robert Henry Thurston (1839-1903), a well-known engineer, its director in 1885-1903. The college includes the following departments: machine design and construction, experimental engineering, power engineering, and electrical engineering. The "Susan Linn Sage School of Philosophy," so called since the gift (1891) of $200,000 from Henry W. Sage in memory of his wife, issues _The Philosophical Review_ and _Cornell Studies in Philosophy_, and is well known for the psychological laboratory investigations under Prof. E. B. Titchener (b. 1867). Equally well known are the college of agriculture under Prof. Liberty Hyde Bailey (b. 1858); the "Cornell School" of Latin grammarians, led first by Prof. W. G. Hale and then by Prof. C. E. Bennett; the department of entomology under Prof. J. H. Comstock (b. 1849), the department of physics under Prof. E. L. Nichols (b. 1854), and other departments. The university publishes _Cornell Studies in Classical Philology_, the _Journal of Physical Chemistry_, the _Physical Review_, _Publications of Cornell University Medical College_, various publications of the college of agriculture, and _Studies in History and Political Science_ (of "The President White School of History and Political Science"). Among the student publications are _The Cornell Era_ (1868, weekly), _The Cornell Daily Sun_ (1880), _The Sibley Journal of Engineering_ (1882), _The Cornell Magazine_, a literary monthly, and _The Cornell Widow_ (1892), a comic tri-weekly. The regular annual tuition fee is $100, but in medicine, in architecture, and in civil and mechanical engineering it is $150. In the veterinary and agricultural colleges there are no tuition fees for residents of New York state. There are 150 free-tuition state scholarships (one for each of the state assembly districts), and, in addition, there are 36 undergraduate university scholarships (annual value, $200) tenable for two years, and 23 fellowships and 17 graduate scholarships (annual value, $300-600 each). In the college of arts and sciences the elective system, with certain restrictions, obtains.

The university has always been absolutely non-sectarian; its charter prescribes that "persons of every religious denomination, or of no religious denomination, shall be equally eligible to all offices and appointments" and that "at no time shall a majority of the board (of trustees) be of one religious sect or of no religious sect." There is, however, an active Christian Association and religious services--provided for by the Dean Sage Preachership Endowment--are conducted in Sage chapel by eminent clergymen representing various sects and denominations.

The affairs of Cornell university are under the administration of a board which must consist of forty trustees, of whom ten are elected by the alumni. The following are _ex officio_ members of the board: the president of the university, the librarian of the Cornell Library (in Ithaca), the governor and the lieutenant-governor of the state, the speaker of the state assembly, the state commissioners of education and of agriculture, and the president of the state agricultural society. The internal government is in the hands of the university faculty (which consists of the president, the professors and the assistant professors, and has jurisdiction over matters concerning the university as a whole), and of the special faculties, which consist of the president, the professors, the assistant professors, and the instructors of the several colleges, and which have jurisdiction over distinctively collegiate matters.

In 1909 the invested funds of the university amounted to about $8,594,300, yielding an annual income of about $428,800; the income from state and nation was about $232,050, and from tuition fees about $336,100; the campus and buildings were valued at about $4,263,400, and the Library, collections, apparatus, &c. at about $1,826,100.

The university was incorporated by the legislature of New York state on the 27th of April 1865, and was named in honour of Ezra Cornell,[1] its principal benefactor. In 1864 Cornell, at the suggestion of Andrew D. White, his fellow member of the state senate, decided to found a university of a new type--which should be broad and liberal in its scope, should be absolutely non-sectarian, and which should recognize and meet the growing need for practical training and adequate instruction in the sciences as well as in the humanities. He offered to the state as an endowment $500,000 (with 200 acres of land) on condition that the state add to this fund the proceeds of the sales of public lands granted to it by the Morrill Act of 1862 for "the endowment, support and maintenance of at least one college, where the leading object shall be ... to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts.... "[2] The charter provided that "such other branches of science and knowledge may be embraced in the plan of instruction and investigation pertaining to the university as the trustees may deem useful and proper," and Ezra Cornell expressed his own ideal in the oft-quoted words: "I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study." The opposition to Cornell's plan was bitter, especially on the part of denominational schools and press, but incorporation was secured, and the trustees first met on the 5th of September 1865. Andrew D. White was elected president and the entire educational scheme was left to him. Dr White's ideals in part were: a closer union between the advanced and the general educational system of the state; liberal instruction of the industrial classes; increased stress on technical instruction; unsectarian control; "a course in history and political and social science adapted to the practical needs of men worthily ambitious in public affairs"; a more thorough study of modern languages and literatures, especially English; the "steady effort to abolish monastic government and pedantic instruction"; the elective system of studies; and the stimulus of non-resident lecturers. On the 7th of October 1868 the Cornell University opened with some confusion due to the condition of the campus, and to the presence of 412 would-be pupils, many of whom expected to "work their way through." The brilliance of the faculty and especially of its non-resident members (including J. R. Lowell, Louis Agassiz, G. W. Curtis, Bayard Taylor, Theodore D. Dwight, and Goldwin Smith, who was a resident professor in 1866-1869), was to a degree over-shadowed during the fifteen years 1868-1882 by financial difficulties. But Ezra Cornell himself paid many salaries during early years, and provided much valuable equipment solely at his own expense; and because the state's land scrip was selling too low to secure an adequate endowment for the University, in 1866 he bought the land scrip yet unsold (819,920 acres)[3] by the state at the rate of sixty cents an acre on the understanding that all profits, in excess of the purchase money, should constitute a separate endowment fund to which the restrictions in the Morrill Act should not apply; and in 1866-1867 he "located" 512,000 acres in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Kansas. In November 1874 he transferred these lands, which had cost him $576,953 more than he had received from them, to the university. This actual deficit on the lands owned by the university steadily increased up to 1881, when, after the trustees had refused (in 1880) an offer of $1,250,000 for 275,000 acres of pine lands, they sold about 140,600 acres for $2,319,296; ultimately 401,296 acres of the land turned over to the university by Cornell were sold, bringing a net return of about $4,800,000. The university was put on a sound financial footing; the number of students, less in 1881-1882 than in 1868 at the opening of the university, again increased, so that it was 585 in 1884-1885, and 2120 in 1897-1898. The presidents of the university have been: Andrew Dickson White, 1865-1885; Charles Kendall Adams, 1885-1892; and Jacob Gould Schurman.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Ezra Cornell (1807-1874) was born in Westchester county, New
York, on the 11th of January 1807. His parents were Quakers from
Massachusetts. He received a scanty education; worked as a carpenter
in Syracuse and as a machinist in Ithaca; became interested (about
1842) in the development of the electric telegraph; and after
unsuccessful or over-expensive attempts to ground the telegraph wires
in 1844 solved the difficulty by stringing them on poles. He
organized many telegraph construction companies, was one of the
founders of the Western Union Telegraph Company, and accumulated a
large fortune. He was a delegate to the first national convention of
the Republican party (1856) and was a member of the New York assembly
in 1862-1863 and of the state senate in 1864-1867. He founded a
public library (dedicated in 1866) in Ithaca, and died there on the
9th of December 1874. Consult Alonzo B. Cornell, _True and Firm: A
Biography of Ezra Cornell_ (New York, 1884).

[2] New York's share amounted to 990,000 acres. The Morrill Act
prescribed that the proceeds from the sale of this land should not be
used for the purchase, erection or maintenance of any building or
buildings.

[3] He had previously--in 1865--bought scrip for 100,000 acres for
$50,000, on the understanding that all profits which might accrue
from the sale of the land should be paid to the university.

CORNET, a word having two distinct significations and two etymological histories, both, however, ultimately referable to the same Latin origin:--

1. (Fr. _cornette_, dim. of _corne_, from Lat. _cornu_, a horn), a small standard, formerly carried by a troop of cavalry, and similar to the pennon in form, narrowing gradually to a point. The term was then applied to the body of cavalry which carried a cornet. In this sense it is used in the military literature of the 16th century and, less frequently, in that of the 17th. Before the close of the 16th century, however, the world had also come to mean a junior officer of a troop of cavalry who, like the "ensign" of foot, carried the colour. The spelling "coronet" occurs in the 16th century, and has perhaps contributed to obscure the derivation of "colonel" or "coronel." The rank of "cornet" remained in the British cavalry until the general adoption of the term "second lieutenant." In the Boer republics "field-cornets" were local subordinate officers of the commando (q.v.), the unit of the military forces. Elected for three years by the wards into which the electoral districts were divided, they had administrative as well as military duties, and acted as magistrates, inspectors of natives and registration officers for their respective wards. In 1907, the "field-cornet" system was re-established in the Transvaal; the new duties of the "field-cornets" are those performed by assistant magistrates, viz. petty jurisdiction, registration of voters, births and deaths, the carrying out of regulations as to animal diseases, and maintenance of roads. The "field-cornets" are appointed by government for three years.

2. (Fr. _cornet_, Ital. _cornetto_, Med. Lat. _cornetum_, a bugle, from Lat. _cornu_, a horn), in music, the name of two varieties of wind instruments (see below), and also of certain stops of the organ. The great organ "solo cornet" was a mixture or compound stop, having either 5, 4, or 3 ranges of pipes; occasionally it was placed on a separate soundboard, when it was known as a "mounted cornet." The "echo cornet" was a similar stop, but softer and enclosed in a box. In German and Dutch organs the term cornet is sometimes applied to a pedal reed stop.