littéraires, in Port-Royal, and in the Nouveaux Lundis of Sainte-Beuve. More recently, besides essays by MM. Brunetière, Faguet and Lemaître and the part appurtenant of M. E. Rigal’s work on 16th
century drama in France, see Gustave Lanson’s “Corneille” in the Grands Écrivains français (1898); F. Bouquet’s Points obscurs et
nouveaux de la vie de Pierre Corneille (1888); Corneille inconnu, by J. Levallois (1876); J. Lemaître, Corneille et la poétique 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
Société 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 Théâtre 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 Ménage 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 géographique 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 Visé (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 Fondrières) 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 inédits 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. Sörgel, 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)
