CORNEILLE. 421 CORNEL,. more dubious venture in Christian martyrology than Polyeuctr had l)epn : llcnicliiis (1047), fol- lowed by Gorneille's election to the Acad- emy; yicoincde (l(i.il); I'erihnritc (1U52). The last was an unmistakable failure which led Corneille for a time to withdraw al- together from the stage. During these years he had written also two comedies on Spanish models, Le menleur aiiA. Suite du menteur ( 1644-45), and a good tragi-comedy, Don Saiiclie d'Arayon (1650), which, as the name implies, was Spanish also. For seven years, from 1852 to 1859, Corneille lived at Rouen and turned his talent to versi- fying Thomas a Keuipis's ImUdtioii of Clirlst { 1656), and to the writing of very frank critical essays on his own plays and the drama in gen- eral. He was recalled from this by a visit of Moli&re's company to Eouen in 1658, and be- tween 1650 and 1674 wrote eleven tragedies of unequal mediocrity, though in each of them there wei-e verses '"with necks in thunder clothed and long resounding pace," such as he alone has known the art to create. The time to regret had passed, the time to ciy halt had come when Boileau wrote his famous epigram, Aprds Agi- silas helas (1660); Mais apris Attiln hold, (1667). A new conception of dramatic art had been introduced by Boileau and Racine, and when Corneille was beguiled into a contest for Court favor he was fated to see his young rival's Berenice preferred to his Tite et Berenice (1070). Other plavs of this period are: (Edipe (1650) ; ha toison d'or (1660); Sertorius (1062); 8o- phonishe (100.3), after which he received an ir- regularly paid pension of 2000 livres; Othon (1064): Fsi/clic (1671), in collaboration with Moli&re and Quinault ; Pulchcrie (1672); and Suri'na (1674). He had written some devotional poetry between 1665 and 1070. and among his last compositions were some lieautiful verses of thanks addressed to King Louis XIV. in 1676. Corneille's last years were passed in pecuniary straits, "satiated with glory and hungry for money," as he said, and when, at the urgent request of Boileau, the King sent him 200 pis- toles, it was already too late. He had no time to spend them, and two davs after he was dead (October 1, 1684). Corneille's works show him as his friends describe and as his portraits paint him, a man of serious, rugged, and almost stern temper. Whether from pride or shyness, he never curried favor, nor toqk liis place with courtiers at a time when this was almost necessary to literary pros- perity. His public manners were not gracious, though he was an affectionate husband and brother. His best ^vork never lost popular favor, and the most eminent of his literary contem- poraries always did him justice. The greatest of them, iloli&re. spoke of him as his master, and Racine pronounced at the Academy a eulog>' on his rival at once just and generous, that later critics have in the main confirmed. The first impression made by an attentive reading of Corneille's work is its remarkable unevenness. Judged by his best he ranks with the greatest. Xo dramatic poet rises to grander heights, but many a lesser talent may attain a higher average. Hence no poet is more quotable and few more quoted, for he has hun- dreds of lines that cling to the memory by their crash of sound and startling fullness of sug- gestion, "the most beautiful," says the French critic Faguet, "that ever fell from a French pen." And the sailie critic says of Corneille's language that it is "the most masculine, ener- getic, at once sober and full, that was ever spoken in France." Corneille's tragedies arouse admiration rather than tragic fear. His interest is not in the fate of his characters, but in tlie unconquei'able mind with which thej- meet it, their haughty disdain of destiny. He is of the .school of the empliatics, delighting in extraordinary situations and sub- jects, in whatever will challenge the will to its utmost utterance. There is no fine-spun senti- ment evcnjn the love of Le Cid. But tragedy with the limitations of the 'imities' involves nuich talk and little action, and Corneille's dis- dain of the endless subject of talk allows the interest to flag for scenes and even acts. There is monotony even in his nobility, and that in spite of the lyric and epic elements which he found in the dranui and from which Racine was to free it. Yet his declamations, the tirades of Camilla, Augustus, Cornelia, and many another, are supreme in their kind and will thrill audi- ences everywhere as long as the antinomies of love and patriotism, honor and duty, perplex men's souls. The best edition of Corneille is Martv- Lavcaux's (12 vols., 1862-68). For early bibli- ography, see Picot's Bihliographie Corneliennc (1865). The best translated biography is Guizot's Corneille and His Times (1857); the best modern stiuly, Faguet's "Corneille" (Paris, 1880), in the series Classiques Populaires. Le Cid, Horace, and Polyeucte have been done into English blank verse by Nokes, and (with Cinna) into English prose by Mongan and McRae ( 1878- 86). Consult: Sainte-Beuve, Noinwauw liindis. vol. vii. (Paris, 186.3-72) ; 'Levallois, Corneille inconnu (Paris, 1876) ; Guizot, Corneille et son teiHiJS (7th ed., Paris, 1880) ; Lemaltre, Cor- neille et la poetique d'Aristote (Paris, 1888) ; Bouquet, Points obscurs et noxwenux de la vie de Corneille (Paris, 1888) ; Lieby, Corneille (Paris, 1802) ; Bruneti^re, Epoques du theatre francais (Paris, 1802). CORNEILLE, Thomas (1625-1709). A French dramatist and miscellaneous writer, whose productions are obscured by the genius of his brother Pierre, He was born at Rouen, August 20, 1025, His forty plays are for the most part of a facile mediocrity, but he has to his credit the longest run of the century for his Timocrate (1656), the largest price for his Sorcicre, and one of the most sen- sational failures in his Baron des Foudrieres. He was given his brother's chair in the Academy on the latter's death (1684), and published a dic- tionary supplementary to the Academy's, and a complete translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, as well as a DicHonnaire unirersrl (jeofirapldque et historique (1708). He was blind from 1704, but his literary activity continued uninterrupted until his death at Les Andelys, December 8, 1700. Ariane (1672) and Le comfe d'Essex (1078) are among his plays the best worthy of memory. His dramatic TTor^-s are edited by Thierry (Paris, 1881). Consult Reynier, Thomas Cor- neille. sa rie et son thMtre (Paris, 1893). COR'NEL (OF. comille, from Lat. cornolium, cornel-tree. Lat. cornus, a cornel cherry-tree,
