dies are "The Cid," which indeed
is his masterpiece, "Horace," "Cinna," "Polyeucte," "Rodogune," and "Le
Menteur"; in his verses, which are instinct with vigour of conception as
well as sublimity of feeling, he paints men as they should be, virtuous
in character, brave in spirit, and animated by the most exalted
sentiments. Goethe contrasts him with Racine: "Corneille," he says,
"delineated great men; Racine, men of eminent rank." "He rarely provokes
an interest," says Professor Saintsbury, "in the fortunes of his
characters; it is rather in the way that they bear their fortune, and
particularly in a kind of haughty disdain for fortune itself... He shows
an excellent comic faculty at times, and the strokes of irony in his
serious plays have more of true humour in them than appears in almost any
other French dramatist" (1606-1684).

CORNEILLE, THOMAS, younger brother of the preceding, a dramatist,
whose merits were superior, but outshone by those of his brother
(1625-1709).

CORNELIA, the daughter of Scipio Africanus and the mother of the
GRACCHI (q. v.), the Roman matron who, when challenged by a
rival lady to outshine her in wealth of gems, proudly led forth her sons
saying, "These are my jewels"; true to this sentiment, it was as the
mother of the Gracchi she wished to be remembered, and is remembered, in
the annals of Rome.

CORNELIUS, PETER VON, a distinguished German painter, born at
Duesseldorf; early gave proof of artistic genius, which was carefully
fostered by his father; spent much time as a youth in studying and
copying Raphael; before he was 20 he decorated a church at Neuss with
colossal figures in chiaroscuro; in 1810 executed designs for Goethe's
"Faust"; in the year after went to Rome, where, along with others, he
revived the old art of fresco painting, in which he excelled his rivals;
the subjects of these were drawn from Greek pagan as well as Christian
sources, his "Judgment" being the largest fresco in the world; the
thought which inspires his cartoons, critics say, surpasses his power of
execution; it should be added, he prepared a set of designs to illustrate
the "Nibelungen" (1787-1867).

CORNELL UNIVERSITY, a university in Ithaca, New York State, founded
in 1868 at a cost of L152,000, named after its founder, Ezra Cornell; it
supports a large staff of teachers, and gives instruction in all
departments of science, literature, and philosophy; it provides education
to sundry specified c