CORMONTAIGNE, a celebrated French engineer, born at Strasburg; successor of Vauban (1696-1752).

CORNARO, an illustrious patrician family in Venice, from which for centuries several Doges sprung.

CORN-CRACKER, the nickname of a Kentucky man.

CORNEILLE, PIERRE, the father of French tragedy, born at Rouen, the son of a government legal official; was bred for the bar, but he neither took to the profession nor prospered in the practice of it, so gave it up for literature; threw himself at once into the drama; began by dramatising an incident in his own life, and became the creator of the dramatic art in France; his first tragedies 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 classes free of all fees, as well as means of earning the benefits of the institution to any who may wish to enjoy them.