Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/447

Rh beforehand, and if the rates fixed in the charters be lower or higher than what turn out to be available rates of freight in the ports, the charterers will experience an advantage or disadvantage in the price of the grain, and the sellers of corn vice versa. This difficulty is chiefly felt in the more distant voyages. From Antwerp, for example, (lie average expense of carrying corn to England is about Is. to Is. 6d. per quarter. From Spain, in addition to a difficult inland carriage, the average freight to England is about 4s. per quarter. In the United States, where corn is carried hundreds of miles by .railways and canals, and over 3000 miles of sea, the cost of transport bears a large proportion to the price at which the fanners can afford to sell or the merchants to buy the latter being always ruled by the price to be realized in the great centres where corn, alike of near and distant production, finds a common level of value. At San Francisco, though the question of trans port is almost wholly maritime, there is annually much (speculation, turning chiefly on. rates of freight. The harvests of California and Oregon yield a surplus produce of from 700,000 to 800,000 tons. An immense shipping is thus required at San Francisco every autumn and winter, and the rates of freight to Europe vary as much as from 2, 15s. to 3, 10s. per ton.  CORNARO, (1 467-1 5GG), a Venetian nobleman, famous for his treatises on a temperate life. From some dishonesty on the part of his relatives he was deprived of his rank, and induced to retire to Padua, where he acquired tho experience in regard to food and regimen which he has detailed in his works. In his youth he lived freely, but aft,:r a severe illness at the age of forty, he began under medical advice gradually to reduce his diet. For some time he restricted himself to a daily allowance) of 1 2 oz. of solid food and 14 oz. of wine ; later in life he reduced still further his bill of fare, and found he could support his life and strength with no more solid meat than an egg a day. So much habituated did he become to this simple diet, that when he was above severity years of age the addition by way of experiment of two ounces a day had nearly proved fatal. At the age of eighty-three ho wrote his treatise on tin The Sure and Certain Method of Attaining a Long and JL ultkful Life ; and this was followed by three others on tho same subject, composed at the ages of eighty-six, ninety-one, and ninety-five respectively. They are written, says AdJison (Spectator, No. 195), &quot;with such a spirit of cheerfulness, religion, and good sense, as are the natural concomitants of temperance and sobriety.&quot; He died at the ag.j of ninety-eight. His case in an evidenc-3 that those who have suffered the results of sensual excesses may, not only with safety, but with advantage, adopt the opposite extreme of ascetic abstinence ; but it does not show that persons with unimpaired constitutions, living regular lives, wuulJ be the better for it. A proof of this is the rarity with which his system has been persisted in, compared with the frequency with which his books have been read.

1em  CORNEILLE, (1606- 1684), was born at .Rouen, in the Rue de la Pie, on the 6th of June 1606. The house, which was long preserved, was destroyed a few years ago.

His father, whose Christian name was the same, was avocat du roi la Table de Marbre du Palais, and also held the position of maltre des eaux etfdrets in the vicomte&quot; of Rouen. In this latter office he is said to have shown him self a vigorous magistrate, suppressing brigandage and plunder without regard to his personal safety. He was ennobled in 1637 (it is said not without regard to his son s distinction), arid the honour was renewed in favour of his sons Pierre and Thomas in 1669, when a general repeal of the letters of nobility recently granted had taken place. There appears, however, to be no instance on record of the poet himself assuming the &quot; de &quot; of nobility. His mother s name was Marthe le Pesant.

After being educated by the Jesuits of Rouen, Corneille at the age of eighteen was entered as avocat, and in 1624 took the oaths, as we are told, four years before the regular time, a dispensation having been procured. He was after wards appointed advocate to the admiralty and to the &quot; waters and forests,&quot; but both these posts must have been of small value, as we find him parting with them in 1650 for the insignificant sum of 6000 livras. No other evidence of any professional employment on his part is forthcoming, though he seems to have discharged certain parochial func tions. His first play, Melite, was acted in 1629. It is said by Fontenelle to have been inspired by personal experiences, and was extremely popular, either because or in spite of its remarkable difference from the popular plays of the day, those of Hardj. In 1632 Clitandre, a tragedy, followed; in the following year La Veuve, and in 1634 the Galerie da Palais and La Suivante, all the three last-named plays being comedies. In 1634, also, having been selected as the composer of a Latin elegy to Richelieu on the occasion of the cardinal visiting Rouen, he was introduced to the sub ject of .his verses, and was soon after enrolled among the &quot; five poets.&quot; These officers (the others being Colletet, Bois Robert, and De 1 Etoile, who in no way merited the title, and Rotrou, who was no unworthy yokefellow even of Corneille) had for tasks the more profitable than dignified occupation of working up Richelieu s ideas into dramatic form, No one could be less suited for such work than Corneille, and he soon incurred his employer s displeasure by altering the plan of the third act of Les Thuileries, which had been intrusted to him. Meanwhile the year 1635 saw the production of two dramas La Place Roy ale, a comedy of the same stamp as his preceding works, and Medce, a grand but unequal tragedy. In the next year the singular extravaganza entitled IS illusion comique followed, and was succeeded by the Cid. The triumphant success of this, perhaps the most epoch-making &quot; play in all literature, the jealousy of Richelieu and the Academy, the open attacks of Scuderi and Mairet and others, and the pamphlet-war which followed, are among the best-known incidents in the history of letters. The trimming verdict of the Academy, when its arbitration was demanded by Richelieu, and not openly repudiated by Corneille, was virtually unimportant ; but it is worth remembering that Scuddri, a writer of at least temporary eminence and of some talent, gravely and apparently sincerely asserted and maintained of this great play that the subject was utterly bad, that all the rules of dramatic composition were violated, that the action was badly conducted, the versification constantly faulty, and the beauties as a rule stolen ! Corneille himself was awkwardly- situated in this dispute. The esprit boiirru by which he was at all times distinguished, and which he now displayed in his rather arrogant Excuse d, Ariste, unfitted him for controversy, and it was of vital importance to him that he should not lose the outward marks of favour which Richelieu continued to show him. Perhaps the pleasantest feature in the whole matter is the unshaken and generous admiration with which Rotrou, the only contemporary whose genius entitled him to criticise Corneille, continued to regard his friend, rival, and in some sense (though Rotrou was the younger of the two) pupil. Finding it impossible to make himself fairly heard in the matter, Corneille (who had retired from his position among the &quot; five poets &quot;) withdrew to Rouen and passed nearly three years in quiet there. In 1639, or at the beginning of 1640, 