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Hereditary Genius
231
Corneille, Pierre; French dramatist; creator of the dramatic art in France; was
brought up to the bar, but left it for poetry under an overpowering impulse.
His first publication was a comedy, aet. 23; d. aet. 78.
B. Thomas, also a poet, who worked with Pierre, his elder and only brother. Their
dispositions and way of life were in singularly close sympathy. Thus their
difference of ages being nineteen years, they married sisters the difference of
whose ages was the same. Their respective families lived in the same house.
They wrote about an equal number of plays, and their writings were alike in
character. Thomas had the greater facility in authorship, but his style was
inferior in energy to that of his brother. He succeeded Pierre at the Academy;
d. aet. 84.
n. Fontanelle, son of the only sister; the celebrated Secretary of the French
Academy for nearly forty years. His real name was Bovier. He says, “Mon
pere etait une bete, mais ma mere avait de 1'esprit; elle etait quietiste.” His was
a mixed character—partly that of the man of society of a frivolous and
conventional type, and partly that of the original man of science and free-
thinker. The Fontanelle of the opera and the Fontanelle of the Academy of
Sciences seemed different people. Some biographers say he had more brain
than heart; others admire his disposition. He almost died from weakness on the
day of his birth. He was a precocious child. At college the note attached to his
name was, “Adolescens omnibus partibus absolutus”—a youth perfectly
accomplished in every respect. He began public life by writing plays, in order
to imitate his uncles, but his plays were hissed. Then he took to science, and
became academician aet. 34. He lived to extreme old age, becoming deaf and
losing much of his memory; but he was “aussi spirituel que jamais” to the last;
d. one month short of aet. 100. See D'ALEMBERT in “SCIENCE.”
[BPP.] (?) Charlotte Corday, the heroic assassin of Marat; born about 150 years,
or probably five generations, later than the Corneille family; was a direct
descendant of the mother of Fontanelle.
Cowper, William; a poet, whose writings have a singularly quiet
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