expresses his contempt for the ordinary school rhetorician, the hair-splitting dialecticians and their “sense of inability to speak, since they dare not even pronounce their own name for fear of expressing themselves ambiguously.” Finally, he admits that rhetoric is not the highest accomplishment, and that philosophy is far more deserving of attention. Politically, it is evident that he was a staunch supporter of the popular party.
The first and second books of the Rhetorica treat of inventio and forensic rhetoric; the third, of dispositio, pronuntiatio, memoria, deliberative and demonstrative rhetoric; the fourth, of elocutio. The chief aims of the author are conciseness and clearness (breviter et dilucide scribere). In accordance with this, he ignores all rhetorical subtleties, the useless and irrelevant matter introduced by the Greeks to make the art appear more difficult of acquisition; where possible, he uses Roman terminology for technical terms, and supplies his own examples of the various rhetorical figures. The work as a whole is considered very valuable. The question of the relation of Cicero’s De inventione to the Rhetorica has been much discussed. Three views were held: that the Auctor copied from Cicero; that they were independent of each other, parallelisms being due to their having been taught by the same rhetorician at Rome; that Cicero made extracts from the Rhetorica, as well as from other authorities, in his usual eclectic fashion. The latest editor, F. Marx, puts forward the theory that Cicero and the Auctor have not produced original works, but have merely given the substance of two τέχναι (both emanating from the Rhodian school); that neither used the τέχναι directly, but reproduced the revised version of the rhetoricians whose school they attended, the introductions alone being their own work; that the lectures on which the Ciceronian treatise was based were delivered before the lectures attended by the Auctor.
The best modern editions are by C. L. Kayser (1860), in the Tauchnitz, and W. Friedrich (1889), in the Teubner edition of Cicero’s works, and separately by F. Marx (1894); see also De scholiis Rhetorices ad Herennium, by M. Wisen (1905). Full references to authorities will be found in the articles by Brzoska in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie (1901); M. Schanz, Geschichte der römischen Litt., i. (2nd ed., pp. 387–394); and Teuffel-Schwabe, Hist. of Roman Lit. (Eng. trans., p. 162); see also Mommsen, Hist. of Rome, bk. iv. ch. 13.
CORNING, ERASTUS (1794–1872), American capitalist, was born in Norwich, Connecticut, on the 14th of December 1794. In 1807 he became a clerk in a hardware store at Troy, New
York, but in 1814 he removed to Albany, where he eventually
became the owner of extensive ironworks, obtained a controlling
interest in various banking institutions, and accumulated a
large fortune. He was prominently connected with the early
history of railway development in New York, became president
of the Utica & Schenectady line, and was the principal factor
in the extension and consolidation of the various independent
lines that formed the New York Central system, of which he
was president from 1853 to 1865. He was also interested in the
building of the Michigan Central and the Chicago, Burlington &
Quincy railways, and was president of the company which
constructed the Sault Sainte Marie ship canal, providing a navigable
waterway between Lakes Huron and Superior. He was
prominent in politics as a Democrat, and, after serving as mayor
of Albany from 1834 to 1837, and as state senator from 1842 to
1845, he was a representative in Congress in 1857–1859 and in
1861–1863, being re-elected for a third term in 1862, but resigning
before the opening of the session. In 1861 he was a delegate
to the Peace Congress, but when the Civil War actually began
he loyally supported the Lincoln administration. He was a
delegate to the New York constitutional convention of 1867,
and was for many years vice-chancellor of the board of regents
of the University of the State of New York. He died at Albany,
New York, on the 9th of April 1872.
CORNING, a city of Steuben county, New York, U.S.A., in
the S. part of the state, on the Chemung river, 10 m. W.N.W.
of Elmira. Pop. (1890) 8550; (1900) 11,061, of whom 1410
were foreign-born; (1910) 13,730. Corning is served by the
Erie, the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, and the New
York Central & Hudson River railways. Among the principal
buildings and institutions are a fine city hall, a Federal building,
a county court house, the Corning hospital, a free public library
and St Mary’s orphan asylum (Roman Catholic). Corning is one
of the principal markets in New York state for tobacco, which
is extensively produced in the surrounding country. The
principal industry is the making of cut and flint glass, and, of
the several extensive plants devoted to this industry, that of
the Corning Glass Works is one of the largest in the world. The
city also has railway car shops and foundries, and among its
manufactures are pressed brick, tile and terra-cotta, papier-mâché
and lumber. The total value of the factory products in
1905 was $3,083,515, 35.7% more than in 1900. There were
settlers on the site of Corning as early as 1789, but it was not
until 1848 that it was incorporated as a village under its present
name, given in honour of Erastus Corning, the railway builder.
Corning was chartered as a city in 1890.
See C. H. M’Master, History of the Settlement of Steuben County (Bath, N.Y., 1853).
CORN LAWS. In England, legislation on corn was early
applied both to home and foreign trade in this essential produce.
Roads were so bad, and the chain of home trade so feeble, that
there was often scarcity of grain in one part, and plenty in another
part of the same kingdom. Export by sea or river to some foreign
market was in many cases more easy than the carriage of corn
from one market to another within the country. The frequency
of local dearths, and the diversity and fluctuation of prices, were
thus extreme. It was out of this general situation that the first
corn laws arose, and they appear to have been wholly directed
towards lowering the price of corn. Exportation was prohibited,
and home merchandise in grain was in no repute or toleration.
As long as the rent of land, including the extensive domains of
the crown, was paid in kind, the sovereign, the barons and other
landholders had little interest in the price of corn different from
that of other classes of people, the only demand for corn being
for consumption and not for resale or export. But as rents
of land came to be paid in money, the interest of the farmer to
be distinguished by a remove from that of the landowner, the
difference between town and country to be developed, and the
business of society to be more complex, the ruling powers of the
state were likely to be actuated by other views; and hence the
force which corn legislation afterward assumed in favour of what
was deemed the agricultural interest. But during four centuries
after the Conquest the corn law of England simply was that
export of corn was prohibited, save in years of extreme plenty
under forms of state licence, and that producers carried their
surplus grain into the nearest market town, and sold it there
for what it would bring among those who wanted it to consume;
and the same rule prevailed in the principal countries of the
continent of Europe. This policy, though, as one may argue
from its long continuance, probably not felt to be acutely
oppressive, was of no avail in removing the evils against which
it was directed. On the contrary it prolonged and aggravated
them. The prohibition of export discouraged agricultural improvement,
and in so much diminished the security and liberality
even of domestic supply; while the intolerance of any home
dealing or merchandise in corn prevented the growth of a commercial
and financial interest strong enough to improve the means
of transport by which the plenty of one part of the same country
could have come to the aid of the scarcity in another.
Apart from this general feudal germ of legislation on corn, the history of the British corn laws may be said to have begun with the statute in the reign of Henry VI. (1436), by which exportation was permitted without state licence, English corn laws, 1436–1603. when the price of wheat or other corn fell below certain prices. The reason given in the preamble of the statute was that the previous state of the law had compelled farmers to sell their corn at low prices, which was no doubt true, but which also showed the important turn of the tide that had set in. J. R. M‘Culloch, in an elaborate article in the Commercial Dictionary, says that the fluctuation of the prices of corn in that age was so great, and beyond all present conception, that “it is
