366 



COLQUHOUN 



COLUMBA 



served in the army 1829-34, and became a 

 supreme authority on sport in Scotland. The 

 famous record of his experiences, The Moor and 

 Loch, published in 1840, was much extended and 

 improved in the 4th (1878) and 5th ( 1884) editions. 

 Rocks and Rivers appeared in 1849 ; Salmon Casts 

 and Stray Shots, 1858 ; and Sporting Days, 1866. 

 He died at Edinburgh, 27th May 1885. 



Colqilhoim, PATRICK, born at Dumbarton, 

 14th March 1745, became provost of Glasgow ,in 

 1782, went to London in 1789, and in 1792 became 

 a police-magistrate there. He was indefatigable 

 in forwarding administrative legislation, educa- 

 tional and commercial reforms, wrote innumerable 

 pamphlets, and published two important works 

 Police of the Metropolis (1795); and Population, 

 Wealth, Power, and Resources of the British Empire 

 ( 1814 ). He died 25th April 1820. 



Colston, EDWARD. See BRISTOL. 



Colt, SAMUEL, inventor, born in Hartford, Con- 

 necticut, in 1814, ran away to sea in 1827, and 

 about 1832 travelled over a large part of America, 

 delivering lectures on chemistry by which he ob- 

 tained the funds required to prosecute his inven- 

 tion. In 1835 he took out his first patent for a 

 revolving pistol, which after the Mexican war 

 was adopted as a regular weapon for the United 

 States army, and since then has been adopted 

 universally. Colt expended over $2,500,000 on an 

 immense armoury in Hartford, where he died 10th 

 January 1862, and where his widow erected a 

 handsome Episcopal church to his memory. See 

 REVOLVER. 



Colt's-foot. See TUSSILAGO. 



Coluber, a genus of non-venomous snakes, of 

 almost world- wide distribution. It forms a type of 

 the family Colubridae, in which the common Ringed 

 English Snake ( Tropidonotus natrix) is also in- 

 cluded. The ^Esculapian Snake ( Coluber tesculapii), 

 so familiar from ancient times as a symbol of medi- 

 cine, is the best known species. It is very common 

 in Italy, is the species of the Schlangenbad, and is 

 Avidely distributed in Europe. It is of a predomin- 

 antly brown colour, attains a length of 4 or 5 feet, 

 and is readily tamed. All the members of the 

 family are very typical, exhibiting few deviations 

 from the general snake structure. See SNAKE. 



Columba, ST called also ST COLUM-CILLE 

 ('Columba of the Churches,') and ST COLM was 

 born (it is believed at Gartan, County Donegal) 

 in the north of Ireland, on 7th December 521. 

 He was of high descent, his father Fedhli- 

 midh, of the powerful tribe of the Cinel Conaill, 

 being a kinsman of several of the princes then 

 reigning in Ireland and in the west of Scotland ; 

 and his mother, Eithne, was also of royal blood. 

 After studying under St Finnian at Moville on 

 Strangford Lough, and under another St Finnian 

 at Clonard ( where he had as companions St Corn- 

 gall, St Ciaran, and St Cainnech), he spent some 

 time near Dublin ; but in 546, when no more than 

 twenty-five, he returned to the north and founded 

 Derry, and, six or seven years afterwards, Durrow, 

 the greatest of all his Irish monasteries. The 

 belief that he had caused the bloody battle of 

 Culdremhne in 561 led to his excommunication by 

 an Irish ecclesiastical synod, and practically to 

 exile from his native land. 



Setting out in 563, when in his forty-second year, 

 and accompanied by twelve disciples, he found a 

 resting-place in the little island of Hy or loua, now 

 better known as Iona(q.v.), or I Colum-cille, and 

 having planted a monastery there, he set himself 

 to the great work of his life, the conversion of the 

 Pictish tribes beyond the Grampians. His mis- 

 sionary efforts were highly successful, but unfortu- 



nately very little is known of the way in which he 

 effected his purpose. Bede speaks simply of his- 

 ' preaching and example.' Adamnan, extolling his 

 gift of miracles, tells how the gates of the Pictish 

 king's fort near Inverness burst open at his 

 approach, and how, as he chanted the 45th Psalm, 

 his voice was preternaturally strengthened so* 

 as to be heard like a thunder-peal above the 

 din and clamour by which the Pictish magicians 

 tried to silence his evening prayer under the 

 walls of the Pictish palace. We get another 

 glimpse of his missionary footsteps from the 

 Book of Deer (q.v. ), which records how ' Colum-cille 

 and Drostan, the son of Cosreg, his disciple, came 

 from Hy, as God had shown them, to Aberdour,' 

 in Buchan ; how ' Bede, a Pict, was then high- 

 steward of Buchan, and gave them that town in 

 freedom for evermore ; ' how ' they came after that 

 to another town, and it was pleasing to Colum-cille, 

 for that it was full of God's grace ; and he asked of 

 the high-steward Bede that he would give it to him,, 

 but he gave it not ; and, behold, a son of his took 

 an illness, and he was all but dead, and the high- 

 steward went to entreat the clerics that they would 

 make prayer for his son that health might come to- 

 him ; and he gave in offering to them from Cloch- 

 in-Tiprat to Cloch-Pette-mic-Garnait ; and they 

 made the prayer, and health came to him.' In 

 some such way as this St Columba and his disciples 

 seem to have traversed the Pictish mainland, the 

 Western Islands, and the Orkneys, establishing 

 humble monasteries whose inmates ministered to- 

 the religious wants of the people. The parent- 

 house or lona exercised supremacy not only over 

 all those monasteries, but over all the monas- 

 teries that St Columba had built in Ireland, and 

 over those that were founded by his disciples in. 

 the northern provinces of England. Thirty-four 

 years appear to have been spent by St Columba in 

 raising up and perfecting his ecclesiastical system 

 in Scotland. But the labour did not so wholly 

 engross him but that he found time for repeated 

 voyages to Ireland, and for a visit to Glasgow, 

 where St Kentigern or Mungo was restoring 

 Christianity among the Welsh or British tribes of 

 Cumbria and Strathclyde. The health of St 

 Columba seems to have begun to fail in 593, but 

 his life was prolonged till he reached his 76th year, 

 when he breathed his last as he knelt before the 

 altar of his church in lona a little after midnight, 

 between the 8th and 9th June 597. He was buried 

 within the precinct of his monastery, and his bones 

 which were afterwards enshrined the stone 

 pillow on which he slept, his books, his pastoral 

 staff, and other things which he had loved or used, 

 were long held in great veneration. 



Whether any original composition of St Columba 's 

 still survives is doubtful, though an Altus pub- 

 lished by Dr Todd in the Liber Hymnorum, and 

 republisiied by the Marquis of Bute in 1882, has 

 been ascribed to him by unbroken tradition. Be 

 this as it may, he was certainly eminent as a, 

 transcriber. Adamnan tells us that on the night 

 before his death he was engaged on a transcript 

 of the Psalter, and in the Annals of Clonmacnois 

 it is stated that 'he (Columba) wrote three hun- 

 dred books with his own hand . . . which books 

 have a strange property, which is that if they or 

 any of them had sunk to the bottom of the deepest 

 waters they would not lose one letter, or sign, or 

 character of them, which I have seen tried, partly 

 by myself on that book of them which is at 

 Dorowe.' The two existing specimens of St 

 Columba's work, both preserved at Dublin, are the 

 Book of Durrow just mentioned, and the Psalter 

 known as the Cathac or Battler. This name it has 

 received from the custom of bearing the relics of 

 the ancient Celtic saints into battle as sacred 



