William Colenso. 59 



allowed for the completion of the work having expired, one-half of the 

 work itself should have been in the press. On the unreasonableness of 

 this view in the case of a work requiring innumerable cross references 

 being represented, a committee of qualified persons was appointed to 

 examine and report on the progress made. The report was to the 

 effect that the author had advanced further in his work than was due 

 up to the time employed, that thousands of pages had been written 

 from the first word to the last, and that seven years was too short a 

 time for the completion of a work of such magnitude. The report wa 

 withheld from Parliament, funds for proceeding with the Lexicon were 

 refused, and the unfinished materials were thrown upon the author's 

 hands, one finger of which was permanently disabled by writer's 

 cramp, due to his labours on the Lexicon. A sample portion was, how- 

 ever, demanded to be laid before the House, and letter A produced, but 

 this was " lost," and not discovered till eig-hteen years afterwards in a 

 departmental pigeon-hole. It was then printed and distributed by 

 Government, partly at its author's expense, in the year preceding his 

 death.* Its appearance, dedicated to his old friend, Sir George Grey, 

 has been followed by urgent representations to the Colonial Govern- 

 ment that the whole materials, which are bequeathed to the State, 

 should be entrusted to a competent editor for publication. 



In 1890 he published an authentic history of the signing of the 

 Treaty of Waitaugi, of which he was the sole surviving witness, a 

 document regarded in the Colony as of great historic value. Towards 

 the close of his life he offered his valuable library and all his collections 

 to the town of Napier as the nucleus of a museum, together with 

 1000 as endowment, on condition that a suitable site and building 

 were provided. The site proposed was, however, unsuitable, having an 

 ocean frontage, the salt-laden atmosphere of which would have been 

 detrimental to the collections ; he therefore withdrew the offer, and 

 transmitted the amount of the endowment to his native town of 

 Penzance to form a fund, to which he subsequently largely added, for 

 the relief of deserving poor. 



In person, Mr. Colenso was, in 184:1, as remembered by the writer of 

 this notice, a man of medium height, brisk, active, and with a frank, 

 winning address. Later in life he was conspicuous for his abundant 

 long white hair on scalp and face. Only two years before his death, 

 which occurred at Napier in February, 1899, he was thrown from a 

 carriage, and besides receiving a severe shock, had his right arm 

 shattered at the elbow. Though then in his eighty-seventh year he 



* A fuller account of the fate of the Lexicon will be found in ' Reminiscences of 

 the Rev. W. Colenso,' by R. Coupland Harding, 'The Press,' Christ Church, 

 New Zealand, February 27, 1899 ; and ' The Evening Post,' Wellington, February 

 13, 1899. 



