420 



NA TVRh 



[March 2, 1899 



plants and the action of sunlight, but all natural phen- 

 omena. It would seem as if there were other than a 

 purely theological meaning in the words by which \'irgil, 

 the master of the ancient knowledge, emancipates Dante 

 from old learning and art, and opens to him the gates of 

 new knowledge by admonishing him to look for himself, 

 look to the sun shining before him, and to all the plants 

 and trees growing spontaneously around : 



. . . I.o tuo piacere omai prendi per duce ; 

 Kuor sei dell' erte vie, fuor sei dell' arte. 

 \'edi 1.T il Sol che in fronte ti riluce ; 

 Vedi r erbetta, i fieri e gli arboscelli, 

 Che qui la terra sol da se produce. 



Non aspettar niio dir piu, ne mio cenno : 

 Libero, .sano e dritto e tuo arbitrio, 

 E fallo fora non fare a sue senno ; 

 Perch' io te sopra te corono e mitrio ;' 



or, in Wright's rendering : 



Take thou thy pleasure for thine escort now — 

 Forth of the steep and narrow way emerged. 

 Behold the sun upon thy forehead thrown — 

 Behold the trees, the flowers, of every hue. 

 In this most happy soil spontaneous sown. 



No more from me expect or sign or word : 

 Thy will henceforth is upright, free, and sound : 

 To slight its impulse were a sin : then lord 

 Be o'er thyself ; — be mitred, and be crowned. 



The splendour of the ancient literatures, dawning again 

 upon Italy, overpowered the rising of the new science. 

 The generations that followed l.)ante became more 

 erudite than learned ; and the new knowledge slept again 

 through the centuries, just showing life with Leonardo da 

 \'inci, and a few others, until the " unlocking of the gates 

 of sense, and the kindling of a greater natural light," 

 in the days of Bacon and Galileo. It.^lo Giglioli. 



THE REV. IF. COLEJVSO, F.R.S. 



WT'E. briefly announced in our issue of February 1 6 the 

 *» death of the Rev. William Colenso, F.R.S., of 

 Napier, New Zealand. The close of so interesting a life, 

 which for more than half a century has been intimately 

 associated with the progress of science and education in 

 the antipodes, is one that demands more than a passing 

 reference in the columns of N.xturk. 



Mr. Colenso was the son of the late S. M. Colenso, a 

 saddler of Penzance, and was born in that town in i8i i. 

 He was put to learn the arts of printing and bookbinding 

 in London, where he was eventually employed for a time 

 on behalf of the British and Foreign Bible Society. In 

 1833 the Church Missionary Society determined to es- 

 tablish a printing press in the then almost U>-ra incot^ni/d 

 of New Zealand. Mr. Colenso was selected to take 

 charge of the enterprise, with results that must have 

 more than justified the most sanguine expectations. .\i\ 

 account of his early experiences in the joint capacity of 

 printer and missionary was published by him in 1888, 

 under the title of " Fifty Years ago in New Zealand,' 

 and a more interesting history of pioneer work of the 

 kind undertaken by Mr. Colenso, performed as it was 

 under exceptionally unfavourable conditions, it would ! 

 probably be impossible to find. " In December 1837," 

 says the technical journal Trpo (April 26, 1890), "under 

 difficulties such as perhaps no printer ever had to sur- 

 mount since the first invention of the art, Mr. Colenso 

 completed his great work (a translation into Maori of)— 

 the entire New Testament, in octavo, small pica type." 

 From about the year 1840 .Mr. Colenso devoted himself 



• " Purgaloriu." xwii. 131. 



NO. I 53 I, VOL. 59] 



principally to mission work. In 1844 he took orders, 

 after preparation under Bishop Selwyn. In the same 

 year he settled at Hawkes Bay, where he resided for 

 the rest of his life. 



An ardent lover and student of nature, Mr. Colenso has 

 left behind him a distinguished record as a botanist and 

 as an authority upon the natural history of the archi- 

 pelago. For his services to botanical science he was in 

 1886 elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, having been 

 previously made a Fellow of the Linncan Society. The 

 wild woods and mountains of his island home, traversed 

 unremittingly by him in his missionary avocations, 

 exercised throughout his life an ever-increasing fas- 

 cination on his mind. With the Maoris his acquaintance 

 was necessarily of a most intimate character; and he 

 became an authority second to none on the subject of 

 their language, arts, and legendary lore. 



On June 25, i8y6, a notice appeared in N.VTURE of 

 the generous scheme for the foundation of a museum 

 that Mr. Colenso had put before a meeting of the Hawkes 

 Bay Philosophical Institute. The enlightened spirit in 

 which the scheme had been conceived is shown by the 

 extract which we printed from Mr. Colenso's address to 

 the meeting. In offering 1000/. as a nucleus of the fund 

 required for the establishment of the museum, he imposed 

 the condition, among others, that the museum should be 

 opened on .Sunday afternoons as well as on every week- 

 day. It is stated in the Cornish press that the reception 

 accorded to his munificent otTer was very disappointing 

 to him, and that the scheme was withdrawn by him in 

 the following year, with the announcement that his books 

 and money would go to his native town. He had already 

 presented 1000/. to the borough of Penzance, the income 

 from the investment of which sum is utilised for annual 

 gifts to the deser\ ing poor. At the end of 1898 this fund, 

 known as the •' Colenso Dole," was increased by a second 

 donation of 1000/. 



Mr. Colenso's zeal in the pursuit of science, and his 

 enthusiasm for missionary work did not exhaust his 

 energies. He discharged important public duties from 

 time to time. In the days when the relations between 

 the natives and the colonists were strained he acted as a 

 negotiator in the interests of the Maoris, and was the 

 last survivor of the English signatories of the treaty of 

 Waitangi. He was a member for Napier in the first 

 General .Assembly, and retained the seat for many years. 



Mr. Colenso was a first cousin of the late Bishop of 

 Natal. There arc marked points of resemblance between 

 the spheres in which the two men worked, and it is not 

 surprising that the former felt himself to be in close 

 sympathy with his South .African namesake on the sub- 

 jects which the Bishop had at heart. 



This fact, and the untiring energy which sustained Mr. 

 Colenso in his latest years, are evidenced by the following 

 extracts from a letter which he wrote to a correspondent 

 in London barely two years ago. He said: "I am 

 leaving here to-morrow morning by rail for the Bush 

 district (that is the forest country) in the interior, having 

 Church duty at Woodville, 100 miles S., on Sunday next, 

 the \'icar being unwell. Last Sunday 1 took Church 

 duty here at St. .Augustine's, and on the Sunday before 

 at Clive, a village nine miles E. towards Cape Kid- 

 nappers. I am far too old (eighty-six) to undertake the 

 duties of a p,t>is/i, but I /ore my jiwX-, and am always 

 ready to help as far as I am able." He then adds that 

 he had always been "a great admirer and supporter" of 

 Bishop Colenso's "theological works." "1 have them 

 here,'' he writes, "and have often studied them. I par- 

 ticularly like his volumes of Natal sermons, &c., and 

 went with him wholly in the matter of the oppressed 

 and ill used Zulus. '' 



It is greatly to be hoped that the preparation of a 

 biography of this remarkable man may fall into 

 thoroughly competent hands. 



