CoLesso.—0On a better Knowledge of the Maori Race. 79 
worker with his mechanical accuracy. ‘‘ Everything the old Venetian 
worker made was a separate thing—a new individual creation ;* but the 
British worker does things by the gross, and has no personal interest in any 
one article.’’+ 
To this, from the Moderns, I would also add two short extracts from the 
Ancients. According to Cicero, there is nothing of any kind so fair that 
there may not be a fairer conceived by the mind. He says:—“ We can 
conceive of statues more perfect than those of Phidias. Nor did the artist, 
when he made the statue of Jupiter or Minerva, contemplate any one 
individual from which to take a likeness; but there was in his mind a form 
of beauty, gazing on which, he guided his hand and skill in imitation of it." 
(Orator, c. 2,3.) And Seneca takes the distinction between ida and Zidoc 
thus :—‘* When a painter paints a likeness, the original is his ióéa—the 
likeness is the édoc or image. The #idoc is in the work—the idéa is out of 
the work and before the work.” —/ Epist. 58.) 
Possibly some one may say, or think: ‘ Do you really believe that any 
thing of that kind, or power, ever appertained to the mind of a New 
Zealander ?" And my reply would be: “ Yes, undoubtedly, and that in no 
small degree." And here we must be careful in discerning and considering, 
in order to arrive at a right conclusion. 
The fragment of brown floating seaweed, when properly examined and 
considered, shows the hand of the Great Artificer as surely as the superb 
and symmetrical flower of the garden, the admiration of all beholders. In 
viewing the colossal architecture of the ancient Egyptians, we must 
beware how we compare it with that of ancient Greece, especially with the 
airy and flowery Corinthian Order. So, when we contemplate the modern 
Greek, untaught and unskilled peasant it may be, sauntering among the 
marble ruins of the cities and capitals of his forefathers, and thoughtlessly 
breaking up some exquisite creation of the gifted sculptor of ancient days, 
and the question of doubt arises in our minds as to the possible oneness of 
that race, we must not forget how sadly, how greatly, they have degenerated. 
Just so, then, in my estimation, it has been with the nation of the New 
Zealanders. They, too, have degenerated—sadly, surely, and quickly— 
particularly within the last half a century : 
** "Tis Greece, but living Greece, no more." 
But do not mistake me, as if I meant to assert that they in their 
Ideality ever approached to that of the great Western nations which have 
been mentioned. Not so; but speaking comparatively, and in their degree, 
* Much of this re the old Venetian workman is truly relatively applicable to the old 
New Zealand worker. : 
Po + Modern Painters, 
