TO-DAY'S ANNIVERSARIES.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 13964, 10 February 1911, Page 7

TO-DAY'S ANNIVERSARIES.

FEBRUARY 10. "William Congreye, poet and dramatist, born •• ,- ■• •• J«? Ch-rlea Lamb, osiayist, born .. lvvo Rev. Dr Milman, historian, born .. 1791 Queen Victoria, married .. •• 1840 i'initt artesian well sunk by the Christchurch City Council .. •• 1864 B«T. Wm. Colenso, died at Napier .. 1899

William Congreve.—Congrevo i 3 ono of tho dramatists on whoso plays tho licentious period of tho second.Charles's reign left its debasing touch. That it did not altogether succeed in dimming their lustre is shown by "Lovo for Love" (1694), which has been called the finest prose comedy in the English language. With certain passages omitted, a tasteful public will never lot it die, and it has been several times revived oven in our own times. Of Congreve'a first production, "Incognita?' a novel, Johnson charitably remarked that he "would rather praise it than read it. Ho did not write any more plays after middle ago, and indeed held a regrettable dislike to being regarded as an author. He disgusted the great French writer, "Voltaire, when tho latter called upon him by coldly; declaring that he would receive him as a private gentleman, but in no other capacity. Ho amassed n largo fortune, and died in his fiftyninth year.

Charle Lamb.—Tlie personality of the author of the "Essays of Elia" and ■•Tales from Shakespeare'- is almost as vivid to us as that of Dr. Johnson. His colloge days wero notable for the lifelong friendship he contracted with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, tho friendship resulting in the joint publication of some volumes of verse, amongst which was the wellknown and touching '"Old Familiar Faces." Until 1796 Charles Lamb, his sister Mary, and his mother and father, lived in respectable poverty, and then the event occurred which so profoundly influenced tht&ir lives. In the family Of the Lambs there was a strain of insanity, and it is said this was at work when Mary., under the stress and anxiety of th«> many duties devolving on hor, and upon an altercation which she had with a little apprentice girl at work in the room, whose part her invalid mother took, snatched up a knife from the dinnertable and fatally stabbed her mother. A verdict that she acted under "temporary insanity 1 ' was given against her, and by the intervention of friends, ' tho guardianship of her brother was accepted for her. This chfltfg© Charlea Lamb faithfully performed, oven to denying himself the blessing of marriage, although a love affair had a strong influence in his life. The brother and eister wero never parted, except at regular intervals when the sister's malady necessitated her temporary confinement in an asylum. These kindly spirits, their humble abodes, and literary labours, arc immortalised in their writings in a was that "Time's rude touch" canr aot disturb. In 1825 Charles Lamb, then in. fail ing health, was allowed a liberal pension from the India House, in whose employ ho had been for thirty years. He died in his fifty-ninth year, and was buried in Edmonton churchyard, his sister being laid by his side thirteen years later. But Clinrles Latab still lives on in his'works —a genial, subtle, unique writer #f EnglUhj who has stamped his personality uidelibly on our literature.

Rev. William Colenso.—As a. scientist, the world is largely indebted to this brave clergyman; as tho moneer of .printing and ns a moulder of pnblic opinion in New* Zealand, wo cannot let his name die. Bom at Penzance, Cornwall, in 1811, Mr Colenso worked until 1833 as a compositor in a book-printing oS._, when, the Church Missionary Society feeling the need for a printingpress for the missionaries in New Zealand, young Mr Colenso volunteered to brave the unknown and utilise his valuable craft in tho new colony. He landed at the Bay of Islands in 1835. «Bd, uTion opening his boxes, found that he had little or none of the wherewithal to carry his intentions out. Ingenuity, however, soon supplied what vas lacking, and on February 17th, one account states, he worked off, in tho presence of admiring spectators. the first coot of the first booh printed in New Zealand—the Epistles to tho "bhosian- and Philippians, in the Maori language; two years later. A-idtf; many difficulties, "he printed th* first New Testament in Maori, Mr Colenvo performed many valuable services for the' Government, and but for aim we should not have had the full account which wo now possess of the •inning of the Treaty of Waitangi, at "which he was present. He also printed the first number of the "Government Gaswtte." All this time he did-arduous mi-sionar** work. Mr Colenso was in 1844 appointed by Bishop Selwyn as resident clergyman at Port Ahuriri. «» his later years he resided at Napier. when* he was ono of the founders of the Hawke's Bay branch of the New Zealand Institute. He sat for five $****» in Parliament as the member for the district. As an authority on *kori and Polynesian subjects, and on °~r botany, this self-denying clergyman stands in the highest rank.