Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/1166

COL having been the first to give the light of the gospel to the Anglo-Saxons. Adamson mentions some of them to have been amongst the converts of Iona, who no doubt carried the new doctrines back with them. From time to time the saint visited his native land, where he continued to exercise no small influence, and to be held in high veneration. During one of these visits to Ireland, the saint made a tour through all the districts where he had established churches and monasteries, and then returned to Iona. He also visited his native land again in 585, stopping at Durrow, and thence going to Clonmacnoise. At length, in the midst of his active and beneficent ministrations in the island of his adoption, the saint felt the approach of death. The chapter of his distinguished biographer which describes the last scenes of the saint's life is, as Dr. Keeves justly observes, "as touchingly beautiful a narrative as is to be met with in the whole range of ancient biography." Retiring to an eminence that overlooked the settlement, which was the work of his piety and the last object of his earthly affections, he blessed his disciples with uplifted hands; thence descending to the monastery, he resumed his accustomed task of transcribing the psalter. At midnight prayer he was the first to enter the church, and his brethren found him kneeling before the altar, his strength failing, but his countenance full of joy and cheerfulness; and faintly raising his hand with a parting benediction, his spirit passed tranquilly away, without a struggle, on the morning of Sunday, the 9th of June, 597. The name of this illustrious man will be long remembered in his own country, as well as in the British islands, especially in that one with which it is so inseparably connected by historic associations of his various qualities, both mental and bodily. Adamson's Life of Saint Columba has been frequently printed. The last edition, by Dr. Reeves, Dublin, 1857, forms one of the volumes of the Irish Archæological and Celtic Society, and is one of the most valuable contributions to Irish history. We acknowledge ourselves to be largely indebted to its notes and dissertations for this memoir.—J. F. W.  COLUMBANUS, an Irish saint and writer, was born in 559 in the province of Leinster, and of a noble family. He entered the monastery of Bangor in Ulster, where, under the tuition of St. Coemgall, he devoted himself to holy meditation and study for many years. At length, at the age of fifty, he resolved upon a more extended sphere of usefulness, and selecting twelve of his brother monks, he passed over to Gaul, where was then ample field for missionary labour. The place he selected was in the forests of Upper Burgundy, in the neighbourhood of the Alps, where he erected huts for his companions and himself. The fame of his eloquence and learning, and the sanctity of the brotherhood, soon drew the people in crowds about him, and the saint was soon enabled to erect the monastery of Luxeuil. The concourse of disciples, especially amongst the young nobles, was so great, that he was shortly after obliged to establish a second monastery, to which he gave the name Fontaines. Here the saint continued twenty years boldly and zealously preaching, reproving the vices of the highest, not sparing even Thierry, the young king of Burgundy. By this conduct he was soon involved in strife with Thierry and his mother Brunchant, whose enmity and vengeance he incurred. A body of soldiers proceeded to drive him from his monastery. The whole of the brotherhood expressed their readiness to follow their abbot; but only his own countrymen and a few from Britain were allowed to accompany him. Columbanus visited successively the courts of Clotaire and Theodebert. He then passed into Italy, and was received with distinction at Milan by Agilulph the Lombard king. Columbanus selected a retired spot amidst the Appenines, where he founded the monastery of Bobio, and there passed the residue of his life, dying on the 21st November, 615. He was undoubtedly one of the most eminent men amongst the ecclesiastics of his time. Wise, learned, pious, and full of christian zeal and courage, he has left a fame that is perennial through France and Italy, as well as in his native land. As a writer, judging from what is extant of his, Columbanus must have been extensively acquainted with classical as well as ecclesiastical literature, and it appears he was versed both in Greek and Hebrew. Amongst his works are some Latin poems which display energy of thought and a vigorous style; and though in his letters to persons of high rank he has justly been censured for a stiff and inflated manner, the tone of his moral instructions, written chiefly for monks, is easy and unaffected.—J. F. W.  COLUMBUS,, is the Latin-English name by which the Anglo-Saxon race knows one of the greatest of its benefactors, the heroic Italian navigator, Cristoforo Colombo, the "Christoval Colon" of Spanish history. The time and place of this memorable man's birth have both been themes of elaborate controversy. Twice, however, in what has been formally recognized as his will, he affirms that he was a native of Genoa. As regards the date of his birth, the evidence is unfortunately not so distinct. In one letter, Columbus has undoubtedly stated that he began his voyaging career at the age of fourteen. In another, written in 1501, he intimates that he has been a voyager for forty years. These two statements taken in connection would assign his birth to the year 1446, or thereabouts. But it has been suggested that the forty years spoken of by Columbus do not include those of his residence in Spain between 1484 and 1492. The suggestion has been made in order to reconcile the statement of Columbus himself with that of his intimate friend, Andres Bernaldes, the curate of Los Palacios, who avers that Columbus "died in the year 1506 in a good old age, being seventy years old, a little more or a little less." Columbus would thus have been born some ten years earlier, about 1436. The question is an interesting one, for, surely it would be well to know whether Columbus was a man of forty-six or of fifty-six, when he set sail on his first voyage to America. The best of his biographers Washington Irving, and Navarrete, as well as Alexander von Humboldt, favour the earlier of the two dates.

The father of Columbus was a wool-weaver or a wool-carder in Genoa. Christopher had two brothers, both associated subsequently with his fortunes, and both known to have been well educated men. Columbus himself was, for a time at least, at the university of Pavia, and in his later years he looked fondly back to his early studies of "cosmography, history, philosophy, and other sciences." At fourteen he took to the sea. The Italian mariner of those days was by necessity a fighting man. The Mediterranean swarmed with pirates, Mahometan and Christian. The maritime states of Italy, like the others, were perpetually at war, and privateering was a recognized profession, a resource of the high as well as of the low. From this wild school of Mediterranean voyaging and battling Columbus emerged, to find for a time a more peaceful and tranquil existence on terra firma. He is supposed by his biographers to have repaired to Lisbon about 1470—certainly he was a resident of the Portuguese metropolis before 1474. When Prince Henry IV. of Portugal died, in 1473, a great stimulus had been given by his exertions to the already considerable and fruitful maritime enthusiasm of his countrymen. Had the prince lived, the future of Columbus might have been a happier, but perhaps at the same time a less useful one. As it was, the sojourn of Columbus at Lisbon was most important in its results. He soon gained a wife. To this matrimonial epoch naturally belongs a description of his person and demeanour, minutely detailed by Las Casas and his son Fernando. The virtual discoverer of America was tall and well-formed, his complexion fair and inclined to ruddy; his nose aquiline, his eyes light-gray and apt to kindle. He was simple in his dress and mode of living. His sharp temper was kept well under control. He was eloquent when the discourse ran on high topics, affable and fascinating in ordinary intercourse, and his domestic amiability was as charming as his public demeanour was elevated and dignified. His devoutness was of an enthusiastic kind, and he was noted for his strict attention to the offices of religion. It was to the latter that he owed his introduction to his wife. In Lisbon, he attended service at the chapel of the convent of All Saints. Here he met—elsewhere, no doubt he wooed, and that successfully—Donna Filipa Monis de Perestrello. The lady was not rich, but she brought him a valuable dower of geographical knowledge and stimulus. Donna Filipa's father had been one of Prince Henry's navigators, and governor of Porto Santo, an island recently discovered in the very neighbourhood of Madeira. Her sister was married to another ex-governor of Porto Santo. The newly-wedded pair resided with the mother of Donna Filipa. The charts, papers, and memoranda of his wife's father were placed in the hands of Columbus, and with the conversation of his brother-in-law, excited him in the direction of new geographical discovery. When in Lisbon he devoted himself to the construction of maps and charts for a livelihood, and his mind began to compare the known of the earth's surface with the unknown. For a time he 