in the classical style, of which he became later the most conspicuous adversary, the other an elegy in blank verse, on the death of Count Carlo Imbonati, from whom, through his mother, he inherited considerable property, including the villa of Brusuglio, thenceforward his principal residence.
Manzoni’s marriage in 1808 to Henriette Blondel, daughter of a Genevese banker, proved a most happy one, and he led for many years a retired domestic life, divided between literature and the picturesque husbandry of Lombardy. His intellectual energy at this period was devoted to the composition of the Inni sacri, a series of sacred lyrics, and a treatise on Catholic morality, forming a task undertaken under religious guidance, in reparation for his early lapse from faith. In 1818 he had to sell his paternal inheritance, as his affairs had gone to ruin in the hands of a dishonest agent. His characteristic generosity was shown on this occasion in his dealings with his peasants, who were heavily indebted to him. He not only cancelled on the spot the record of all sums owing to him, but bade them keep for themselves the whole of the coming maize harvest.
In 1819 Manzoni published his first tragedy, Il Conte di Carmagnola, which, boldly violating all classical conventionalisms, excited a lively controversy. It was severely criticized in the Quarterly Review, in an article to which Goethe replied in its defence, “one genius,” as Count de Gubernatis remarks, “having divined the other.” The death of Napoleon in 1821 inspired Manzoni’s powerful stanzas Il Cinque maggio, the most popular lyric in the Italian language. The political events of that year, and the imprisonment of many of his friends, weighed much on Manzoni’s mind, and the historical studies in which he sought distraction during his subsequent retirement at Brusuglio suggested his great work. Round the episode of the Innominato, historically identified with Bernardino Visconti, the novel I Promessi sposi began to grow into shape, and was completed in September 1822. The work when published, after revision by friends in 1825–1827, at the rate of a volume a year, at once raised its author to the first rank of literary fame. In 1822, Manzoni published his second tragedy Adelchi, turning on the overthrow by Charlemagne of the Lombard domination in Italy, and containing many veiled allusions to the existing Austrian rule. With these works Manzoni’s literary career was practically closed. But he laboriously revised I Promessi sposi in the Tuscan idiom, and in 1840 republished it in that form, with a sort of sequel, La Storia della Colonna infame, of very inferior interest. He also wrote a small treatise on the Italian language.
The end of the poet’s long life was saddened by domestic sorrows. The loss of his wife in 1833 was followed by that of several of his children, and of his mother. In 1837 he married his second wife, Teresa Borri, widow of Count Stampa, whom he also survived, while of nine children born to him in his two marriages all but two preceded him to the grave. The death of his eldest son, Pier Luigi, on the 28th of April 1873, was the final blow which hastened his end; he fell ill immediately, and died of cerebral meningitis, on the 22nd of May. His country mourned him with almost royal pomp, and his remains, after lying in state for some days, were followed to the cemetery of Milan by a vast cortège, including the royal princes and all the great officers of state. But his noblest monument was Verdi’s Requiem, specially written to honour his memory.
Biographical sketches of Manzoni have been published by Cesare Cantù (1885), Angelo de Gubernatis (1879), Arturo Graf (1898). Some of his letters have been published by Giovanni Sforza (1882).
MAORI (pronounced “Mowri”; a Polynesian word meaning “native,” “indigenous”; the word occurs in distinction from pakeha, “stranger,” in other parts of Polynesia in the forms Maoi and Maoli), the name of the race inhabiting New Zealand when first visited by Tasman in 1642.
That they were not indigenous, but had displaced an earlier Melanesian or Papuan race, the true aborigines, is certain. The Maoris are Polynesians, and, in common with the majority of their kinsfolk throughout the Pacific, they have traditions which point to Savaii, originally Savaiki, the largest island of the Samoan group, as their cradleland. They say they came to New Zealand from “Hawaiki,” and they appear to distinguish between a large and small, or a nearer and farther, “Hawaiki.” “The seed of our coming is from Hawaiki; the seed of our nourishing, the seed of mankind.” Their great chief, Te Kupe, first landed, they say, on Aotearoa, as they called the north island, and, pleased with his discovery, returned to Hawaiki to tell his fellow-countrymen. Thereafter he returned with seven war canoes, each holding a hundred warriors, priests, stone idols and sacred weapons, as well as native plants and animals. Hawaiki, the name of Te Kupe’s traditional home, is identical with several other Polynesian place-names, e.g. Hawaii, Apai in the Tonga Islands, Evava in the Marquesas, all of which are held to be derived from Savii or Savaiki. Dr Thomson, in his Story of New Zealand, quotes a Maori tradition, published by Sir George Grey, that certain islands, among which it names Rarotonga, Parima and Manono, are islands near Hawaiki. The Rarotongas call themselves Maori, and state that their ancestors came from Hawaiki, and Parima and Manono are the native names of two islands in the Samoan group. The almost identical languages of the Rarotongas and the Maoris strengthen the theory that the two peoples are descended from Polynesians migrating, possibly at widely different dates, from Samoa. The distance from Rarotonga to New Zealand is about 2000 m., and, with the aid of the trade wind, large canoes could traverse the distance within a month. Moreover the fauna and flora of New Zealand in many ways resemble those of Samoa. Thus it would seem certain that the Maoris, starting from “further Hawaiki,” or Samoa, first touched at Rarotonga, “nearer Hawaiki,” whence, after forming a settlement, they journeyed on to New Zealand. Maori tradition is explicit as to the cause of the exodus from Samoa, gives the names of the canoes in which the journey was made and the time of year at which the coast of New Zealand was sighted. On the question of the date a comparison of genealogies of Maori chiefs shows that, up to the beginning of the 20th century, about eighteen generations or probably not much more than five centuries had passed since the first Maori arrivals. There is some evidence that the “tradition of the six canoes” does not represent the first contact of the Polynesian race with New Zealand. If earlier immigrants from Samoa or other eastern Pacific islands arrived they must have become absorbed into the native Papuan population—arguing from the absence of any distinct tradition earlier than that “of the six canoes.” Some have sought to find in the Morioris of Chatham Island the remnants of this Papuan-Polynesian population, expelled by Te Kupe and his followers. The extraordinary ruined fortifications found, and the knowledge of the higher art of war displayed by the Maoris, suggest (what is no doubt the fact) that there was a hard fight for them when they first arrived, but the greatest resistance must have been from the purer Papuan inhabitants, and not from the half-castes who were probably easily overwhelmed. The shell heaps found on the coasts and elsewhere dispose of the theory that New Zealand was uninhabited or practically so six centuries back.
Any description of the Maoris, who in recent years have come more and more under the influence of white civilization, must necessarily refer rather to what they have been than what they are. Physically the Maoris are true Polynesians, tall, well-built, with straight or slightly curved noses, high foreheads and oval faces. Their colour is usually a darker brown than that of their kinsfolk of the eastern Pacific, but light-complexioned Maoris, almost European in features, are met with. Their hair is black and straight or wavy, scarcely ever curly. They have long been celebrated for their tattooing, the designs being most elaborate.
Among the most industrious of Polynesian races, they have always been famed for wood-carving; and in building, weaving and dyeing they had made great advances before the whites arrived. They are also good farmers and bold seamen. In the Maori wars they showed much strategic skill, and their knowledge of fortification was very remarkable. Politically the
