Original Correspondence.

Bruce Herald, Volume VI, Issue 36, 22 March 1871, Page 7

Original Correspondence.

( To iha Editor of the Brute JSefaM. ) Sir,— l sea by your last Old Settler lias been airing his Latin, whioh no doubt is rather musty and will be the better of it. Fiat jnstiUa mat ccehtm— Anglice, "Let justice' jbe done though the heavens should falL" There's an exclamation ! and coming from such a Jidei defensor may sound very Well, but if such were to be the case, there would at least be one vacant seat in the council conclave. It is a remarkable fact, that O. S. has all at once burst from his chrysalis of obscurity, and emerged into ridiculous notoriety, through one falling into a slight mistake by lapsus 'memmice (a slip of the memory). One in reviewing the works of Dr Young, alias " the Good Doctor," says "that there is an undefinable license allowed poets ;" but here O. S. takes up his criticising rod, draws that (to others) undefinable line of demarcation, and in an uncharitable spirit condemns all trespassers. Woe bo to the unlucky wight who incurs the displeasure of such a mighty frondeur. O. Si's classical letter (thanks to Dr Webster) seems to have taken an intelligent public by surprise* His missionary knowledge (thanks to the Inch Clutha library), as the ooup de grace has, I have no doubt, astonished the (rude) natives. O. S. says, after Bishop Selwyn's visit to Ofcago, the natives cast away their cannibal practices. What were these ? For my own part, 1 am entirely ignorant ; but then I'm no logician, and as a natural sequence not capable of containing within my insignificant cranium such historic facts. O. S. advises me to apply for the professorship of logic in the Otago University. I am too unassuming and not presumptuous enough to do so, but would advise 0. S. to try it on. 1 retire in his favor, on condition that if returned he will pledge himself, etc., etc. I would undoubtedly give him the following testimonial as to efficiency : — " He was in logic a great critic, Profoundly skilled in analytic ; He coiild distinguish and divide A hair 'twixt south and south-west side, On either which he would dispute, Confute, change hands, and still confute." (Butler.) O.S. says, "If an home-thrust of truth," etc. I ask him, where is the schoolmaster ! I pause for a reply, in vain, I answer — abroad. The chain of Presbyterianism Under Dr Burns may have proved too galling for O. S. His actions and inclinations may have been too much curbed by such rigid discipline. He may have failed in alleviating his unjust sufferings, although calling into requisition all his logical powers, and turned in disgust from such a profession to one more congenial to his ardent mind. Ido not say such i 3 the case, but merely it might have been. And now as a champion of honor, truth and justice, with perhaps the old sore rankling in his bosom, he stands forth and says of me and others (he never mentions himself), humamlm est erare, meaning — to err is human. In these words he has given us part of a line by Pope, but he might have given us the context which follows, as being remarkably apropos — To forgive, divine. lam now done with O. S. and his Latin phrases, and I lay the same value on him aud them as he lays on my imputations, by taking them for what they are worth. I am, &c, John Plod.