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Lyttelton Times, Volume VI, Issue 369, 17 May 1856, Page 6

WE were .sorry some time since to displease our excellent contemporary at Nelson by our remarks on the Amuri election and the scene at Mount Parnassus. We felt the justice of our remarks, but we felt also that we had taken a very unpoetical license when we ventured to make any assault on our neighbours on that most classical spot : and our disposition was, instead of quarrelling over such ground, to exclaim with the poet—

L Oh ! were I on Parnassus' hill, That I might catch poetic skill To sing, liovr dear I love thee.

We are glad, however, to find that our past little disagreement has not hindered our contemporary from thinking and writing in pleasing- harmony with ourselves in a late article on Mr. Baker's pamphlet. We cannot go all lengths with him in his conclusions on the subject of Education, but it is delightful to find ourselves so nearly one in sentiment and language, notwithstanding our little differences. The " New Zealand Spectator," of May 7th, called our attention to M this fact by following observations :—

"After our recent remarks in reply to some strictures in the " Lyttelton Times" m Air. Baker's pamphlet, we scarcely should have thought it worth wliile to refer to the " Nelson Examiner" of the 23rd ult, which adopts the view, and nearly the language, of the Lyttellon reviewer, but for its reproduction in the columns of our local contemporary, and for the opportunity afforded us of again stimulating public interest on the Education questiou. Not a single new point is opened by the Nelson critic. So precisely similar, indeed, and sometimes almost verbatim, are the two articles in question, it is hard to avoid the suspicion that they emanate from the same pen, or that the one is a mere plagiarism and transcript ofthe other." We found on examination that there was no exaggeration in the statements of the "Spectator" as to the strong family likeness in the two articles alluded to. We think we can promise ourj readers a little amusement, if they would take the trouble of comparing them together, and observing the remarkable coincidence of thought and

language in two writers so far separated from each other. With respect to the suspicions of the " Spectator," we need hardly say for ourselves that we have had nothing to do with the leading articles of the " Examiner." We feel that we should be acting a very base part to insinuate an interference of the sort. And we will take upon ourselves in behalf of our contemporary to repudiate with scorn the other suspicion, that. " the one is a mere plagiarism and transcript of the other." Plagiarism, Dr. Johnson says, is literary theft, or the adoption of the thoughts and words of another writer. This is really too bad when applied by one editor to an original article by another! The utmost that we will allow our contemporary to do in justification of himself, is to adopt the language of one of the greatest authors of modern times when he was accused of like enormities —" I have not the least hesitation in saying that I was unconscious at the time of appropriating the goods ■of others, although I have not the least doubt also that several passages must have been running in my head." And we I have not the least doubt either.