ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE. To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator. Wellington, July 3, 1848.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 306, 5 July 1848, Page 2

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE. To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator. Wellington, July 3, 1848.

Sir, — I did not intend to trouble you again, having nothing further to say on the subject of my former letter: but I think it as well to notice two impudent misrepresentations contained in the letter of "An Observer," which appeared in another paper. The writer says, "The other defendant, though not so candid, is known to be under great personal obligations, &c." Now with respect to one part of this charge I must say, habet confitentem reum, for my words were — " no one who has the pleasure of knowing the Resident Magistrate, &c." Was there any attempt at concealment here ? was there not a clear avowal of my acquaintance with that gentleman, and all that the occasion called for? Which of us, in this instance at least, has shown the more candour, I leave to others to determine. " The other misrepresentation to which I refer, and which he makes the foundation of a great deal of trashy nonsense, is, that I have held a man up to ridicule for writing ungrammatically. But no statement could be more false*? 1 I said not one wcrd about his ungrammatical language. My objection to the passage £ adduced was, that it was utterly unintelligible: had it been merely ungrammatical I should not have noticed it. And I inferred from the gross ignorance displayed by the writer that he was not a person qualified to sit in judgement on the "abilities" of a public officer, or to lay down the law for the guidance of "an enlightened community." I presume this was a legitimate mode of reasoning: and I suppose I shall not be assuming' too much if I assume that it was so considered by every person possessed of common sense. If I have been misunderstood by others, it is not my fault, intelligibilia nan intellectum adfero, I fully expected that I should have a whole host of dunces up in arms against me. But to flatter such persons, or to write a panegyric on ignorance, would he quite beside my purpose and foreign to my habits. . Such employments I willingly resign to aspirants to popularity — to professed advocates of ignorance— to those who can express such ,a sentim.ent as~— " Truth re-» cognises no grammar." Such men remind me of the fox in the fable, which haying lost its own tail, wished to persuade the other foxes to v cut off theirs/ as tails were'very Useless appen-*

dages. It is quite consistent for them to sneer at the fox-brush of pedantry. But we will hope that this state of things has reached its climax, and that ignorance-worship will shortly be on the decline. I am, Sir, &c, B.