ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.
. . fJJ DO NOT? HOLD OURSELVES RESPONSIBLE FOB THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED BY OUH COBBESPONDENT3. 3 — """""" (To the Editor of the Invercur gill Times.) Sir — Perusing from time to time the columns /the Southland News, I have been struck by a ' Iprtain curious effusions, some m prose and *, o mein doggrel rhyme, beari^ the signature *SonaW Mackay .» This Poet Laureate of the i Burster "appends to one of his late produe- - ions a remark that it had "not hitherto apeared in print." To this assertion few will , nd any difficulty in according ready credence, me may eve/go farther %nd say that it - 'Let would have been published but for the , Burster's " liberal encouragement of native ■alent (?). All the pieces, whether doggrel or orose(y), would be too contemptible for notice, - : d they not appear in one of the only two II : apers Southland can at present boast ; and if a: ewcomers think we can he gratified by such a rhodomontade, their opinion of our intellect is »> likely to be small indeed. # 4k glancing at one or two specimens, we find * ome curious and original ideas. In one case, ■ he "Burster's." Poet Laureate expresses a " very particular desire to be interred with his baby. Very touching, certainly; but_ as he in. ■ ormsus in a late paper that this interesting * prodigy is still in the itmd of the living, the s aspiration is at least premature. Decidedly, the masterpiece is that prepossl terous attempt entitled, " Come on : or Ever- >. ,rroena and her Lover," from which -I select the ', following stanza as the climax of absurdity .— a " His flowery poll was brown that day, S His ruddy cheek was fresh as May, And O 1 1 1 the music of his lay— "Come on." 1 presume the "flowery poll" of Evergreena's lover contains some allusion to hair powder, - "flowery" being a misprint for " floury "; but what does it mean 1 ? Throughout the whole piece, the ploughman or cow-boy is offensively )rominent in the ridiculous refrain " Come on." The "poet" evidently fancies he is calling his bullocks, as " Gee off," or " Woh come hither," or any other bullock drivers' slang, would be equally appropriate. Still Mr Mackays— ahem —poetry (Shade of Byron forgive me!) might ;ii by a vast stretch of imagination be deemed the 1 weak moments of a noble mind, but the illusion is at once dispelled by a glance at his letters in which bad grammar, coarse personal abuse, low elan", profane j p sts, and selections from the " Boy's First Latin Book," contend for precedence." The wretched little bit of pseudosentiment at the end of one, about " the uncommonly mournfully memorable day,"—" gallant bridal party. I '—" fatally whelmed,''—" seething surf," &C, is a fitting decoration to a tautological M production, in which one word, and that a prolm per name, occurs over thirty times. 8 « Mr. Donald Mackay, in short, mistakes his 'd vocation : whatever else he may become by perseverance, he will never be author, poet, or Q - statesman. As he is fond of Latin quotations, ?• I will submit the following old proverb to his '0 consideration — p " Ne sutor ultra crepidam " ; which, by the help of a dictionary, he will find to mean, " Let not the cobbler go beyond his lasts'—or, paraphrased — "Let not the ploughman aspire above his plouuh." I would also « advise him to study well the following lines from Shakespeare, hoping they may induce ~ him to confine himself to the plough he may perhaps be qualified to guide, relinquishing the pen he is so peculiarly incompetent, to wield — " Hotspur— l had rather be a kitten and cry ' — mew, I Than one of these same metre . ballad-mongers ; jj I had rather hear a brazen canstick turned, Or a dry wheel grate on an axletree ; And that would set my teeth nothing on edge, Nothing so much as mincing > ! poetry ; b 'Tis like the forced gait of a t shuffling nag." n Henry IV., Act 3, Scene I. I am. Sir, . Yours truly, A SOUTHLANDER.
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Southland Times, Volume 2, Issue 2, 15 May 1863, Page 3
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667ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE. Southland Times, Volume 2, Issue 2, 15 May 1863, Page 3
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