LAPSUS LINGUIE.

Colonist, Issue 8, 17 November 1857, Page 3

LAPSUS LINGUIE.

To the Editor of the Colonist. Sir, —In the Nelson Examiner, 'A Colonist' says, •" Our little NeLon is too young and innocent at present "to have contracted those vices which are the unfortunate appendages of more advanced colonies." Ah, very true! It is heart-rending to think of the demoralised state of older colonies, when we reflect that none but Eden breezes have ever swept over Nelson: no winds of a region less pure have ever been guilty of the temerity of winging towards it. If • A Colonist' were asked if he could conscientiously cling to his statements respecting the innocence .of Nelson, when the said innocence was called in question, he might unhesitatingly say ' Yes,' not so much as a half-reluctant '.No' would be expected to flutter from his lips! It follows as a sine qua non that Nelson being " young," should also be " innocent," Of course! I once heard a doting mother, in allusion to her youngest hopeful, on being told that he had been guilty of telling a falsehood, indignantly exclaim, in the fulness of her maternal heart, " That child tell a falsehood I—he, a boy not eight years old!" So, the same with Nelson; it is not half a century old, and therefore the purest spot of the earth " earthy." Ask the birds what they see, and the trees what they hear, and they will tell you, "Oh! it is all so beautiful!" in tones filled with rapture. Ask the sun, the glorious eye of day,, whose beams sport in so many places, what he sees, and the waves what they sing, and their answer will be the same. O,1 yes! Seek to know .of the stars, who nightly shed their lustre upon us, and they will tell you the}' have no occasion to fold a cloud over them, and weep a tear of sorrow to the earth for Nelson. ono ! Ask the stately Queen of Night but— quantum mfficit —

" The moon looks on many brooks The brook sees but one moon.'

0 tempora ! 0 mores ! The novels which appear in The Colonist, and which ' A Colonist' mentions as being produced before the " mode3t eyes and delicate «ars" of Nelson (happy, tmique Nelson !) are frightful, literally frightful! appearing as they do in miniature if not in fresco—(another proof of the Colonist's culpability. Unfortunate journal—how will it defend itself—where hide its diminished head?) . We don't wonder that " A Colonist" should shudder at them ; ihat he considers them more than objectionable; for, of course he, can never study any less immaculate page than a tabula rasa, over which he sits musing, musing! in " Sweetest meditation, fancy free !"

There is a story extant that Sir Joshua Reynolds was once taking' the portrait of a gentleman, wiio, •when it was finished, declaimed against the price, insisting that it was too high, for-the work of a few hours. " A few hours!" exclaimed Sir Joshua, " that portrait is the production of thirty years, of toil!" And giving his sitter his hat conducted him to the wrong side of the door of his studio. The noble soul <of the great artist rose against a debate on the subject, And the shortest and most dignified alternative was to give hia. visitor.his conge. ■■■■■■

So, Mr. Editor, if you will take my advice, you will not endeavour any longer to please the multitude, who are of no consideration whatever, but paiut your journal-picture, although it is not like the celebrated Sir Joshua's, "the production of thirty years oftoil," without any back ground scenery, or figures; in short, let it be merely a blank, fit to place before the critical " eyes and ears" of a Colonist I L. L. •Croixelles, Nov. 12th, 1857.