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Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2292, 19 March 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Oamaru " Mail " says : —" We believe Oamaru can boast at the present time about as good an assortment of drunkards as any town in New Zealand." It is not known generally what escapes from destruction some of the MSS. of the classics have had. In a dungeon at the onastery of St. Call, I'oggio found, corroded with damp and covered with filth, the great work of Quintilian. In Westphalia a monk stumbled accidentally on the, only manuscript of Tacitus. ' The poems of I'ropertius were found under the casks of a wine cellar. In a few months the manuscript would have crumbled to pieces and become completely illegible. Parts of Homer have come to light in the most extraordinary way. A considerable portion of the Iliad, for instance, was found iu the hands of a mummy. The Ethiopics of Heliodorus was rescued by a common soldier, who found it in the streets of a town in Hungary. The Tluirloe State Papers were brought to light by the tumbling in of the ceiling of some chambers in Lincoln's Inn. The Letters of Lady Mary Montagu were found in the false bottom of an old trunk ; and iu the. secret drawer of a chest the curious manuscripts of Ur Lee lurked unsuspected for years,