ABOUT DUNEDIN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 176, 11 August 1876, Page 14

ABOUT DUNEDIN.

A crrr j tranquil, land-locked water with grassy, tilled, or wooded banks; brown hill tops rising up from these; the breakers foaming wildly on the beach, and, beyond, the wide ocean : such are the things Been from the higher parts of the town-belt that girds Dunedin, and they form a very lovely view. No where else do we remember to have seen such wonderful combinations of land, water, mist and sky, as are here at times to be looked upon. A softness and coloring are often to be noticed clothing the harbor that are as beautiful as they are indescribable ,• and which might well inspirejan artist with ideas that, worked out [on canvas, would secure for him a recognised place amongst the great masters of his profession ; such, for instance, as was Turner, for in his pictures only do we fancy that we have seen anything to represent the aspect now and then presented by the scenery, of which Dunedin is the centre. And not only by the artist but by the poet as well might objects for the exercise of his genius be here found; for although the town, being but of yesterday, possesses no historic recollections, a future capable of many great things lies before it. Dante, in the " Inferno," describes a river of boiling blood, in which certain of the lost are submerged; and along the bank of the river centaurs keep guard, watching with bows and arrows ready to shoot any of those in punishment, who shall venture to raise themselves above the scalding liquid further than it is permitted. Noticing that the Florentine poet moves all things easily moveable he touches with his feet, contrary to what they are there accustomed to see, for the shades of the dead are without weight, the leading centaur is about to address his companions, but before he speaks he puts his beard.aside with an arrow. According to Longfellow's translation,

" Chiron an arrow took, and with the notch Backward upon his jaws he put.hia beard." Of this Mr. Buskin, in 'Modern Painters/ says, "Dante's centaur, Chiron, dividing his beard with his arrow before he erin speak, is a thing that no mortal would ever have thought of, if he had not actually seen the centaur do it. They might have composed handsome bodies of men and horses in all possible ways, through a whole life of pseudo-idealism, and yet never dreamed of any such thing. But the real living centaur actually trotted across Dante's brain and he saw him do it." So do ideas present themselves t» certain chosen minds, and^if they are besides gifted with the power of conveying such ideas, thus living, to the understandings of others, as they generally or perhaps invariably are, their fame of poet is secure, and they are*destined =to obtain an earthly immortality. * To such powers we can lay no~claim, but overlooking tfljs a city, as from the Town-belt we overlook Dunedin, even ordfl%y minds may deal in speculations, and conjure up images more of less vivid. In regarding the long lines of houses, spread upon the level ground, or those scattered upon the hills, although Asmodeus is not here to unlock for us the secrets of each home, nor would we have him do so if he were at hand, we still can find much to interest us, for here are certainly at play all the motives by which mankind has at any time been actuated — in greater or lesser degree ; and here is being waged the great battle fought from of old— the conflict of good and evil. Vadius.