Autograph Letter Signed from the South African poet Albert Broderick to the editor of 'South Africa' E. P. Mathers, enclosing a corrected typescript of a translation of one of his poems into Afrikaans by 'Ex-President' Dr Francois Willem Reitz.

Brodrick's Autograph Letter Signed to Mathers: 1p., 12mo. Good, on lightly-aged paper. 'Dear Sir - It may interest you to read the enclosed, written by Ex-President Reitz whose "renderings" of "Maid of Athens" & "Tam O'Shanter" are so well known. Somebody once said that "the only thing that doesn't lose by 'translation' is a Bishop" and as a rule this is correct, but I think in this instance I have gained'. In a postscript he asks for the return of the 'M.S.', underlined twice. The typescript of Reitz's poem (possibly made towards publication in 'South Africa') is 1p., foolscap 8vo, with a number of manuscript emendations, including the deletion of the first letter of the author's initials 'T. W. R.' at the end of the poem. Titled 'O! Waar is Min Gezoute Paert. | (vertaling van Brodricks "O give me back my Salted Steed".)' The poem is in four stanzas. Also present are two newspaper cuttings: the first headed ''AFRICANDER POETRY' and the second beginning 'Dr. Francois Willem Reitz was, in the eighties, a Judge of, and subsequently President of, the Orange Free State.' Brodrick was born in Gosport and emigrated to South Africa in 1859, settling in Pretoria, where he worked as a merchant and part-time gold prospector. He wrote a weekly supplement to De Volksstem entitled 'The Tse Tse Fly', and was the author of the non-fiction work 'To Ophir Direct: or, The South African Gold Fields' (1868). His 'Fifty Fugitive Fancies in Verse' (1875) was the first book of poetry to be published north of the Vaal River.