From the Georgetown Metropolitan.
The Southern Literary Messenger, for the present month, is unusually rich. The articles evince depth, talent and taste, and there is all the eastern vigor and maturity of learning, with all the southern spirit of imagination. It is, in fact, nobly edited and supported, well worthy of being considered the representative and organ of Southern talent.
Of the articles in the present number, the general list as may be seen by looking at the advertisement in another column, is very attractive, and a perusal will not "unbeseem the promise." We have not time to go over each as we would wish; but the historical sketch of Algiers, which is brought down to the embarkation of the French expedition, will command attention. "A Lay of Ruin," by Miss Draper, has some lines of exquisite poetry, and Edgar A. Poe's Sketch "The Duc de L'Omelette," is the best thing of the kind we have seen from him yet. "Living Alone" by Timothy Flint, greatly interested us. That this patriarch of American literature, in his green and fresh old age, can write verses so full of the amaranthine vigor of youth, is a delightful picture. We are sorry we cannot find room for these pleasant verses. Among other attractions of the number, we come upon a Drinking Song, by Major Noah, in which the most agreeable and witty of editors, proves himself one of the most moral and fascinating of lyrists. It is an anacreontic of the right stamp, and does its author more credit than all the anti-Van Buren articles he ever penned.
The Critical Notices are better by far, than those in any other magazine in the country. Paul Ulric is too small game for the tremendous demolition he has received—a club of iron has been used to smash a fly. The article on Judge Marshall is an able and faithful epitome of that great jurist's character; in fact, the best which the press has yet given to the public. We agree with all the other critiques except that of Bulwer's Rienzi. The most extraordinary article in the book and the one which will excite most attention, is its tail piece, in which an American edition of Frazer's celebrated Miller hoax has been played off on the American Literati with great success—and better than all, an accurate fac simile of each autograph given along with it.
This article is extremely amusing, and will excite more attention than probably any thing of the kind yet published in an American periodical. It is quite new in this part of the world.
We commend this excellent magazine to our readers, as in a high degree deserving of encouragement, and as one which will reward it.
From the Baltimore American.
The Southern Literary Messenger for February is, we think, the best of the fifteen numbers that have been published. Most of its articles, prose and verse, are of good Magazine quality, sprightly and diversified. The first, on "Selection in Reading," contains in a brief space a useful lesson in these book-abounding times, when many people take whatever publishers please to give them, or surrender their right of selection to the self-complacent and shallow editors of cheap "Libraries." Of the interesting "Sketches of the History and present condition of Tripoli, with some account of the other Barbary States," we have here No. 10, which concludes with the preparations of the attack on Algiers by the French in 1830. "The Cousin of the Married" and the "Cousin of the Dead" are two capital comic pictures from the French. "The Duc de L'Omelette, by Edgar A. Poe" is one of those light, spirited, fantastic inventions, of which we have had specimens before in the Messenger, betokening a fertility of imagination and power of execution, that with discipline could, under a sustained effort, produce creations of an enduring character. "Rustic Courtship in New England" is of a class that should not get higher than the first page of a country newspaper,—we mean no disrespect to any of our "cotemporaries,"—for it has no literary capabilities.
The best and also the largest portion of the present number of the Messenger is the department of critical notices of books. These are the work of a vigorous, sportive, keen pen, that, whether you approve the judgments or not it records, takes captive your attention by the spirit with which it moves. The number ends with the amusing Miller correspondence, of which we have already spoken.