"The Cousin of the Married and the Cousin of the Dead" is a most striking translation, which we propose to copy.
"Living Alone," by Timothy Flint, forms an exception to the usual character of the poetry of the Messenger, which we do not greatly affect. Mr. Flint, however, writes to be read—and is rarely disappointed or disappoints his readers.
There are some amusing pictures of Virginia rural life and domestic economy in the papers entitled "Lionel Granby" and "Castellanus;" and the biographical sketch of the late President Cushing, of Hampden Sidney College, indicates a just State pride properly directed. The "Sketches of Lake Superior" are alike creditable to the writer and the Magazine. "Greece" forms the inspiration of some graceful lines. But the 'great feature' of this No. is an Editorial critique on Mr. Morris Mattson's novel of "Paul Ulric," which is tomahawked and scalped after the manner of a Winnebago. If any young gentleman shall find himself irresistibly impelled to perpetrate a novel, and all milder remedies prove unavailing, we earnestly advise him to read this criticism. We are not sufficiently hard hearted to recommend its perusal to any one else.
The concluding paper will commend itself to the attention of the rational curious. It embraces the autographs, quaintly introduced and oddly accompanied, of twenty-four of the most distinguished literary personages of our country—Mrs. Sigourney, Miss Leslie, Miss Sedgwick, Messrs. Washington Irving, Fitz Greene Halleck, Timothy Flint, J. K. Paulding, J. Fenimore Cooper, Robert Walsh, Edward Everett, J. Q. Adams, Dr. Channing, &c. &c. We note this as an evidence of the energy no less than the good taste of the publisher, and as an earnest of his determination to spare no pains or expense in rendering the work acceptable to its patrons.
From the New York Evening Star.
The Southern Literary Messenger, for March, has been received, and a particularly good number it is. There is one point in which this Messenger stands pre-eminent, and that point is candor. If there is any thing disgusting and sickening, it is the fashion of magazine and newspaper reviewers of the present day of plastering every thing which is heralded into existence with a tremendous sound of trumpets—applaud every thing written by the twenty-fifth relation distant of a really great writer, or the author of one or two passable snatches of poetry, or every day sketches.
From the Natchez Courier.
Last but not least, as the friends of a literature, emphatically southern, we welcome the February number of the "Southern Literary Messenger," a work that stands second to none in the country. Its criticisms we pronounce to be at once the boldest and most generally correct of any we meet with. True, it is very severe on many of the current publications of the day; but we think no unprejudiced man can say it is a whit too much so. The country is deluged from Maine to Louisiana, with a mass of stuff "done up" into books that require the most severe handling. The Messenger gives it to them. It is a work which ought to be in the hand of every literary southerner, in particular. It is published by T. W. White Richmond, Va.