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From the New Yorker.
Southern Literary Messenger.—We believe our respected cotemporary has profited by our advice this month before it reached him, for we find the June number on our table in much better season than its predecessors. We mark the improvement with pleasure, even though we cannot take credit to ourselves for effecting it. A few words on the papers which compose it.
“The Right of Instruction” is ably and temperately discussed in the leading article, which we may safely attribute to the pen of Judge Hopkinson, of Pennsylvania. The essay denies the right of a Legislature to instruct authoritatively the U. S. Senators of the State—or rather, the obligation of the Senators to obey unhesitatingly such requisition. We shall take cognizance of this subject in another place at an early day; but, for the present, we must be content with the remark that the argument drawn from the spirit of the Constitution and the intent of its framers is formidable, if not conclusive.
“Perdicaris,” a sketch of the Greek scholar now lecturing on the literature and polity of his native land, is only remarkable for a translation of a beautiful little poem ‘from the Romaic of Christopoulos.’
“MSS. of Benjamin Franklin” are continued in this number.
“Losing and Winning” is one of the most quietly affecting and excellent tales that we have perused for months. Let who will declaim against the evils wrought by fiction, we are sure that this same story contains more true practical wisdom—more forcible persuasives to the paths of virtue and duty, than many a well-intended volume of fact or direct exhortation.
“The Swan of Loch Oich” is fair verse, and fair only.
“Ulea Holstein—A Tale of the Northern Seas,” is touching in its catastrophe, but not well imagined. The writer is evidently no veteran.