The Southern Literary Messenger, 1834-1864/Fourth Volume
THE FOURTH VOLUME
An editorial, "The New Year," opens Volume IV. Besides a holiday salutation to subscribers, readers and contributors, it lays great stress upon the benefits of practice in writing. The Messenger continues its useful feature of presenting in full, or in reviews, excellent addresses by distinguished authors. Thus we have Samuel L. Southard, Jos. R. Ingersoll, Edward Everett, D. L. Carroll, Beverly and Geo. Tucker, Henry Ruffner, James E. Heath, Geo. D. Armstrong, Henry L. Pinckney, etc.
Among the new contributors are C. W. Everest, Dr. Jno. L. Martin, Chas. Campbell, Charlotte Barnes, W. W. Andrews, C. M. F. Deems, F. W. Thomas, and Horatio King. There are essays, sketches and stories. With the aid of the Edinburgh Review, Lord Bacon is extensively considered. Judges Carr, Taney and other distingués are sketched; Miss Martineau and Bulwer are reviewed; justice is done to Simms, who, with all the fair drawbacks and discounts against him, is the hero and leviathan of Southern Literature. Judge Harper furnishes his able "Memoir on Slavery," corrected; the Messenger makes friends with the New York Mirror and boosts both Willis and Morris; and these and other matters compose an interesting volume of 800 pages. The editor's Book Table is rather neglected, though in the May number a review department is announced and authors and publishers invited to send their works.
The beginning of this year was a trying time for Mr. White. He had had to endure the slow and painful death of his invalid wife, which occurred on the 11th of December, 1837, in her 43rd year. In the October number is an obituary notice of her and a hearty tribute to her by the faithful Eliza, of Maine. In the April number is a spirited defence of Mr. Jefferson, against a scandalous attack upon him, by The New York Church Quarterly. In six numbers is a "Journal of a Trip to the Mountains, Caves and Springs of Virginia," by a New Englander. But a stop must be made, else the next volume will never be reached and this intended sketch become as voluminous as Rollin's "Ancient History;" or an improved Encyclopædia.