The suggestion has been made to us by one entitled to respect, that in the present condition of the public taste, too much space has been allotted in our columns to the productions of the Muse. We humbly hope that our friend is mistaken in this opinion. Nothing would grieve us more than the conviction that, among southern readers generally, there was not felt a lively concern and growing interest in the successful cultivation of that charming branch of literature; and indeed if this were the proper place, we think we could easily demonstrate that poetry exercises a most potent, diffusive and abiding influence upon the interests and happiness of society. Our present number will be found to contain some precious gems, which fully establish the claims of southern genius to high capabilities in the tuneful art. We forbear however to discriminate, confident that the taste of our readers will readily discern all that feeble language could express. EXTRACTS FROM THE LETTERS OF CORRESPONDENTS. FROM PENNSYLVANIA. _Philadelphia, Nov. 4, 1834_. "I thank you truly for your obliging attention in sending to me the two numbers of your 'SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER,' which I have read with much satisfaction. I look with a deep interest and pleasure upon every effort to raise up the literary character of our country; to lay the foundations of a pure and sound taste, and to stimulate our native genius to develop and strengthen its powers. In the encouragement of these attempts, we should all act and feel as the citizens of the American republic, disregarding sectional divisions, and undisturbed by questions of state rights and constitutional scruples and constructions. Here we should be a consolidated people, and whether the candidate for fame be a native of the north or south, the east or west, we should claim him as our own, belonging to all alike. When I hear of the establishment of a seminary of learning; of a scientific or literary publication; of an invention in the arts; in short, of any thing which sheds abroad the light of American genius and power, its particular location is, with me, quite a secondary consideration, scarcely, indeed, considered at all. It is enough for me that I can say to the supercilious European, _this is American_.