... I yesterday sent you some lines composed "Lang Syne," and written from memory.... Do not print these things, I beseech you, unless you like them. At the hazard of rapping my own knuckles, I shall quarrel with you if you publish much trash. You may lose a subscriber by rejecting it; but you will gain ten by every number you issue in which every article is good. Horace tells us that neither gods nor men can endure middling poetry. And what shall be said of that which is not even middling? Let us take an example. Byron's name is sacred to the muses. No man whose lips are not touched with the fire of inspiration should be allowed to use it. Yet we have him shown up, and words put into his mouth in many a piece, the writers of which cannot even count their _feet_. * * * * * FROM NORTH CAROLINA. "I was much delighted with the third number of the Messenger. It was really a fountain of pleasure to me, and I shall never forget the feelings which I experienced on reading the story entitled '_My Classmates_.' I must believe that there cannot be any thing than the most flattering hopes and prospects of your success in your truly laudable--your truly patriotic undertaking. The people of Virginia, if none others, will support its cause. They cannot--no, they will not--they have too much love for the honor of Virginia, to let the '_Messenger_' of science and literature suffer for the want of their most liberal patronage. But you are not laboring for Virginia alone: it is for the south--the _whole_ south; and might I not add, for the whole country? For who doubts but that the Messenger is destined to call into active exertion the genius of the south? And who would deny but the south has genius which would do honor to the _whole_ country in any walk? I shall never believe but that the land which produced a Henry, a Washington, a Marshall, a Madison and Monroe, can also under favorable auspices, produce a Cooper, Irving, Paulding, or _any man_. '_Go ahead_,' as David Crockett says, '_since you are right_.' I send you a subscriber." * * * * * FROM A DISTINGUISHED NORTHERN LADY. "We are highly pleased with the Messenger. Its execution in the _mechanical department_, is peculiarly neat; I see no periodical, that in this point, will compare with it. And its contents are so diversified, that there must be something adapted to almost every taste--that is--every taste that has its foundation in correct principles." TO CORRESPONDENTS, CONTRIBUTORS, &C. We have on hand a variety of articles in prose and verse, which we shall dispose of as soon as possible. Some of these favors are of decided, and some of equivocal merit. Others are so illegibly written, that it passes our skill to decipher them. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 5, January, 1835, by Various