We are very proud in being able to afford our friends so many and so great evidences of the Messenger's popularity, as are contained in the following Notices.[1] From all quarters we have received encouragement--in the approval of our past labors, and in prophecies of our future success. We desire to call the attention of all who are interested in the advancement of Southern Literature, to the matter, the manner, and the _source_, especially, of the Extracts subjoined. We hazard little in saying, that _never before in America has any Journal called forth so unanimously, testimonials so unequivocally flattering, as the First Number of the Second Volume of our "Southern Literary Messenger."_ [Footnote 1: The Notices here appended, are very far from _all_ we have received. Many are omitted for want of room. All those left out, are unexceptionably flattering to ourselves.] _From the Richmond Whig_. _The Literary Messenger_.--Nothing is more repulsive to our taste, than puffing--one of the artifices of book-making and book-selling, reduced in this our time, to a science. It is dishonest, for its object is gain at the expense of truth, and its means are imposition on those who are not familiar with the tricks of trade. It is unjust, for modest and unobtrusive merit is often compelled to languish, from the rival advantage given to mediocrity or worthlessness, by the meretricious puff direct. It is injurious and disgraceful to Literature, and for ourselves, we feel a repugnance to whatever we see puffed, by which we mean praise disproportioned to merit, and praise administered by the shovel full, without the administerer being possibly able or pretending to assign a cause or to point out a beauty to justify his rapture. Mr. White's Literary Messenger is either the most transcendantly able periodical in the United States, or its proprietor has been most particularly successful in eliciting the puff--for it attracts more of the notice of the Press, and is more uniformly admired and praised upon the appearance of its successive numbers, than all the Literary Periodicals in the United States put together. The North American, Quarterly, &c. are comparatively lost sight of. It is universally noticed--not only in the newspaper press of the great towns and cities, but in the obscurest village sheet throughout the land. As Virginians and Southrons, solicitous for the honor of Southern Literature, we are proud to believe that this extensive favor bestowed upon the Messenger, flows from its deserts, an opinion confirmed by our personal knowledge of its enterprising, esteemed and modest proprietor.