_Southern Literary Messenger_.--This journal has, very unexpectedly, left its Northern competitors behind in the race for fame, and assumed all at once a pre-eminent rank among American periodicals. We have just received the first number of the second volume, and find it superior, in every respect, to any of the preceding ones. It contains 68 pages of closely printed matter, in double columns. Besides the 68 pages of text, it has a double cover of 8 pages, containing matters relating to its own peculiar interests--thus avoiding the necessity of intruding such subjects in the text. Its paper is excellent, its type new, and its entire mechanical execution superior to that of any Magazine with which we are acquainted. The South has thus far every reason to be proud of the extraordinary success which has attended the Messenger. The first article in the present number is Chapter IX of the _Tripolitan Sketches_, by _Mr. R. Greenhow_, of this city, a series of papers which, of themselves, would have been sufficient to stamp the Messenger with a character of no ordinary kind. The _Extracts from My Mexican Journal_ are excellent papers, on a subject of untiring interest. The _Address_ of _Lucian Minor_, on Education, is likely to do much good, by attracting the attention of Virginians to the important subject it discusses--the organization of District Schools. The _Wissahiccon_ is a wishy-washy affair, and deserves no praise whatever. _Lionel Granby, Chapter VI._, is full of fine thought, shrewdness, and originality. The _Specimens of Love Letters_ are curious and entertaining--but the old English Magazines are full of similar articles, and the Messenger should have nothing to do with them. The _MS. found in a Bottle_ is from the pen of _Edgar A. Poe_. The _Critical Notices_ occupy more than one half of the number, and form the fullest _Review_ in the country--embracing criticisms, at length, of nearly every work lately published in America, besides a great number of English publications. A compendious digest of the principal reviews, English and American, is included. The tone of the criticisms differs widely from puffery, and is perfectly independent.