The talent and variety, of the original papers is quite as striking, as the editorial department is decidedly better attended to than in any other magazine of the country. We have not scant notices of two or three volumes, which favor or accident have directed to the editor's notice,--but a comprehensive survey, and analysis of our recent literature. The books are taken up in a business-like manner, as the cases on a calendar are called over for trial; and the merits or demerits of each are discussed with great ability, fairness, and acumen. A department so well conducted as this, and of such essential utility, should alone, in the general and culpable inattention of our periodicals to it, secure for the Messenger, general support. Of the articles in the present number, the 'Sketches of Tripoli' maintain their value--We should like to see these papers collected in a volume: they really do their author great credit. We won't quarrel with the poetry headed "Mother and Child," because we like the pretty name of _Imogene_ which is signed to it, but it is marvellously like Mrs. Hemans. _The Broken Heart_ is blank verse of great promise, touching, alike, in subject and execution. Rumor assigns them to an accomplished young lady of Richmond, whose name cannot be concealed long from the public. The "Mexican Journal" is quite as good as such journals usually are; and the unpublished drama by Poe, though crude, has both original thoughts, incidents, and situations. The Address on Education has in it many forcible truths, correctly and eloquently told. "The Dream" we skip, having already read a better version of it in Lord Byron, and, as we said before, wish cordially that the bottle, with that confounded manuscript, had never been uncorked. "_Marcelia_" is fine, and the finer Macedoine our readers will recollect in our last. We are always glad to see the full page of payments in the Southern Literary Messenger, and have no doubt but that, under its enterprising and industrious proprietor, it will continue to go on prospering and to prosper. _From the Baltimore American_. We condemned a day or two ago the _tone_ of the notice of the North American Review in the {138} Southern Literary Messenger for December. This number is strong in notices of new works, and we like the severity of some of them: there is much matter for "cutting up." But the cutter up must do his task like a neat carver, without smearing his own fingers. Our friend Mr. White and his editor should keep the tone and bearing of the Messenger elevated and cavalier-like. The higher the critic places himself, the more fatal will be his blows downwards. This number of the Messenger well supports its rapidly earned reputation. Among its articles may be particularised Mr. Minor's "Address on Education, as connected with the permanence of our Republican Institutions," and the "scenes from Politian, an unpublished Drama" by Edgar A. Poe.