Messenger what it is, that they, too, are thus resolved. Let the hand of liberal patronage be opened and let the gifted minds pour forth their treasures, and the work shall prosper and shall be worthy of patronage. For myself, I desire only a fair compensation for my labors, on which I depend; and the rest shall gladly be given to the cause of literature and whatever credit there may be in the effort to promote its improvement and extension. Give the enterprise encouragement and the spirits to delight, amuse and instruct will be called and will come.
Why should not the work meet with more than its former success? Educated millions may be its patrons. A small fraction of those who can well afford it would place it on an immovable foundation. The North may well receive it as nearly the only representative of Southern literature. The vast unoccupied field of the South might hail it, as the distant lover does the messenger bird of his ladylove. The Southern Review is just risen from its ashes. Long life and success attend it. A competitor—rather a coadjutor cannot injure it. A rival it shall not have. "The Chicora" folded itself for support in the leaves of "the Magnolia;" but the leaves which sheltered it are now withered and dead—like those of its own pure flower, when its season is past. Peace to them and a speedy resurrection to immortality. There are one or two literary publications issued farther South. But to the whole South, from the Potomac to the Gulf of Mexico (and to the West, whose institutions and interests in respect of mental culture are identical), the Messenger bears nearly the only fruits of the literary enterprise and efforts of her sons, the incitement of her genius and the constant vindication of her rights and peculiar institutions.
It is not intended to make the work local,—no, the empire of mind is one; but it shall never cease to be Southern. Some of the Southern States have done nobly. Georgia has even surpassed Virginia, in her generous support. Nor has the North rejected it, but has, in many sections, extended a
