Page:The Southern Literary Messenger - Minor.djvu/252

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
226
The Southern

the onslaught which the acting editor made upon some of his female contributors, and do it so happily, that they are invited to send their effusions. One of them, Leola, sends "God and Liberty," respectfully inscribed to the Virginia Cavalry. She also makes another poetic contribution.

Dr. Bagby's physical condition did not permit him to remain long with the army, and the magazine still flies his name as editor. Its literary character is well sustained and some new writers enlist; among them Capt. W. T. Walthall, of Alabama, indites three letters to an Englishman, in behalf of the Confederate cause; and E. H. Anderson writes "Latter-day Fiction: Charles Beade." This was the bright young Richmonder and humorist, already mentioned, who died early of consumption. Lona Lee, of Alabama, is a new recruit. So is W. Gordon McCabe, who sends from the camp of the Howitzers both prose and verse. On one occasion he sat down chiefly to review Dante's "Divine Comedy;" but got so interested in his lesser works, that, Felix-like, he deferred the greater one to "a more convenient season." W. G. M. reappears, from a camp. Who was he? Rev. Robert R. Howison, already a historian of Virginia, commences the "History of the War;" which causes so many copies to be sold that the usual edition is readily exhausted and room is made for this home demand by strik-