Page:The Southern Literary Messenger - Minor.djvu/213

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Literary Messenger
189

the University of Virginia, his proper chair would have been that of Moral Philosophy. John Hampden Pleasants, "The Murat of the Press," sketches Virginia's distinguished son and Jefferson's trusty coadjutor, Jos. C. Cabell. Judge Abel P. Upshur, though dead, expounds the true theory of government. L. C. B., of Westmoreland county, was not much of a prophet, though he may have been a good deal of a philosopher, in his lengthy paper on "The Country in 1950; or the Conservatism of Slavery."

E. De Leon sends from Egypt his "Pilgrimage to Palestine." Gov. H. A. Wise delivers an oration, on the "Fourth of July," before the Virginia Military Institute, and citizens of Lexington, and Ex-President John Tyler a lecture, before the Petersburg Library Association, on "The Dead of the Cabinet." Could Bossuet have done it better? Hugh S. Legaré, Abel P. Upshur, Thos. W. Gilmer, what a trio! And Commodore Beverly Kennon perished by the side of Upshur, Gilmer, Gardiner and Maxey on the Princeton.

There is much good lighter reading, of which is "Lilias," a novel, by Lawrence Neville, author of "Edith Allen." The poetry, too, is abundant: From Owen Meredith, T. B. Aldrich, T. Dunn English, Baron Hope Ellen, Adrian Beaufain, Bob Ruly, Amie and others. But one curious