Page:The Southern Literary Messenger - Minor.djvu/29

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Literary Messenger
19

president and Mr. Heath also an officer. Shortly afterwards, Mr. White offered to make the Messenger the organ of that Society and that offer was accepted, with thanks. Judge Marshall became its president. It expired, however, in 1837; but was revived in 1847, mainly through the instrumentality of Mr. B. B. [Benjamin Blake] Minor and Col. Thomas H. Ellis, of Richmond, in co-operation with Wm. Maxwell, ex-president of Hampden-Sidney, and that distinguished and liberal-minded jurist, Con. Robinson.

This number also contains a friendly review of "Poems, by a Collegian," Charlottesville, 1833. This collegian was Mr. Thomas Semmes, a lawyer of Alexandria, Va., whose promise was nipped by an early death. There is a notice also of another volume of poems, by another Virginian, Mr. Frederick Speece; also a greeting to Mr. M. M. Robinson, editor of the Compiler, who had had the boldness to issue a specimen number of his new weekly Literary Journal. Of course, there must be a good deal of other matter, in prose and verse, to fill 64 such pages. The number closes with quite a long editorial on the objects of the Messenger, the character of its contributions and what it had already accomplished, with extracts from numerous letters of congratulation, praise and caution.

The fourth number was issued, after a little