Page:The Southern Literary Messenger - Minor.djvu/30

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The Southern

delay, in December, and its pages were filled with the usual variety of prose and poetry, original and selected. Several of those writers already named continue to appear; but there is something new in "A Lecture on the Study of Law, by Beverly Tucker, Professor of Law in the college of William and Mary," and published by request of the students. Judge Nathaniel Beverly Tucker became one of the ablest and most abundant contributors to the Messenger. He not only wrote for it, but produced works which were reviewed in it. He was a half-brother of the celebrated John Randolph, of Roanoke, and was once a circuit judge in the State of Missouri. But he returned to his native State and was placed in the college chair which his father had filled and adorned and which he occupied the rest of his life. His full brother, Judge Henry St. Geo. Tucker, was professor of Law in the University of Virginia a part of the same time; and these two were succeeded by the brothers, John B. Minor, at the University, and Lucian, at William and Mary.

The editorial department is quite prominent in this number. Mr. Heath was genial and kind-hearted and he admits that he may have erred on the side of leniency in publishing some of the contents of the Messenger. But he maintains that its purpose was not only to furnish a vehicle