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TRIBUTES TO THE MESSENGER.

From the Daily Constitutionalist, Augusta, Geo.
The Southern Literary Messenger.-As a liter-

ary monthly, we do not hesitate to place this pe-
riodical at the head of its class in this country
Its numbers are always fraught with articles of
the highest interest, and most of them are of the
most sterling character.

appears which is not full of interest and worthy to be a specimen of a most spirited and ably sustained journal.

receive general encouragement. It is due also It is due to the South that the Messenger should to the editor, John R. Thompson, Esq., who has thrown his whole soul into the work, and under the influence of whose superior talents, refined taste and unconquerable energy, the Southern Literary Messenger has become an honor to Virginia, and one of the brightest jewels in the lit

From the Maine Democrat, (Saco, Maine.) Few publications possess so much interest to

From the Home Journal, October 13th, 1849. (Edited by N. P. Willis and Geo P. Morris.) The Southern Literary Messenger for Septem-erary crown of the South. ber and October appeared simultaneously in the form of a double number, on the first instant; and an examination of its varied and interesting contents induces us to renew the advice long the educated and refined as the Messenger. Its since proffered our readers-to make themselves monthly numbers are each a literary feast of rare better acquainted with this sterling periodical. delicacy. It is the only purely literary magazine in the country. Its critical essays are of a high order. There is nothing trifling or superficial in its aim; but the scholar and gentleman who has the work in charge, strives to produce a journal creditable

to our literature.

From The Excelsior, Newburgh, New York. We are glad to see that it constantly increases in value. We know no periodical which so nearly approaches our standard of magazine excellence. We have been acquainted with it for years; and the acquaintance has ripened into a warm and growing friendship.

From the Church Review.

We are pleased to find this able monthly magazine upon our table. It is one of the most agreeable of our exchanges, learned without being dull, and piquant without being discourteous. The editorials are pretty well seasoned with Attic salt; and the table of Book notices is prepared with a manly independence altogether unusual. The contents of the "Messenger" are more varied than of any magazine within our acquaintance.

From the Courrier des Etats Unis.

Southern Literary Messenger.-Parmi les nomFrom the Richmond Republican. breuses publications périodiques qui paraissent Southern Literary Messenger.-The Septem- chaque mois aux Etats-Unis, le Messenger, qui se ber and October numbers of the Messenger come publie à Richmond, a su prendre un rang fort together and contain a perfect mine of valuable distingué. Ce recueil, outre bon nombre d'artiand interesting matter. We beg once more to cles remarquables, qui ont trait spécialement aux solicit the attention of those who do not take the Etats-Unis, consacre dans chacun de ses numéMessenger to this masterly periodical. Nothing ros une place considérable à de fort intéressantes that can be said of it by the press will be as sat- correspondances qu'il reçoit de Paris, et qui donisfactory as a personal examination. We there- nent à ses lecteurs une idée du mouvement polifore advise all who feel interested in Southern tique, littéraire et scientifique de la France. Il literature, and proud of the power of Southern examine aussi avec attention les livres les plus pens, at least to examine such numbers of the importans qui se publient en France, et ses criMessenger as they can obtain, and then decide tiques sont souvent pleines de véritié et de jusfor themselves whether it will not be both their tesse. Nous trouvons dans le numéro de juin un duty and their pleasure to sustain such a rep- examen de Raphael et des Confidences, accomresentative and such a champion of Southern pagné de citations en français. Le Messenger letters. publie aussi parfois des traductions de morceaux An examination of a single number of the français, essais, nouvelles, voire même poésie; Messenger will make a friend for it in every en- ainsi le numéro de mai contient une jolie imilightened and intelligent reader. He will see at tation du Roi d' Ivetot de Béranger. Nous sigonce that the laudation the press has so gen-nalous avec plaisir cette tendance vers l'étude et erally bestowed upon that periodical is not mere l'appréciation de la politique et de la littérature puffery, that it is a work of genuine, sterling française; et bien que parfois les jugements da merit, and teeming, at every step, with the true Messenger soient un peu sévères, il doit contribuer gold of learning, genius and talent. We care not puissamment à répandre aux Etats-Unis le goût what number is examined, for it is rare that one des œuvres de notre pays.

and trashy monthlies that are found on many of our parlor tables.

From the Literary World.

From the Spartan, (Spartanburgh, S. C.) Southern Literary Messenger.-If we are young editorially, we are personally old enough to have read and appreciated the Messenger from its first establishment. Our predecessors always had a The Southern Literary Messenger for Novemgood word for this interesting Miscellany, and ber, (1849.) An excellent, well-filled number of the Spartan is no baby; but alas little good did a journal always conducted with ability. Here the notices do the Editors in a pecuniary point of view. Little plates, little tales, little poetry, and little essays, especially on fashionable life were all the rage, and this sterling and standard representative of a thousand times more value, than the little catch-pennies to which we have referred, has been left by our Spartanburghers by Tuckerman on Sir Richard Steele; an interwithout the patronage it so richly merits. We are happy to learn its patronage elsewhere is fair and the paper permanent.

Those who know us, know we neither puff nor praise for love nor money. We do not know the Editor, but we know the Messenger, and we give notice that it is our intention hereafter, anxiously for their own sake to urge upon our friends and patrons, a more liberal subscription than they have bestowed upon it.

are several American articles, an obituary memoir of Chapman Johnson of Virginia, an original letter of Wirt, a kindly estimate of the talents of the late Edgar A. Poe; studies of English literature, in a paper on the Old Dramatist, Ford, and an ingenious, well-conceived article

esting view of Goethe at Weimar, in a translation, foreign correspondence, &c. There is that mingling of the old and the new, the cultivation of home things resting upon a liberal and refined sympathy with the past, without which neither old nor new can be justly appreciated. Our southern friends have reason to congratulate themselves on the ability and resources which the accomplished editor of the Messenger brings to their favorite magazine. It is evidently "working well" and should be liberally maintained. A little poem by Longfellow, which appears in the number, we must follow the old precedent by copying.

From the Banner of Temperance. Southern Literary Messenger.-This ably conducted periodical appears in a double number for September and October, and contains many elegantly written and highly literary articles. The From the Columbia, (S. C.) Telegraph. intellectual voluptuary could scarcely find a richer Next, the Southern Literary Messenger, bringrepast, than that which the Messenger furnishes ing its monthly frieght of gaieties and gravities, him. We have read several of the leading arti- prose and poetry, culled from the full stores of cles with the deepest interest and the highest Southern genius by a hand at once firm and deligratification. The Messenger is certainly gain- cate in its touch, and wielding admirably the pen ing ground, and already merits the admiration of the ready writer, as well as the tomahawk of and patronage of the reading public. Its name, to say nothing of its uniformly excellent contents, has always possessed a charm for us.

the critic. The reputation already earned by John R. Thompson in the brief term of his management of the Messenger, entitles both his journal and himself to Southern support-for it has struck no feeble blows on the great Southern question-its Editor being right in heart as well as in head.

From the Metropolis.

From the Watchman and Observer, Richmond, Va. The Southern Literary Messenger.-A double number of this interesting periodical reaches us this month, containing its usual variety. We consider this as the most valuable monthly that is issued in our country, and always welcome its (Edited by Park Benjamin and G. G. Foster.) successive numbers. The number for Septem- been not only entertained, but much instructed, The Southern Literary Messenger. We have ber and October before us contains 34 articles, while looking over several of the back numbers varying in length and quality, among which are of this valuable magazine. We met with many reviews of Fremont's Expeditions; Lady Alice, an article worthy of transfer to our columns; inthe latest spawn of the Puseyite movement; deed, several of the paragraphs (inclusive of the Maria Edgeworth, Manzoni, &c.; an article on on the last page of last week's paper, were taken capital translation of Beranger,) which appeared Rome, papal and republican; a Letter from from the Messenger. Mr. J. R. Thompson, the Paris, and a translation of the Cebes Picture of Editor, is a gentleman of fine talents and varied Life, by Rev. J. Jones Smyth. The Critical accomplishments, admirably qualified to conduct department is performed with the usual ability of a periodical to be read by men of taste and inthe accomplished editor, who is one of our most polished writers. We would gladly see this periodical put in the place of some of the rapid

mend this work to Northern readers. They will telligence. We honestly and earnestly recomfind no sentimentality or lack-a-daisical stuff in its pages, but vigorous, manly, polished articles.

Stafford &

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1. Life and Times of Pericles. Polemarchus of Thuria to Bulis of Athens-acknowledges the announcement of the death of Pericles-Sorrow occasioned by that sad event; his loss irreparable to the Violet-Crowned City: Family of Pericles-his personal appearance, mental and moral qualities-Public character. Accusation of Cimon: Earthquake at Athens-War between Athens and Sparta-Architectural triumphs of Pericles-the Greek Drama-Megarian War-Aspasia: Breaking out of the Plague; Description of Pericles on the Bema....

2. Hazlitt. By H. T. Tuckerman. Philosophy of criticism-peculiarities of Hazlitt as a critic, &c., &c......

3. An Excursion in Ireland. Made during Last Antuan by a young American. Ride along the banks of the Shannon-Absenteeism-Dreadful condition of the people-the work-housesGort-Galway-Seat of the Marquis of Sligothe Giant's Causeway, &c., &c......

4. The Epigram.......

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5. Death in the Wilderness. By Charles Lanman..98 6. The Seldens of Sherwood. Chapters XIX, XX, XXI, and XXII.......

..100

Philo, An Evangeliad-Poets and Poetry of America-Works of Edgar A. Poe. Henry G. Bohn's Publications...

.125

127-128

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PUBLISHED MONTHLY AT FIVE DOLLARS PER ANNUM-JNO. R. THOMPSON, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR.

VOL. XVI.

RICHMOND, FEBRUARY, 1850.

NO. 2.

the destinies of Athens, which may never be filled. Never may we look upon his like again. He was the man of his day, and he made his

LIFE AND TIMES OF PERICLES. POLEMARCHUS OF THURIA TO BULIS OF ATHENS SALU-day-and never again shall time produce anoth

* TATION.

er who shall as fully reflect the brilliancy which he himself had lighted up. Well may we fear Dissolved, indeed, is the spell!-and broken that the sun of Athenian glory has set, without the wand of the enchanter! Dead did you say? the prospect of another morn, when that mighty Pericles dead? The mind would fain refuse the wizard of the human heart-that monarch of belief in so overwhelming a calamity. But the the tumultuous passions of the Athenian multisable garniture of the trireme which brought your tude-is known no more in the land of light. letter to Sperthies, and the melancholy which He, it was, who stayed the sun of Athenian was stamped on the faces of her passengers and greatness in its downward course, and drew from crew, snatch from our incredulity the straws it in its decline a brighter radiance than belonged which we would willingly cling to. Pericles is to its noon-tide blaze. He, it was, the wondead! It is a bitter and a crushing thought. drous one, who arrested the corruption which You know how my father, Cephalus, adored was already festering at the vitals of Athenian him-how the mention of his great name was glory, and who clothed the decay, which might wont to be music to the old man's ear. Peri- not be prevented, with more gorgeous and pecles dead!—the great Olympian of the Agora! I struggle against the cruel belief, and yet it will not be repelled. What a world of woe is contained in that simple announcement! what a world of glory was mysteriously bound up with the one life that is extinguished! The death of Pericles has left a vacuum in the heart and in

rennial hues than had attended the bloom of maturity and health. His, too, was the magic art, which gave to the descending years of Athens an energy and success which threw into the shade the lustre of even her former achievements. He has added to the period of her glories the first age of her decline-and he has not merely redeemed from degradation the first phases of her waning star, but has surrounded them with a flood of radiance which will make future times regard them as the culminating era of Athenian renown. Weep! weep then, oh Athens! for the mighty shade of the departed. The merciless Fate that has cut the well-spun thread of Pericles, has shorn the Violet-Crowned City of the orator, at the settlement of that colony under the auspices of Pericles. Ol. lxxxiv. 1: and it would seem that much of her greatness and glory, and ended the Sperthies, whose residence is not mentioned by Bulis, had enchantment which retarded, while it gilded, her an allotment (<λpos) in the same colony, adjacent to that fall. Even here, in this remote colony of Athens, of Polemarchus. Among his distinguished fellow-colo-in whose fortunes the noble soul of Pericles was nists were the historians Herodotus and Thucydides, Em

In the Democratic Review for January, 1849, there is an exquisite letter from Bulis to Sperthies on the death of Pericles, which purports to be extracted from an ancient MS. The present letter, probably from the same, or a similar collection, merits consideration as exhibiting a different estimate of the life and career of that great statesman. The writer, Polemarchus, appears to have been the same, who migrated to Thuria, with his brother, Lysias,

pedocles the philosopher, Tisias and Nicias the rhetori- so deeply interested, and of whose growing proscians, Lampon the seer, and Zenocrates. The style of perity and fame he was so justly proud,—even Polemarchus contrasts unfavorably with the singular grace here at so long a distance from Athens, the painand beauty, the delicate feeling and the eloquence of the ful intelligence, which your letter has conveyed, letter of Bulis-qualities which must commend them- has fallen upon the inhabitants of Thuria, like selves, without the need of other commendation, to every the crash of a doomed world. A heavy, anxious, reader of correct taste. We cannot, however but regard

the estimate of the character of Pericles by Polemarchus, corroding care preys upon the hearts of all our as nearer the truth than the delineation of Bulis. But of citizens, and stamps the melancholy impress of this let others judge. In support of the view taken by the despair upon every face. A gloom hangs over former we deem it only necessary to refer to the language us, and shrouds the future, which no effort can of another kλnpouxos of Thuria, Thucydides, the historishake off-hope is palsied by the overburthening ἀξιώματι καί τη γνώμη, χρημάτων τε διαφανῶς ἀδωρότατος, calamity :-we would fain pry into the uncertainκατειχε τὸ πλῆθος ἐλευθέρως, και οὐκ ἤγετο μάλλον υπ' αυτόν ties before us, and know of the misery to come: ἢ αὐτὸς ἡγε, διὰ τὸ μὴ κτῶμενος ἐξ οὐ προσηκόντων τὴν δύναμιν but the sudden eclipse of the great luminary has πρὸς ἡδονήν τι λέγειν. κ. τ. λ. Thuc. lib. ii. c. lxv. left our heavens without light, and our future

an. Of Pericles he says : ἐκεινος μεν δυνατὸς ἐν τῷ τε

VOL. XVI-9

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