SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. PUBLISHED MONTHLY AT FIVE DOLLARS PER ANNUM-THOMAS W. WHITE, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR. FOL. VI. RICHMOND, JANUARY, 1810 Febma THE DYING EAGLE. BY WILLIAM WALLACE. Bird of the Storm!-why liest thou here- Which chains thee to this earthly tomb? Of tempest-midnight-cloud and gloom, Lord of the Air!--thy mighty heart So sinks the glorious bird!-and so Louisville. THE NEW YEAR. When, nearly six years ago, the plan of this Magazine was formed, how few of its friends believed that it would live to this day! How surely did they presage not only a speedy death to the work, but ruin to its undertaker! NO. 1. more clearly than he. But in the somewhat pecu By failures of subscribers to pay what they owe him, he has lost not less than three thousand dollars. By the necessity to which mainly their tardiness has subjected him, of employing collectors at a ruinous commission of 12, 15, and 17 per cent., he has lost some thousands more. By the difference of exchange, alone, he has lost at least two thousand more. And, since much of this loss was upon arrears, which should have been paid before these disastrous times came on,-so much, of this also, is chargeable to the tardiness of subscribers. He has not he never had—any large property, or pecuniary resources except in his own skill as a printer; and he is of a delicate frame. Thus situated, he may perhaps justifiably allude to his In truth, it seemed a rash and perilous enterprize. own energy and good management in having acThe editor's ALL, of fortune and of credit, was em-complished what he has done-not for the purbarked. Nay more-he devoted himself, in the ad-pose of self-glorification, but in order to ask, if he venture, to toils and cares, which by their minute- does not merit a better return, than the loss of so ness and complexity, their weight and unceasingness, many thousands? threatened, as they have proved to be, worrying and The Messenger, indeed, is established: and the exhausting beyond all proportion to his humble lot new and costly dress of the present number evinand lowly pretensions.-All Southern experience, ces the editor's confidence, that he can sustain it. too, warned him of the hazard he was running. No But if he can, it will be solely through the literary periodical on our side of Mason's and Dix-success of this appeal. It will be, because former on's line, had been able to survive a sickly infancy-subscribers will make their patronage real and benesickly, in respect of pecuniary aliment, but not always ficial to him—instead of a mockery and a detriment. so, intellectually. A Review had existed for two or It will be, because new ones, attracted by the imthree years in South-Carolina, teeming with articles provements visible from time to time in both the of a power no where surpassed; or surpassed only garb and contents of his Magazine,-animated by by the best of the Edinburg Review. Notwithstand- a wish to aid the sole effort that has given tokens ing its merits, the Southern Review; alike with the of permanent success, in the cause of Southern various host of kindred attempts, had sunk into a pre- Literature, and resolved to make their help solid mature grave. With such evidences of an ungenial and well-timed, not illusory and destructive,-will climate before his eyes, how could the Editor of come forward to the rescue. But for his confidence the Messenger hope to escape the universal doom? that all this will be, he could not apply the word No one saw these discouraging circumstances established,' to his work. He may be vainly and VOL. VI-1 6 |