ABSTRACT
It is understood that the first number of the Southern Literary Messenger, will be sent forth by its publisher, as a kind of pioneer, to spy out the land of literary promise, and to report whether the same be fruitful or barren, before James Heath Ewell resolves upon future action. The literary spirit which pervades some portions of New England and the northern cities, would never have existed, at least in the same degree, if the journals and repositories designed to cherish and promote it, had been derived exclusively from London and Edinburgh. It is not intended to be intimated that the aristarchy of the north and east, cherish any unkind feelings towards the literary claims of the south. It may possibly be the means of effecting a salutary reform in public taste and individual habits; of overcoming that tendency to mental repose and luxurious indulgence supposed to be peculiar to southern latitudes.
