Page:The Southern Literary Messenger - Minor.djvu/33

 Rh per cent, at least in our estimation." But this notice, with a long extract from the work, is followed by a review, borrowed from The North American Magazine, in which "The Last Night of Pompeii;" a poem, and "Lays and Legends," by Sumner Lincoln Fairfield, are taken up, along with Bulwer: the author of Pelham, etc., etc., is severely excoriated, "as a sophist in ethics, a libertine in love, a smuggler and plagiarist."

There is a ludicrous incident in connexion with a poem, by Zarry Zyle, "A Song of the Seasons." The editor comments on this "quaint cognomen." A correspondent from Shepherdstown, Va., near which Zarry lived, pitched into his poem for its obscurity and other faults. The poet, in his true name Larry Lyle, replied sharply and spiritedly. Anyhow, the editor and his printers had mistaken two L's for two Izzards. The editor gives his contributors a deserved lecture on their MSS.

In regard to the tale "The Doom," the editor raises the question whether he ought to have admitted it and from his own statement he should not. Among other things, he says he had to expurgate it "of certain profane and unchaste allusions."

The discussion of Governor Tazewell's Report to the Legislature, on the subject of a Deaf and Dumb Asylum, is continued.