"Be assured no effort on my part will be wanting to extend the
circulation of the Messenger, and nothing would give me more unfeigned
pleasure than being instrumental in the promotion of so laudable an
enterprise. Your periodical is truly a pioneer in the cause of southern
literature; and reasoning from the general character of the southern
people, no other conclusion can be legitimately drawn, than a highly
enlarged, extensive and honorable patronage. That this may be the case,
permit me to add an ardent hope to my unqualified belief. We have been
too long tributary to the north; it is time, high time, to awake from
our lethargy--to rise in the majesty of our intellectual strength, put
on the panoply of talents and genius, and _strike_ for the 'prize of
our high calling' in literature. If the object of your labors be
attained, of which there can be no reasonable doubt, posterity will be
more grateful to you than to thousands of the _political exquisites_ of
the day, whose memory will last just so long as their ephemeral
productions."