New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1861-09-14
SOUTHERN LITERATuRE.

we received, several days ago, from Messrs.
| Hole &sCo., of this city, the first number OF .
new magazine published at Memphis, entitled the
Southern Monthly. The Monthly has some good
articles in it, prose and poetica original and Sc
lected.
/ We cordially wish success to this new enterprise,
and we trust its managers viii not permit it to go
the way of all the EARTH as so many similar publ
4 cations of the same sort have done in the South
within the last thirty years. The appeal to the
public to sustain Southern magazine will be re-
spoRded to If 1t is publication worth the money,
and it its affairs are properly managed shat pub
fishers themselves must do something, in times like
these, and not expect everything Of the public.
Here and there may be found good writers who
are men OF leisure, and who will voluntarily con.
tribute to the pages of a magazine-hut no maya
zine can live at this day which does not pay, and
pay literally, for good articles. 1t is altogether
| mistake thatpo and philosophers and romance
writers can live, like the chameleon on air. They
are generally men who are poor in this worlds
goods-perhaps it is the very fact of their being
poor that makes them what they are They are
subject, like common mortals, to the pangs of hun
ger and thirst, and we have seen some of them
show a keen appreciation, in default Of better, for
even so humble dish as hog and hominy To
write for glory is all very well, when an author has
a plentiful deposit Of cash in the bank-but even
the most glowing inspirations of the poet are apt
to be unsettled when he awakes in the morning,
and is uncertain as to how and where he will get
his breakfast. ..... .,.s.....
i A magazine, to succeed, must have good articles,
and good articles must be paid for. We have
known Southern writers to sell their productions
to Northern magazines, when they would have
preferred to publish them in the South. The
Southern publisher could not afford to pay, and
the Northern publisher could. Those who are
obliged to make merchandise of their writings,
lAee other sellers of merchandise have q natural
preference for trading in the market where the
highest prices are obtainable. -t.
The reason that SO many Southern magazines
have failed, was that the publishers did not start
out with sufficient cash capital. The talent was in
the South, but twas not bought Literary labor,
which we have been told is the hardest labor of,
all, ought to be recompensed with some thing more
substantial than fame; and until this fact is recog
Fnized by Southern publishers, there will be con-
sdnuance of the same old Series of attempts and
failures: twill not do to say that the public must
come forward and rally to the support Of maga-
zine and thus enable 1t to employ the best talent
the initiative must be taken by the publishers
themselves. They must exhaust a certain amount
Of capital large or small, as the case may be-in
making good magazine, and then the public eotH
come forward. And then the publisher will find
I his reward.
The Southern Literary Messenger, at Richmond,
Virginia, now over thirty years old and firmly es-
tablished - and, we believe, the only literary
monthiyin the South until the appearance Of this
new publication--was established and put on
firm foundation in the beginning by admitting none
but frstclass articles into~its columns. The first
Statesmen and scholars of the South wrote for it.
After this war is over we will have a literature
purely Southerns if literature, indeed, may be re-
jstrioted by territorial limits but VIC must encour.
age the labors of onr native authors by offering
them sufficient practical inducements to work.
We must cut loose from the North in respect Of
books and magazines, as of everything else. But
we must get clear Of the error that the public
makes magazine .'success.'' The publishers
must first make it SO, and then the public will keep
it up. 1t is with magazines as with newspapers,
Nobody takes one unless he thinks it worth the
maney--and the publisher must make it worth the
money before the public will come to his aid. at