never
had. The principal reason doubtless is, that she had not the numerous
class of readers for amusement, who demand such food in the North; and
of the not insignificant class who did indulge in it, nine-tenths--for
one reason, or another, preferred northern periodicals. This is not
altogether unnatural, when we reflect that these latter were generally
better managed and superior in interest--if not in tone--to anything
the South had yet attempted. They were gotten up with all the
appliances of mechanical perfection; were managed with business tact,
and forced and puffed into such circulation as made the heavy outlay
for first-class writers in the end remunerative.

On the contrary, every magazine attempted in the South up to that time
had been born with the seeds of dissolution already in it. _Voluntary
contributions_--fatal poison to any literary enterprise--had been
their universal basis. There was ever a crowd of men and women among
southern populations, who would write anywhere and anything for the
sake of seeing themselves in print. And while there were many able and
accomplished writers available, they were driven off by these
Free-Companions of the quill--preferring not to write in such company;
or, if forced to do it, to send their often anonymous contributions to
northern journals. These two reasons--especially the last--availed to
kill the few literary ventures attempted by more enterprising southern
publishers. The first of these two in a great measure influenced the
scarcity of book-producers, among a people who had really very few
readers among them; and even had the number of these been larger, it
seems essential to the increase of authors that there should be the
constant friction of contact in floating literature.

Good magazines are the nurseries and forcing houses for authors; and
almost every name of prominence in modern literature may be traced back
along its course, as that of magazinist, or reviewer.

The South--whether these reasons for it be just or not, the fact is
patent--had had but few writers of prominence; and in fiction
especially the names that were known could be numbered on one's
fingers. W. Gilmore Simms was at once the father of southern literature
and its most prolific exemplar. His numerous novels have been very
generally read; and, if not placing him in the highest ranks of writers
of fiction, at least vindicate the claims of his section to force and
originality. He had been