her returning health. Phillis, at the time of her purchase, was some seven or eight years old, and the intention of Mrs. Wheatley was to train her up for a common servant. But the marks of extraordinary intelligence which Phillis soon evinced, induced her mistress' daughter to teach her to read; and such was the rapidity with which this was effected, that, in sixteen months from the time of her arrival in the family, the Negro child had so mastered the English language, to which of course she was an utter stranger before, as to read with ease the most difficult parts of Sacred Writ. This uncommon docility altered the intentions of the family regarding Phillis, and in future she was kept constantly about the person of her mistress, whose affections she entirely won by her amiable disposition and propriety of demeanor.

At this period, but little attention was bestowed on the education of the laboring classes even of the whites, and much less of the slave population. Hence, when little Phillis, to her acquirements in reading, added, by her own exertions and industry, the power of writing, she became an object of very general attention.

Of her infancy, spent in that unhappy land, whence she had been stolen, Phillis retained but one solitary recollection, but that is an interesting one. She remembered that, every morning, her mother poured out water before the rising sun-a religious rite, doubtless, of the district from which the child was carried away. Thus every morning, when the day broke over the land and the home which fate had bestowed on her, was Phillis

reminded of the tender mother who had watched over her infancy, but had been unable to protect from the merciless slavers.

As Phillis grew up to womanhood, her progress and attainments did not belie the promise of her earlier years. She attracted the notice of the literary characters of the day and the place, who supplied her with books, and encouraged by their approbation the ripening of her intellectual powers. This was greatly assisted by the kind conduct of her mistress, who treated her in every respect like a child of the family-admitted her to her own table—and introduced her as an equal into the best society of Boston. Notwithstanding these honors, Phillis never for a moment departed from the humble and unassuming deportment which distinguished her when she stood, a little trembling alien, to be sold, like a beast of the field, in the slave-market. Never did she presume upon the indulgence of those benevolent friends who regarded only her worth and her genius, and overlooked in her favor all the disadvantages of caste and of color.

Such was the modest and amiable disposition of Phillis Wheatley her literary talents and acquirements accorded well with the intrinsic worth of her character. At the early age of fourteen, she appears first to have attempted literary composition; and between this period and the age of nineteen, the whole of her poems, which were given to the world, seem to have been written. Her favorite poet was Pope, and her favorite work the translation of the Iliad. Many of her pieces were written to commemorate the deaths of friends who had

been kind to her. The following little piece is on the death of a young gentleman of great promise:

"Who taught thee conflict with the powers of night,

To vanquish Satan in the fields of fight?

Who strung thy feeble arms with might unknown?
How great thy conquest, and how bright thy crown!
War with each princedom, throne, and power is o'er;
The scene is ended, to return no more.

Oh, could my muse thy seat on high behold,
How decked with laurel, and enriched with gold!
Oh, could she hear what praise thy harp employs,
How sweet thine anthems, how divine thy joys,
What heavenly grandeur should exalt her strain!
What holy raptures in her numbers reign!
To soothe the troubles of the mind to peace,
To still the tumult of life's tossing seas,
To ease the anguish of the parent's heart,
What shall my sympathizing verse impart?
Where is the balm to heal so deep a wound?
Where shall a sovereign remedy be found?
Look, gracious Spirit! from thy heavenly bower
And thy full joys into their bosoms pour :
The raging tempests of their griefs control,
And spread the dawn of glory through the soul,
To eye the path the saint departed trod,
And trace him to the bosom of his God."

Phillis Wheatley felt a deep interest in everything affecting the liberty of her fellow-creatures, of whatever condition, race, or color. She expresses herself with much feeling in an address to the Earl of Dartmouth, Secretary of State for North America, on the occasion of some relaxation of the system of haughty severity which the home Government then pursued towards the colonies, and which ultimately caused their separation and independence.

"Should you, my Lord, while you peruse my song,
Wonder from whence my love of freedom sprung;
Whence flow those wishes for the common good,
By feeling hearts best understood-

I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate,
Was snatched from Afric's fancied happy seat.
What pangs excruciating must molest,
What sorrows labor in my parents' breast!
Steeled was that soul, and by no misery moved,
That from a father seized his babe beloved;
Such, such my case. And can I then but pray
Others may never feel tyrannic sway?"

The constitution of Phillis was naturally delicate, and her health always wavering and uncertain. At the age of nineteen, her condition became such as to alarm her friends. A sea-voyage was recommended by the physicians, and it was arranged that Phillis should take a voyage to England, and which she did. She was there received and admired in the first circles of English society; and it was there that her poems were given to the world. And here, we have no hesitation in pronouncing the foregoing lines, written by this African slave girl at the age of sixteen, as being fully equal to a large proportion of pieces that appear in standard collections of English poetry, while in harmony, and depth of thought, they are far superior to many verses put forth under great names.

"Of the skill of Negroes as carpenters and watchmakers, of their taste in drawing, of their musical talents, of their capacity in physical and mathematical science, many proofs might be given from the writings of those who have had opportunities of personal observa

tion. Blumenbach has declared that entire provinces of Europe might be named in which it would be most difficult to find in correspondents of the French Academy such good writers, poets and philosophers as some of them."

The foregoing examples are sufficient to convince us, that among the many millions to whom no similar opportunities have ever been granted, many might be found fitted by the endowments of nature, and wanting only the advantages of education, to make them ornaments, not only to their own race, but to humanity. And yet these are the beings whom it is the fashion with certain classes of writers to represent as little better than improved apes, and as having no sufficient claim to the brotherhood of humanity! We most heartily wish that all the members of the race, to which these very writers belong, manifested an equal degree of improvability with many of these despised people. And we crave permission to ask these authorities, what better or clearer claims to true humanity can they themselves produce than those offered by the mathematics of Richard Banneker, by the classics of Thomas Jenkins, by the poetry of Phillis Wheatley, and by the intelligence, heroism and piety exhibited by a hundred others that might be named?

Of the fact, then, that all the Races of Man are endowed with the same Intellectual faculties and the same Moral sensibilities there can be no doubt whatever.

5. The Languages of the various races of Man are held to be traceable to One original tongue.