more; and before she was nineteen a volume of her poems was published in London, in 1772. In 1773, her health had so far declined, from her close attention to her studies, that her physicians recommended a sea-voyage, and accordingly she sailed for England. Her fame had gone before her, and she was received with marked respect by many distinguished individuals. But in the midst of the attentions of the court she heard that her former mistress was sick, and her heart prompted her to return home at once. She did so in time to minister to Mrs. Wheatley, whose sickness terminated in death the next year; and the year after, Mr. Wheatley followed her to the grave. Thus deprived of her best friends, poor and desolate, she accepted an offer of marriage from a colored man by the name of Peters, of polished manners and a good education. He had studied law; and tradition says that he actually plead many cases at the bar. But soon after their marriage he became a bankrupt, and they were reduced to utter want. After living with him three years in great poverty, and becoming the mother of three children, her health rapidly declined, and she died on the 5th of December, 1784. With any of our poets prior to the year 1800, Phillis Wheatley will bear a favorable comparison, whether we consider the ease and correctness of her versification, her elevated moral and religious sentiments, or her pure fancy. Indeed, when we take into view the times in which she lived, the little attention then paid to female education, her youthful years, and the difficulties of race and language which she surmounted, her poems are very remarkable.2 LINES ON THE DEATH OF DR. SEWALL. Lo, here a man, redeem'd by Jesus' blood, Mourn him, ye youth, to whom he oft has told 1 From a Boston newspaper of May 10, 1773 :-" Saturday last, Captain Calef sailed for London, with whom went passengers Mr. Wheatley, merchant; also Phillis, the extraordinary negro poet.' 2 Read "Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley," Boston, 1834; "Christian Examiner," xvi. 169. "A Tribute for the Negro," p. 332. The writer of the article in the "Christian Examiner" thus remarks:-"Such was the fate of Phillis Wheatley, a heroine, though a black one. Perhaps her genius, her unquestionable virtues, the vicissitudes of her life, and her melancholy end, ought to excite as much interest as the fate of Lady Jane Grey, or Mary Queen of Scots, or any other heroine, ancient or modern; but such, we fear, will not be the case.”—Christian Examiner, May, 1834. I, too, have cause this mighty loss to mourn, ON THE DEATH OF AN INFANT. Through airy fields he wings his instant flight, Enlarged he sees unnumber'd systems roll, Clapp'd their glad wings: the heavenly vaults resound. Say, parents, why this unavailing moan? Why heave your pensive bosoms with the groan? By thoughtless wishes and mistaken love? Doth his felicity increase your pain? In vain for me the flow'rets rise, Celestial maid of rosy hue, Nor unregarding can I see Her soul with grief opprest; In vain the feather'd warblers sing, While for Britannia's distant shore Lo! Health appears, celestial dame, With Hebe's mantle o'er her frame, To mark the vale where London lies, Which cloud Aurora's thousand dyes, Why, Phoebus, moves thy car so slow? Give us the famous town to view, For thee, Britannia, I resign But thou, Temptation, hence away, Nor once seduce my soul away By thine enchanting strain. Thrice happy they whose heavenly shield Secures their soul from harms, And fell Temptation on the field Of all its power disarms. JOEL BARLOW, 1755-1812. JOEL BARLOW, the author of The Columbiad, was born in Reading, Fairfield County, Connecticut, in 1755. He entered Dartmouth College in 1771, but soon left that institution and went to Yale, where he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1778. He then entered upon the study of law, which he soon exchanged for theology, and received a license as chaplain to the army, in which he remained till the close of the war. While in this situation, he composed, with his friends, Rev. Timothy Dwight and Colonel Humphreys, various patriotic songs and addresses, which exerted no little influence upon the minds of the soldiery. He commenced, also, at this time, The Vision of Columbus, which afterwards formed the basis of his larger work, The Columbiad. After the peace in 1783, Barlow went back from the gospel to the law, for which he was much better suited; and settled in Hartford. To add to his income, he established a weekly gazette, called The American Mercury, which gained for him considerable reputation by its able editorial management. About this time, he revised and published the Psalms and Hymns of Dr. Isaac Watts; and two years after, in 1787, appeared his first large poem, on which he had been laboring for many years, The Vision of Columbus. To increase the sale of these, he gave up his newspaper and opened a book-store. But his books not doing so well as he expected, the next year he went to England as agent of a fraudulent land-company, of the nature of which he was at first ignorant: he gave up his agency, however, as soon as the character of the company became known to him. He was absent seventeen years, most of which time he spent in France, where he published a number of political pamphlets, and also his best and most celebrated poem, Hasty Pudding. In 1795, Washington appointed him consul at Algiers, with power to negotiate a treaty of peace with the Dey, and to ransom all Americans held in slavery on the coast of Barbary. He accepted the appointment, concluded the treaty favorably, and made similar ones with the Governments of Tripoli and Tunis. He was thus the happy means of freeing large numbers of Americans from Algerine slavery. In 1797, be returned to France, entered into commercial pursuits, and amassed a large fortune. In 1805, he sold all his property in France, returned home, and took up his residence at Georgetown, District of Columbia. In 1808, his Columbiad was published in quarto, in splendid style. The mechanical execution of this work entitles it to admiration; but this is about all that can be said in its praise. It is the history of Columbus in rhyme; and in poetical merit is about equal to Addison's Campaign. In 1811, he was appointed minister-plenipotentiary to France, to obtain indemnification for injuries sustained by American commerce. The next year he was invited to meet Napoleon at Wilna, in Poland, for a personal conference; but the great severity of the climate, fatigue, and exposure, brought on an inflammation of the lungs, and he died in an obscure village near Cracow, in Poland, on the 22d of December, 1812. 1 For much valuable information on this subject, read a Lecture before the Boston Mercantile Library Association, entitled "White Slavery in Algiers," by Charles Sumner. THE HASTY PUDDING. CANTO I. Ye Alps audacious, through the heavens that rise Despise it not, ye bards to terror steel'd, Oh! could the smooth, the emblematic song, Through wrecks of time, thy lineage and thy race; Some tawny Ceres, goddess of her days, First learn'd with stones to crack the well-dried maize, The yellow flour, bestrew'd and stirr'd with haste, Then puffs and wallops, rises to the brim, Drinks the dry knobs that on the surface swim; The knobs at last the busy ladle breaks, And the whole mass its true consistence takes. CANTO II. To mix the food by vicious rules of art, To kill the stomach and to sink the heart, To make mankind to social virtue sour, Cram o'er each dish, and be what they devour; |