e poems were originally written, not with the
most distant idea of publication, but simply for the amusement and
during the leisure moments of the author.

"Improve your privileges while they stay,
Ye pupils, and each hour redeem, that bears
Or good or bad report of you to heav'n.
Let sin, that baneful evil of the soul,
By you be shunn'd, nor once remit your guard;
Suppress the deadly serpent in its egg.
Ye blooming plants of human race divine,
An _Ethiop_ tells you 'tis your greatest foe;
Its transient sweetness turns to endless pain,
And in immense perdition sinks the soul."

"CAMBRIDGE, FEBRUARY 28, 1776.
"MISS PHILLIS:

"Your favor of the 26th of October, did not reach my hands till the
middle of December. Time enough, you will say, to have given an
answer ere this. Granted. But a variety of important occurrences,
continually interposing to divert the mind and withdraw the
attention, I hope will apologise for the delay, and plead my excuse
for the seeming, but not real neglect. I thank you most sincerely
for your polite notice of me, in the elegant lines you enclosed;
and however undeserving I may be of such encomium and panegyric,
the style and manner exhibit a striking proof of your poetic
talents; in honor of which, and as a tribute justly due to you, I
would have published the poem, had I not been apprehensive, that,
while I only meant to give the world this new instance of your
genius, I might have incurred the imputation of vanity. This, and
nothing else, determined me not to give it place in the public
prints.

"If you should ever come to Cambridge, or near head-quarters, I
shall be happy to see a person so favored by the Muses, and to whom
Nature has been so liberal and beneficent in her dispensations.

"I am, with great respect, your obedient servant,
"GEORGE WASHINGTON.
"Miss Phillis Wheatley."

The tenor, style, and manner of President Washington's letter to Miss
Wheatley--the publication of her works, together with an accompanying
likeness of the author, and her inscription and dedication of the volume
to the "Right Honorable the Countess of Huntingdon," show, that she,
though young, was a person of no ordinary mind, no common attainments;
but a