the existence of a germ in their minds which only wants
cultivation. They astonish you with strokes of the most sublime
oratory; such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, their
imagination glowing and elevated. But never yet could I find that
a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration;
never saw ever an elementary trait of painting or sculpture.[75]

In music they are more generally gifted than the whites, with
accurate ears for tune and time, and they have been found capable
of imagining a small catch. Whether they will be equal to the
composition of a more extensive run of melody, or of complicated
harmony, is yet to be proved.[76]

Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in
poetry. Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no
poetry. Their love is ardent, but it kindles the senses only, not
the imagination. Religion, indeed, has produced a Phyllis
Wheatley; but it could not produce a poet. The compositions
published under her name are below the dignity of criticism. The
heroes of the Dunciad are to her, as Hercules to the author of
that poem.[77]

Ignatius Sancho has approached nearer to merit in composition
(than Phyllis Wheatley); yet his letters do more honor to the
heart than the head. They breathe the purest effusions of
friendship and general philanthropy, and show how great a degree
of the latter may be compounded with strong religious zeal. He is
often happy in the turn of his compliments, and his style is easy
and familiar, except when he affects a Shandean fabrication of
words. But his imagination is wild and extravagant, escapes
incessantly from every restraint of reason and taste, and, in the
course of its vagaries, leaves a tract of thought as incoherent
and eccentric, as is the course of a meteor through the sky. His
subjects should often have led him to a process of sober
reasoning; yet we find him always substituting sentiment for
demonstration. Upon the whole, though we admit him to the first
place among those of his own color who have presented themselves
to the public judgment, yet when compare him with the writers of
the race among whom he lived and particularly with the epistolary
class in which he has taken his own stand, we are compelled to
enroll him