six years she had cultivated her taste for poetry; and, at this time, her reputation was quite well established.  She had corresponded with persons in England in social circles, and was not a stranger to the English.  She was heartily welcomed by the leaders of the society of the British metropolis, and treated with great consideration.  Under all the trying circumstances of high social life, among the nobility and rarest literary genius of London, this redeemed child of the desert, coupled to a beautiful modesty the extraordinary powers of an incomparable conversationalist.  She carried London by storm.  Thoughtful people praised her; titled people dined her; and the press extolled the name of Phillis Wheatley, the African poetess.

Prevailed upon by admiring friends, in 1773[348] she gave her poems to the world.  They were published in London in a small octavo volume of about one hundred and twenty pages, comprising thirty-nine pieces.  It was dedicated to the Countess of Huntingdon, with a picture of the poetess, and a letter of recommendation signed by the governor and lieutenant-governor, with many other “respectable citizens of Boston.”

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     TO THE PUBLIC.

As it has been repeatedly suggested to the publisher, by persons who have seen the manuscript, that numbers would be ready to suspect they were not really the writings of PHILLIS, he has procured the following attestation, from the most respectable characters in Boston, that none might have the least ground for disputing their Original.

We, whose Names are under-written, do assure the World, that the Poems specified in the following page were (as we verily believe) written by PHILLIS, a young Negro Girl, who was, but a few Years since, brought, an uncultivated Barbarian, from Africa, and has ever since been, and now is, under the disadvantage of serving as a Slave in a family in this town.  She has been examined by some of the best judges, and is thought qualified to write them.

His Excellency, THOMAS HUTCHINSON, Governor.
The Hon.  ANDREW OLIVER, Lieutenant Governor.

Hon.  Thomas Hubbard, | Rev.  Charles Chauncy, Hon.  John Erving, | Rev.  Mather Byles, Hon.  James Pitts, | Rev.  Ed Pemberton, Hon.  Harrison Gray, | Rev.  Andrew Elliot, Hon.  James Bowdoin, | Rev.  Samuel Cooper, John Hancock, Esq. | Rev.  Samuel Mather, Joseph Green, Esq. | Rev.  John Moorhead, Richard Cary, Esq. | Mr.  John Wheatley, her master.

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