blood.  A credit—­but that which is creditable to the African, cannot disgrace any into whose veins his blood may chance to flow.  The elevation of the colored man can only be completed by the elevation of the pure descendants of Africa; because to deny his equality, is to deny in a like proportion, the equality of all those mixed with the African organization; and to establish his inferiority, will be to degrade every person related to him by consanguinity; therefore, to establish the equality of the African with the European race, establishes the equality of every person intermediate between the two races.  This established beyond contradiction, the general equality of men.

In the year 1773, though held in servitude, and without the advantages or privileges of the schools of the day, accomplishing herself by her own perseverance; Phillis Wheatley appeared in the arena, the brilliancy of whose genius, as a poetess, delighted Europe and astonished America, and by a special act of the British Parliament, 1773, her productions were published for the Crown.  She was an admirer of President Washington, and addressed to him lines, which elicited from the Father of his country, a complimentary and courteous reply.  In the absence of the poem addressed to General Washington, which was not written until after her work was published, we insert a stanza from one addressed (intended for the students) “To the University at Cambridge.”  We may further remark, that the 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,