# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Osgood, Frances Sargent

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OSGOOD, FRANCES SARGENT,
One of the most gifted daughters of song America has produced, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, about the year 1812. Her father, Mr. Joseph Locke, was a merchant, and her mother a woman of cultivated taste; both parents encouraged and aided the education of their children. They were a talented family: but no other one had the genius with which Frances was endowed. Her poetical faculty was an endowment of nature, not an acquired art; nor in our research through the annals of female genius have we found another instance, among the Anglo-Saxon race, of the true improvisatrice, such as Mrs. Osgood certainly was.
Mrs. Hemans studied her art passionately, and profited greatly by her learning; Miss Landon had motives, encouragements, and facilities, which carried her onward in her literary career. But Mrs. Osgood never required study or encouragement; she poured out her strains as the birds carol, because her heart was filled with song, and must have utterance. Her first specimens of poetry were almost as perfect, in what are called the rules of the art, as her later productions. Rhyme, and the harmonies of language, came to her as intuitively as the warm emotions of her heart, or the bright fancies of her imagination.
Her first printed productions appeared in the "Juvenile Miscellany," a little work, but an excellent one for the young, edited by Mrs. Maria L. Child. In 1831, Miss Locke, who had chosen "Florence" as her turn de plume, began to write for the "Ladies' Magazine," the first periodical established in America for ladies, and then under the care of Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, the present editor of the "Lady's Book."
In 1835, Miss Locke married Mr. S. S. Osgood, a painter by profession, who has since reached a high rank as an artist; he was also a man of literary taste, who appreciated the genius and lovely qualities of his gifted wife. The young couple went to London soon after their marriage, where Mr. Osgood succeeded well, and Mrs. Osgood made many friends, and her talents became known by her contributions to several of the English periodicals. While there, she published a small volume, "The Casket of Fate," which was much admired; and she was persuaded to collect her poems, under the title of "A Wreath of Wild Flowers from New England." This volume was published in London, in 1838, and was favourably noticed by several of the leading journals in that metropolis.
In 1840, after an absence of more than four years, Mr. Osgood returned to Boston with his wife and their little daughter Ellen, (the pet of many poems,) and opened a studio in that city. Mrs. Osgood devoted her leisure to literary pursuits, and prepared several ​works—"The Poetry of Flowers and Flowers of Poetry," and "The Floral Offering," besides contributing to nearly all the literary magazines and the annuals of every season. She often wrote in prose, because prose was required. Many of her sketches and stories are charming, from their playful vivacity and fanciful descriptions; yet the poetical spirit always predominating, shows that she would gladly have rhymed the article, had she been permitted. Poetry was, in truth, her native language; on the wing of versification she moved gracefully as a bird, and always in a region of light and love. This healthy, hopeful, happy spirit is the distinguishing characteristic of her productions. Dark fancies never haunted her pure mind; misanthropy never laid its cold withering hand on her heart; nor is there a single manifestation of bitter memories and disappointed feelings in her poems.
That with such a cheerful, kind, affectionate genius, as well as heart, Mrs. Osgood should have been tenderly beloved by her own family and familiar Mends, would be expected; but she had made thousands of friends who never looked on her pleasant face; and when the tidings of her death went forth, she was mourned as a light withdrawn from many a home where her rhymed lessons had added a charm to household affections, and made more "beautiful the lot of woman. Mrs. Osgood had resided for several years in the city of New York, and there she died. May 12th., 1850, of pulmonary consumption, enduring her wasting disease with sweet patience, and even playful cheerfulness. The last stanza she wrote, or rather rhymed, alluded to the near approach of her fate:
"I’m going through th' Eternal Gates  Ere June's sweet roses blow; Death's lovely angel leads me there.  And it is sweet to go."
She died a few days after, being yet young for one who had written so much—hardly thirty-eight. Two of her three daughters survive her irreparable loss: her husband returned from California to watch over her last months of sickness, but he could not save her. She was a devoted wife and mother, as lovely in her daily life as in her poems.
In 1849, the poems of Mrs. Osgood, superbly illustrated, In one volume, were published in Philadelphia.