Oakland sunshine., 1915-10-16
STORY OF PHILLIS
WHEATLEY POEMS
Learned Critics Discuss Slave
Girls Literary Work.
VIEWS OF MANY NOTABLES.

Well Known New York Book Dealer
Publishes Three New Volumes Deal
ing With Writings of First Poet of
the Colored Race In America-Schom-
burg Wrote Introduction.
Charles Fred Hartmann, an anti
quarian and bookseller of New York
city, has brought out three volumes
de luxe dealing with Phillis Wheatley,
which collectors and book lovers will
appreciate because of their rarity. Mr..
Hartmann is a German scholar and a
former journalist who has Travelled
much in Europe and, like good jour
nalist. has made excellent use of his
eyes and ears. He has long had the
idea in mind of doing justice to the
little African poetess who in her day
was lionized by the best class Of Amer
leans and the nobility of England,
where she made an indelible impress
sion by her talents and genius as a
writer Of poetry, says John e. Bruce
Grit
There have been several editions Of
Miss Wheatley's poems published in
the United States and in England, but
there has been no such attempt made
as this of the altruistic German gentle
man to give this Negro girl her true
place in American literature-that of
the first American pOetess, for no
white woman in this country, so far
as we have been able to discover, had
achieved any distinction as a writer of
either prose or poetry at that period,
so that Phillis Wheatley was easily
first among American literary women
Of that day.
Mr.. Arthur A. Schomburg, secretary
Of the Negro Society For Historical
Research, who collaborated with Mr..
Hartmann in the compilation of these
books, in his introduction to the poems
and letters of Phillis Wheatley cites
Dr. Samuel Stanhope Smith Q810) in
his essay on the variety Of complexion
and figure in the human species, who
said, answering Jefferson's criticisms,
that religion had produced a "Phillis
Wheatley, but it could not produce a
poet" and added that her poems were
below the dignity of criticism"
To this DR.. Smith made answer as fol
lows: 1.-THE poems of Phillis Wheatley,
a poor African slave taught to read by
the indulgent piety of her master, are
Of in mi Rnt
will demand of Mr.. Jefferson or any
other man who is acquainted with
American planters how many of those
could have written poems equal to
those of Phillis Wheatley" page 269).
Mr.. Schomburg further along in his in
PRODUCTION states that many Of the
poems Of this girl were quoted by
Thomas ClarksOn, the great English
abolitionist, in his celebrated Latin
essay, which won the first prize at
Cambridge, 1885, on 1.-The Slavery and
Commerce of the Human Species" He
quotes also Lydia Maria Child, who
said of her poems: Jefferson denies
that these poems have any merit, but l
think he would have judged differently
had he been perfectly unprecedented"
1t would be indeed absurd to put
Phillis Wheatley in competition with
Mrs. Hemans, Mary Hewitt, Mrs.
Sigourney, Miss Gould and other mod
ern writer's, but her productions GER
tainly appear very respectable in COM
parisOn with most of the poetry Of that
day, and later critic, J. B. Earnest,
Jr., NJ. A, who says: IAN excellent lit
tie volume Of poems by Negro girl
who was a slave in Massachusetts.
The work cannot approach the excel
lence of the poetry written by Paul l..
Dunbar, yet it is wonderful poetry for
Negro slave of the eighteenth cen
tury." Mr.. Jefferson, it appears, did
not accept DR.. Smiths challenge. The
reasons are obvious.
The lord mayor Of London, Mr..
Brooke Watson, was so well pleased
with Phillis' poems on her visit to
England, where she was the guest Of
the Countess of Huntingdon, to whom
she dedicated her book of poems, which
was published in 1773, that he pre-
scented to her as a mark Of his appre-
citation of her talents a FOULS edition
in folio of Millions Paradise / ost,"
which is now the property of the Har-
ward library. Mr.. Schomburg has done
well in his Introduction and has given
us many important facts about Phillis
which have not hitherto been put in
such compact form. Mr.. Hartmann
has done even better in making posi-
BILE these three books about Phillis
Wheatley.