5817. NEGROES, Literary.—
Misery is
often the parent of the most affecting touches
in poetry. Among the blacks is misery enough,
God knows, but no poetry. Love is the peculiar
cestrum of the poet. Their love is ardent,
but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination.
Religion, indeed, has produced a Phyllis
Wheatley; [356]
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.—
Notes on Virginia. Washington ed. viii, 383.
Ford ed., iii, 246.
(1782)
