Page:A cyclopaedia of female biography.djvu/791

 it cannot be doubted that they exhibit the most favourable evidence on record, of the capacity of the African intellect for improvement. The classic allusions are numerous, and imply a wide compass of reading, a correct judgment, good taste, and a tenaceous memory. Her deportment is represented to have been gentle and unpretending, her temper amiable, her feelings refined, and her religious impressions strong and constant."

After her return, Phillis married a coloured man, named Peters, who proved unworthy of her, and made the rest of her life very unhappy. She died at Boston, in great poverty, in 1784, leaving three children. She was but thirty>one years old at the time of her decease. An edition of her poems was published in 1778, and another, with a biography of her, in 1835. Besides these poems, she wrote many which were never published; and one of these, addressed and sent to General Washington, soon after he took command of the American army, gives her a more enduring fame than all her printed pieces.

WHITMAN, SARAH HELEN, a native of Providence, Rhode Island. Her maiden name was Power. Her father died when she was a child. Her mother being thus left to the solitariness of a widow's lot, devoted herself with unwearied care to the education of her daughter. The health of Miss Power was constitutionally delicate, while her mental faculties developed with that quickness and brilliancy which surely indicates the predominancy of imagination. Poetry was the favourite literature of her youthful studies, and she soon manifested the propensity, which the Muse will foster in those she elects her votaries, to "write rhyme."

In 1828, Miss Power was married to John W. Whitman, a young lawyer of Boston. The marriage was one of affection, induced by the congeniality of poetical and literary tastes, but the union was in a few years dissolved by the death of Mr. Whitman, whose widow then returned to her mother's arms and her early home, at Providence, where she now resides. Her poetry has appeared in the periodicals and annuals over the signature "Helen," and always excited attention by its richness of imagery, and sweet melodious versification. She has an uncommonly retentive memory, and elaborates her poems in a rather peculiar manner; arranging, correcting, and finishing them as compositions perfectly and wholly in her mind, be they ever so long, before committing a line to paper. By this means she has no unfinished performances; those that she does not complete at once are entirely abandoned.

WHITTLESEY, ABIGAIL GOODRICH, known as the benefactress of mothers, was born in Ridgefield, Connecticut, where her father, the Rev. Samuel Goodrich, was then setttled [sic] as pastor over the Congregational Church. He afterwards removed to Berlin, in that state, where Miss Goodrich was chiefly educated. Her family are remarkable for piety and talents; among these may be named her two brothers, the Rev. Charles A. Goodrich and the Hon. Samuel G. Goodrich, (Peter Parley,) who have long been known as able and interesting writers.

Miss Goodrich, under her wise and pious instructors, became in