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examples of intelligence, talent, genius and piety might be cited among their ranks, and these are constantly multiplying.
Every indication of ability, on the part of any of their number, is deserving of special encouragement. Whatever is attempted in poetry or prose, in art or science, in professional or mechanical life, should be viewed with a friendly eye, and criticised in a lenient spirit. To measure them by the same standard as we measure the productions of the favored white inhabitants of the land would be manifestly unjust. The varying circumstances and conditions of life are to be taken strictly into account.
Hence, in reviewing the following Poems, the critic will remember that they are written by one young in years, and identified in complexion and destiny with a depressed and outcast race, and who has had to contend with a thousand disadvantages from earliest life. They certainly are very creditable to her, both in a literary and moral point of view, and indicate the possession of a talent which, if carefully cultivated and properly encouraged, cannot fail to secure for herself a poetic reputation, and to deepen the interest already so extensively felt in the liberation and enfranchise ment of the entire colored race. Though Miss Watkins has never been a slave, she has always resided in a slave State, Baltimore being her native city. A specimen of her prose writings is also appended. A few slight alterations excepted, the work is entirely her own. W. L. G.
Boston, August 15, 1854
