Her poems seemed to have such rare merit that men marveled that a slave could possess such a productive imagination, enlightened mind, and poetical genius.

The publishers were so much surprised that they sought reassurance as to the authenticity of the poems from such persons as James Bowdoin, Harrison Gray, and John Hancock.[1] Glancing at her works, the modern critic would readily say that she was not a poetess, just as the student of political economy would dub Adam Smith a failure as an economist.

A bright college freshman who has studied introductory economics can write a treatise as scientific as the _Wealth of Nations_.

The student of history, however, must not "despise the day of small things." Judged according to the standards of her time, Phyllis Wheatley was an exceptionally intellectual person.
[Footnote 1: Baldwin, _Observations_, etc., p.

18; Wright, _Poems of Phyllis Wheatley_, Introduction.] The other distinguished Negro, Benjamin Banneker, was born in Baltimore County, Maryland, November 9, 1731, near the village of Ellicott Mills.