wish that it should be otherwise with his readers here. Still, it
will legitimately interest those who like to know the causes, or, if
these may not be known, the sources, of things, to learn that the father
and mother of the first poet of his race in our language were negroes
without admixture of white blood. The father escaped from slavery in
Kentucky to freedom in Canada, while there was still no hope of freedom
otherwise; but the mother was freed by the events of the civil war, and
came North to Ohio, where their son was born at Dayton, and grew up with
such chances and mischances for mental training as everywhere befall the
children of the poor. He has told me that his father picked up the trade
of a plasterer, and when he had taught himself to read, loved chiefly to
read history. The boy's mother shared his passion for literature, with a
special love of poetry, and after the father died she struggled on in
more than the poverty she had shared with him. She could value the
faculty which her son showed first in prose sketches and attempts at
fiction, and she was proud of the praise and kindness they won him among
the people of the town, where he has never been without the warmest and
kindest friends.

In fact from every part of Ohio and from several cities of the adjoining
States, there came letters in cordial appreciation of the critical
recognition which it was my pleasure no less than my duty to offer Paul
Dunbar's work in another place. It seemed to me a happy omen for him
that so many people who had known him, or known of him, were glad of a
stranger's good word; and it was gratifying to see that at home he was
esteemed for the things he had done rather than because as the son of
negro slaves he had done them. If a prophet is often without honor in
his own country, it surely is nothing against him when he has it. In
this case it deprived me of the glory of a discoverer; but that is
sometimes a barren joy, and I am always willing to forego it.

What struck me in reading Mr. Dunbar's poetry was what had already
struck his friends in Ohio and Indiana, in Kentucky and Illinois. They
had felt, as I felt, that however gifted his race had proven itself in
music, in oratory, in several of the other arts, here was the first
instance of an American negro who had evinced innate distinction in
literature. In my criticism of his book I had alleged Dumas in France,
and I had forgetfully failed to allege the far greater Push