two "gray stones," after the manner of Ossian, with the touching
inscription which this volume records; and the feet of strangers, moved
by pity and humanity, have worn a path to her grave which he who covets
most in the world's memory might even envy.

The tombstones (which the fathers of that ancient town should shame to
have recorded) have been battered and broken for relics, till much of
the inscription is gone already, and the footstone entirely removed.

But I have noted that Elizabeth Whitman was of superior merit, and had
been recognized as a child of genius in its most earnest sense. From her
earliest childhood she had been remarkable for a deeply poetic
temperament, and it appears she was recognized as a poet of no common
order by the most distinguished writers of the day--Barlow, Trumbull,
and others. Why her name and writings have not been handed down to us by
those who have essayed to make careful compilations of the literature of
the past century, I am unable to divine. She was a relative as well of
the last-named poet, Trumbull, on the side of his mother, who was Sarah
Whitman, a sister of Rev. Elnathan Whitman, the father of Elizabeth.

I find in the journals of that time the following poem, which, though
not the best of her productions, certainly gives evidence of much poetic
power:--

TO MR. BARLOW.

_By his Friend_ ELIZABETH WHITMAN, _on New Year's Day_, 1783.

Should every wish the heart of friendship knows
Be to your ear conveyed in rustic prose,