more noble to make a name for one's self; and our heart tells us that among our young readers there is more than one who will exclaim with ardor, and with a firm resolution to fulfil his promise, I, too, shall make a name.
PLACIDO.
In the year 1830, there was a young man in Havana,
son of a woman who had been brought, when
a child, from the coast of Africa, and sold as a slave.
Being with a comparatively kind master, he soon found
opportunity to begin developing the genius which at a
later period showed itself. The young slave was called
Placido. He took an especial interest in poetry, and
often wrote poems that were set to music and sung in
the drawing rooms of the most refined companies
which assembled in the city. His young master paying
his addresses to a rich heiress, the slave was requested
to write a poem embodying the master's passion
for the young lady. Placido acquitted himself to the
entire satisfaction of the lover, who copied the epistle
in his own hand, and sent it on its mission. The
slave's compositions were so much admired that they
found their way into the newspaper; but no one knew
the negro as the author. In 1838, these poems, together
with a number which had never appeared in
print, were intrusted to a white man, who sent them to
England, where they were published and much praised
for the talent and scholarly attainment which they
