In the columns of Frederick Douglass's paper, the _Anglo-African Magazine_, and the _Weekly Anglo-African_, has appeared at times, over the signature of "Ethiop," some of the raciest and most amusing essays to be found in the public journals of this country. As a sketch writer of historical scenes and historical characters,--choosing his own subjects, suggested by his own taste or sympathies,--few men are capable of greater or more successful efforts than William J. Wilson. In his imaginary visit to the "Afric-American Picture Gallery," he gives the following sketch of the head of Phillis Wheatley. "This picture hangs in the north-east corner of the gallery, and in good light, and is so decidedly one of the finest in the collection, whether viewed in an artistic light or in point of fact, that it is both a constant charm and study for me. The features, though indicative of a delicate organization, are of the most pleasing cast. The facial angle contains full ninety degrees; the forehead is finely formed, and the brain large; the nose is long, and the nostrils thin, while the eyes, though not large, are well set. To this may be added a small mouth, with lips prettily turned, and a chin--that perfection of beauty in the female face--delicately tapered from a throat and neck that are of themselves perfection. The whole make-up of this face is an index of healthy intellectual powers, combined with an active temperament, over which has fallen a slight tinge of religious pensiveness. Thus hangs Phillis Wheatley before you in the Afric-American Picture Gallery; and if we scrutinize her more closely through her career and her _works_, we shall find her truly an extraordinary person. Stolen at the tender age of seven years from the fond embraces of a mother, whose image never once faded from her memory, and ferried over in the _vile slave ship_ from Afric's sunny clime to the cold shores of America, and sold under the hammer to a Boston merchant--a delicate child, a girl, alone, desolate; a chilly, dreary world before her, a chain on her feet, and a thorn in her bosom, and an iron mask on her head, what chance, what opportunity was there for her to make physical, moral, or mental progress? In these respects, how get up to, or keep pace with, other and more favored people?--how get in the advance?--how ascend, at last, without a single competitor, the highest scale of human eminence? Phillis Wheatley did all, and more than this. A sold thing, a bought chattel at seven years, she mastered, notwithstanding, the English language in sixteen months. She carried on with her friends and acquaintances an extensive and elegant epistolary correspondence at _twelve_ years of age, composed her first poem at _fourteen_, became a proficient Latin scholar at _seventeen_, and published in England her book of poems, dedicated to the Countess of Huntington, at _nineteen_; and with the mantle of just fame upon her shoulders, sailed