Although she was tenderly cared for, and not required to do any fatiguing work, her constitution never recovered from the shock it had received in early childhood. When she was about nineteen years old, her health failed so rapidly that physicians said it was necessary for her to take a sea-voyage. A son of Mr. Wheatley's was going to England on commercial business, and his mother proposed that Phillis should go with him. In England she received even more attention than had been bestowed upon her at home. Several of the nobility invited her to their houses; and her poems were published in a volume, with an engraved likeness of the author. In this picture she looks gentle and thoughtful, and the shape of her head denotes intellect. One of the engravings was sent to Mrs. Wheatley, who was delighted with it. When one of her relatives called, she pointed it out to her, and said, "Look at my Phillis! Does she not seem as if she would speak to me?" Still the young poetess was not spoiled by flattery. One of the relatives of Mrs. Wheatley informs us, that "not all the attention she received, nor all the honors that were heaped upon her, had the slightest influence upon her temper and deportment. She was still the same single-hearted, unsophisticated being." She addressed a poem to the Earl of Dartmouth, who was very kind to her during her visit to England. Having expressed a hope for the overthrow of tyranny, she says:-- "Should you, my Lord, while you peruse my song, Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung,-- Whence flow these wishes for the common good, By feeling hearts alone best understood,-- I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate, Was snatched from Afric's fancied happy state. What pangs excruciating must molest, What sorrows labor in my parent's breast! Steeled was that soul, and by no misery moved, That from a father seized his babe beloved. Such was my case; and can I then but pray Others may never feel tyrannic sway." The English friends of Phillis wished to present her to their king, George the Third, who was soon expected in London. But letters from America informed her that her beloved benefactress, Mrs. Wheatley, was in declining health, and greatly desired to see her. No honors could divert her mind from the friend of her childhood. She returned to Boston immediately. The good lady died soon after; Mr. Wheatley soon followed; and the daughter, the kind instructress of her youth, did not long survive. The son married and settled in England. For a short time Phillis stayed with a friend of her deceased benefactress; then she hired a room and lived by herself. It was a sad change for her. The war of the American Revolution broke out. In the autumn of 1776 General Washington had his head-quarters at Cambridge, Massachusetts; and the spirit moved Phillis to address some complimentary verses to him. In reply, he sent her the following courteous note:--