1842

Knapp, Samuel L. "Pocahontas." Female Biography: Containing Notices of Distinguished Women, in Different Nations and Ages. Philadelphia, 1842. Illustrations by W. Croome. Frontispiece, 100, 381-86. We noted the coming of these kinds of collections of model women with Hays 1807. Catherine Brown, who "must be ranked with Pocahontas," and Pocahontas herself are among dozens of women so distinguished here (Joan of Arc, Abigail Adams, Anne Boleyn, Queen Isabella, etc.). But Pocahontas is special: "In every age and nation, rare instances of benevolence have been found; but in the whole range of educated nations, no female can be produced that has superior claims to Pocahontas. . . . The whole of her story surpasses all that fiction could create, and the embellishments were not wanted along side of the simple character of this child of nature. A thousand artificial flowers, in gilded vases, have not, to the true botanist, the beauty and perfume of one in the garden where it grew; nor can the Geraldines and Cherubines, those monsters of loveliness in fiction, reach the unsophisticated elegance of character displayed in Pocahontas."
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