Project Gutenberg's The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6), by Aphra Behn This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) Author: Aphra Behn Editor: Montague Summers Release Date: May 5, 2007 [EBook #21339] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF APHRA BEHN *** Produced by Louise Hope, Jonathan Ingram and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net [Transcriber's Note: "The Rover" Parts I and II are separate plays. Part II is a sequel. In transcriptions of original documents, letters printed as superscripts are shown in braces { }. Descriptions of illustrations are given in parentheses ( ). In the original book, all Notes were printed in a block at the end of the volume. For this e-text they have been divided among their respective plays, retaining the distinction between "Notes on the Text" and "Notes: Critical and Explanatory". Errors and anomalies are similarly listed at the end of the section in which they are found: the General Introduction and each of the four plays. Relevant Transcriber's Notes are repeated at the beginning of each section. Students should note that the editorial material (1915) is sometimes significantly at variance with current (2007) Behn scholarship.] [Illustration: (Portrait of Aphra Behn)] THE WORKS of APHRA BEHN Edited by MONTAGUE SUMMERS VOL. I The Rover (Part I); or, The Banish'd Cavaliers The Rover (Part II); or, The Banish'd Cavaliers The Dutch Lover The Round-Heads; or, The Good Old Cause [Illustration: (Publisher's Device)] LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN STRATFORD-ON-AVON: A. H. BULLEN MCMXV To Francis James, this the first collected edition of Aphra Behn. CONTENTS. Page Preface xiii Introduction xv The Rover (Part I); or, The Banish'd Cavaliers 1 The Rover (Part II); or, The Banish'd Cavaliers 109 The Dutch Lover 215 The Roundheads; or, The Good Old Cause 331 Notes 427 PREFACE. It is perhaps not altogether easy to appreciate the multiplicity of difficulties with which the first editor of Mrs. Behn has to cope. Not only is her life strangely mysterious and obscure, but the rubbish of half-a-dozen romancing biographers must needs be cleared away before we can even begin to see daylight. Matter which had been for two centuries accepted on seemingly the soundest authority is proven false; her family name itself was, until my recent discovery, wrongly given; the very question of her portrait has its own vexed (and until now unrecognized) dilemmas. In fine there seems no point connected with our first professional authoress which did not call for the nicest investigation and the most incontrovertible proof before it could be accepted without suspicion or reserve. The various collections of her plays and novels which appeared in the first half of the eighteenth century give us nothing; nay, they rather cumber our path with the trash of discredited _Memoirs_. Pearson's reprint (1871) is entirely valueless: there is no attempt, however meagre, at editing, no effort to elucidate a single allusion; moreover, several of the Novels-- and the Poems in their entirety-- are lacking. I am happy to give (Vol. V) one of the Novels, and that not the least important, _The History of the Nun_, for the first time in any collected edition. Poems, in addition to those which appeared in Mrs. Behn's lifetime, and were never reprinted after, have been gathered with great care from many sources (of which some were almost forgotten). It is hoped that this new issue of Mrs. Behn may prove adequate. Any difficulties in the editing have been more than amply compensated for by the interest shown by many friends. Foremost, my best thanks are due to Mr. Bullen, whose life-long experience of the minutiae of editing our best dramatic literature, has been ungrudgingly at my service throughout, to the no small advantage of myself and my work. Mr. Edmund Gosse, C.B., has shown the liveliest interest in the book from its inception, and I owe him most grateful recognition for his kindly encouragement and aid. Nay, more, he did not spare to lend me treasured items from his library so rich in first, and boasting unique, editions of Mrs. Behn. Mr. G. Thorn Drury, K.C., never wearied of answering my enquiries, and in discussion solved many a knotty point. To him I am obliged for the transcript of Mrs. Behn's letter to Waller's daughter-in-law, and also the Satire on Dryden. He even gave of his valuable time to read through the Memoir and from the superabundance of his knowledge made suggestions of the first importance. The unsurpassed library of Mr. T. J. Wise, the well-known bibliographer, was freely at my disposal. In other cases where I have received any assistance in clearing a difficulty I have made my acknowledgement in the note itself. MEMOIR OF MRS. BEHN. The personal history of Aphra Behn, the first Englishwoman to earn her livelihood by authorship, is unusually interesting but very difficult to unravel and relate. In dealing with her biography writers at different periods have rushed headlong to extremes, and we now find that the pendulum has swung to its fullest stretch. On the one hand, we have prefixed to a collection of the _Histories and Novels_, published in 1696, 'The Life of Mrs. Behn written by one of the Fair Sex', a frequently reprinted (and even expanded) compilation crowded with romantic incidents that savour all too strongly of the Italian novella, with sentimental epistolography and details which can but be accepted cautiously and in part. On the other there have recently appeared two revolutionary essays by Dr. Ernest Bernbaum of Harvard, 'Mrs. Behn's _Oroonoko_', first printed in _Kittredge Anniversary Papers_, 1913; and-- what is even more particularly pertinent-- 'Mrs. Behn's Biography a Fiction,' _Publications of the Modern Language Association of America_, xxviii, 3: both afterwards issued as separate pamphlets, 1913. In these, the keen critical sense of the writer has apparently been so jarred by the patent incongruities, the baseless fiction, nay, the very fantasies (such as the fairy pavilion seen floating upon the Channel), which, imaginative and invented flotsam that they are, accumulated and were heaped about the memory of Aphra Behn, that he is apt to regard almost every record outside those of her residence at Antwerp[1] with a suspicion which is in many cases surely unwarranted and undue. Having energetically cleared away the more peccant rubbish, Dr. Bernbaum became, it appears to us, a little too drastic, and had he then discriminated rather than swept clean, we were better able wholly to follow the conclusions at which he arrives. He even says that after '1671'[2] when 'she began to write for the stage ... such meagre contemporary notices as we find of her are critical rather than biographical'. This is a very partial truth; from extant letters,[3] to which Dr. Bernbaum does not refer, we can gather much of Mrs. Behn's literary life and circumstances. She was a figure of some note, and even if we had no other evidence it seems impossible that her contemporaries should have glibly accepted the fiction of a voyage to Surinam and a Dutch husband named Behn who had never existed. [Footnote 1: _Kalendar of State Papers, Domestic_, 1666-7. --ed. Mrs. M. A. E. Green (1864).] [Footnote 2: This is inaccurate. Mrs. Behn's first play, _The Forc'd Marriage_, was produced in December, 1670.] [Footnote 3: e.g. to Waller's daughter-in-law; to Tonson. cf. also the Warrant of 12 August, 1682; the Pindaric to Burnet, &c.] Ayfara, or Aphara[4] (Aphra), Amis or Amies, the daughter of John and Amy Amis or Amies, was baptized together with her brother Peter in the Parish Church of SS. Gregory and Martin, Wye, 10 July, 1640, presumably by Ambrose Richmore, curate of Wye at that date.[5] Up to this time Aphra's maiden name has been stated to be Johnson, and she is asserted to have been the daughter of a barber, John Johnson. That the name was not Johnson (an ancient error) is certain from the baptismal register, wherein, moreover, the 'Quality, Trade, or Profession' is left blank; that her father was a barber rests upon no other foundation than a MS. note of Lady Winchilsea.[6] Mr. Gosse, in a most valuable article (_Athenaeum_, 6 September, 1884), was the first to correct the statement repeatedly made that Mrs. Behn came from 'the City of Canterbury in Kent'. He tells how he acquired a folio volume containing the MS. poems of Anne, Countess of Winchilsea,[7] 'copied about 1695 under her eye and with innumerable notes and corrections in her autograph'. In a certain poem entitled _The Circuit of Apollo_[8] the following lines occur:-- And standing where sadly he now might descry From the banks of the Stowre the desolate Wye, He lamented for Behn, o'er that place of her birth, And said amongst Women there was not on the earth, Her superior in fancy, in language, or witt, Yet own'd that a little too loosely she writt. [Footnote 4: Aphra now appears on Mrs. Behn's gravestone, and is the accepted form. This is, however, in all probability the third inscription. _The Antiquities of Westminster_ (1711), quoting the inscription, gives Aphara. Sometime in the eighteenth century a certain Thomas Waine restored the inscription and added to the two lines two more:-- Great Poetess, O thy stupendous lays The world admires and the Muses praise. The name was then Aphara. The _Biog. Brit._, whilst insisting on Aphara as correct and citing the stone as evidence, none the less prints Apharra. Her works usually have Mrs. A. Behn. One Quarto misprints 'Mrs. Anne Behn'. There are, of course, many variants of the name. Afara, and Afra are common. Oldys in his MS. notes on Langbaine writes Aphra or Aphora, whilst the _Muses Mercury_, September, 1707, has a special note upon a poem by Mrs. Behn to say 'this Poetess' true Name was Apharra.' Even Aphaw (Behen, in the 1682 warrant,) and Fyhare (in a petition) occur.] [Footnote 5: He died in 1642.] [Footnote 6: The Vicar of Wye, the Rev. Edgar Lambert, in answer to my inquiries courteously writes: 'In company with Mr. C. S. Orwin, whose book, _The History of Wye Church and College_, has just been published, I have closely examined the register and find no mention of "Johnson", nor of the fact that Aphara Amis' father was a "barber".'] [Footnote 7: Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea (1660-1720), sometime Maid of Honour to Queen Mary of Modena. She had true lyric genius. For a generous appreciation see Gosse, _Gossip in a Library_ (1891).] [Footnote 8: Then unprinted but now included in the very voluminous edition of Lady Winchilsea's _Poems_, ed. M. Reynolds, Chicago, 1903.] To these is appended this note: 'Mrs. Behn was Daughter to a Barber, who liv'd formerly in Wye, a little Market Town (now much decay'd) in Kent. Though the account of her life before her Works pretends otherwise; some Persons now alive Do testify upon their Knowledge that to be her Original.' It is a pity that whilst the one error concerning Aphra's birthplace is thus remedied, the mistake as to the nature of her father's calling should have been initiated. Aphra Amis, then, was born early in July, 1640, at Wye, Kent. When she was of a tender age the Amis family left England for Surinam; her father, who seems to have been a relative of Francis, Lord Willoughby of Parham, sometime administrator of several British colonies in the West Indies, having been promised a post of some importance in these dependencies. John Amis died on the voyage out, but his widow and children necessarily continued their journey, and upon their arrival were accommodated at St. John's Hill, one of the best houses in the district. Her life and adventures in Surinam Aphra has herself realistically told in that wonderfully vivid narrative, _Oroonoko_. [9] The writer's bent had already shown itself. She kept a journal as many girls will, she steeped herself in the interminable romances fashionable at that time, in the voluminous _Pharamond_, _Cleopatre_, _Cassandre_, _Ibrahim_, and, above all, _Le Grand Cyrus_, so loved and retailed to the annoyance of her worthy husband by Mrs. Pepys; with a piece of which Dorothy Osborne was 'hugely pleased'. [Footnote 9: In 'Mrs. Behn's _Oroonoko_' Dr. Bernbaum elaborately endeavours to show that this story is pure fiction. His arguments, in many cases advanced with no little subtlety and precision, do not appear (to me at least) to be convincing. We have much to weigh in the contrary balance: Mrs. Behn's manifest first-hand knowledge of, and extraordinary interest in, colonial life; her reiterated asseverations that every experience detailed in this famous novel is substantially true; the assent of all her contemporaries. It must further be remembered that Aphra was writing in 1688, of a girlhood coloured by and seen through the enchanted mists of a quarter of a century. That there are slight discrepancies is patent; the exaggerations, however, are not merely pardonable but perfectly natural. One of Dr. Bernbaum's most crushing arguments, when sifted, seems to resolve itself into the fact that whilst writing _Oroonoko_ Mrs. Behn evidently had George Warren's little book, _An Impartial Description of Surinam_ (London, 1667), at hand. Could anything be more reasonable than to suppose she would be intimately acquainted with a volume descriptive of her girlhood's home? Again, Dr. Bernbaum bases another line of argument on the assumption that Mrs. Behn's father was a barber. Hence the appointment of such a man to an official position in Surinam was impossible, and, 'if Mrs. Behn's father was not sent to Surinam, the only reason she gives for being there disappears'. We know from recent investigation that John Amis did not follow a barber's trade, but was probably of good old stock. Accordingly, the conclusions drawn by Dr. Bernbaum from this point cannot now be for a moment maintained.] It was perhaps from the reading of La Calprenede and Mlle de Scuderi Aphra gained that intimate knowledge of French which served her well and amply in after years during her literary life; at any rate she seems early to have realized her dramatic genius and to have begun a play drawn from one of the most interesting episodes in _Cleopatre_, the love story of the Scythian King Alcamene, scenes which, when they had 'measured three thousand leagues of spacious ocean', were, nearly a quarter of a century later, to be taken out of her desk and worked up into a baroque and fanciful yet strangely pleasing tragi-comedy, _The Young King_. In Surinam she witnessed the fortunes and fate of the Royal Slave, Oroonoko, of whom she writes (with all due allowance for pardonable exaggeration and purely literary touches), so naturally and feelingly, that 'one of the Fair Sex' with some acerbity makes it her rather unnecessary business to clear Aphra from any suspicion of a liaison. It was Surinam which supplied the cognate material for the vivid comedy, the broad humour and early colonial life, photographic in its realism, of _The Widow Ranter; or, The History of Bacon in Virginia_. Mistakes there may be, errors and forgetfulness, but there are a thousand touches which only long residence and keen observation could have so deftly characterized. We now approach a brief yet important period in Mrs. Behn's life, which unless we are content to follow (with an acknowledged diffidence and due reservations) the old Memoir and scattered tradition, we find ourselves with no sure means whatsoever of detailing. It seems probable, however, that about the close of 1663, owing no doubt to the Restoration and the subsequent changes in affairs, the Amis family returned to England, settling in London, where Aphra, meeting a merchant of Dutch extraction named Behn, so fascinated him by her wit and comeliness that he offered her his hand and fortune. During her married life she is said to have been in affluence, and even to have appeared at the gay licentious Court, attracting the notice of and amusing the King himself by her anecdotes and cleverness of repartee; but when her husband died, not impossibly of the plague in the year of mortality, 1665, she found herself helpless, without friends or funds. In her distress it was to the Court she applied for assistance; and owing to her cosmopolitan experience and still more to the fact that her name was Dutch, and that she had been by her husband brought into close contact with the Dutch, she was selected as a meet political agent to visit Holland and there be employed in various secret and semi-official capacities. The circumstance that her position and work could never be openly recognized nor acknowledged by the English government was shortly to involve her in manifold difficulties, pecuniary and otherwise, which eventually led to her perforce abandoning so unstable and unsatisfactory a commission. In the old _History of the Life and Memoirs of Mrs. Behn_ (1696; and with additions 1698, &c.), ushered into the world by Charles Gildon, a romance full as amorous and sensational as any novel of the day, has been woven about her sojourn at Antwerp. A 'Spark whom we must call by the name of _Vander Albert_ of _Utrecht_' is given to Aphra as a fervent lover, and from him she obtains political secrets to be used to the English advantage. He has a rival, an antique yclept Van Bruin, 'a _Hogen Mogen_ ... _Nestorean_' admirer, and the intrigue becomes fast and furious. On one occasion Albert, imagining he is possessing his mistress, is cheated with a certain Catalina; and again when he has bribed an ancient duenna to admit him to Aphra's bed, he is surprised there by a frolicsome gallant. [10] There are even included five letters from Mrs. Behn and a couple of ridiculous effusions purporting to be Van Bruin's. It would seem that all this pure fiction, the sweepings of Aphra's desk, was intended by her to have been worked up into a novel; both letters and narrative are too good to be the unaided composition of Gildon himself, but possibly Mrs. Behn in her after life may have elaborated and told him these erotic episodes to conceal the squalor and misery of the real facts of her early Dutch mission. It is proved indeed in aim and circumstance to have been far other. [Footnote 10: Both these incidents are the common property of Italian novelle and our own stage. Although not entirely impossible, they would appear highly suspicious in any connection.] Her chief business was to establish an intimacy with William Scott, son of Thomas Scott, the regicide who had been executed 17 October, 1660. This William, who had been made a fellow of All Souls by the Parliamentary Visitors of Oxford, and graduated B.C.L. 4 August, 1648, was quite ready to become a spy in the English service and to report on the doings of the English exiles who were not only holding treasonable correspondence with traitors at home and plotting against the King, but even joining with the Dutch foe to injure their native land. Scott was extremely anxious for his own pardon and, in addition, eager to earn any money he could. Aphra then, taking with her some forty pounds in cash, all she had, set sail with Sir Anthony Desmarces [11] either at the latter end of July or early in August, 1666, and on 16 August she writes from Antwerp to say she has had an interview with William Scott (dubbed in her correspondence Celadon), even having gone so far as to take coach and ride a day's journey to see him secretly. Though at first diffident, he is very ready to undertake the service, only it will be necessary for her to enter Holland itself and reside on the spot, not in Flanders, as Colonel Bampfield, who was looked upon as head of the exiled English at the Hague, watched Scott with most jealous care and a growing suspicion. Aphra, whose letters give a vivid picture of the spy's life with its risks and impecuniosity, addresses herself to two correspondents, Tom Killigrew and James Halsall, cupbearer to the King. [Footnote 11: He was at Margate 25 July, and at Bruges 7 August.] On 27 August she was still at Antwerp, and William Scott wrote to her there but did not venture to say much lest the epistle might miscarry. He asks for a cypher, a useful and indeed necessary precaution in so difficult circumstances. It was about this time that Mrs. Behn began to employ the name of Astrea, which, having its inception in a political code, was later to be generally used by her and recognized throughout the literary world. Writing to Halsall, she says that she has been unable to effect anything, but she urgently demands that money be sent, and confesses she has been obliged even to pawn her ring to pay messengers. On 31 August she writes to Killigrew declaring she can get no answer from Halsall, and explaining that she has twice had to disburse Scott's expenses, amounting in all to L20, out of her own pocket, whilst her personal debts total another L25 or L30, and living itself is ten guilders a day. If she is to continue her work satisfactorily, L80 at least will be needed to pay up all her creditors; moreover, as a preliminary and a token of good faith, Scott's official pardon must be forwarded without compromise or delay. Scott himself was, it seems, playing no easy game at this juncture, for a certain Carney, resident at Antwerp, 'an unsufferable, scandalous, lying, prating fellow', piqued at not being able to ferret out the intrigue, had gone so far as to molest poor Celadon and threaten him with death, noising up and down meanwhile the fact of his clandestine rendezvous with Aphra. No money, however, was forthcoming from England, and on 4 September Mrs. Behn writing again to Killigrew tells him plainly that she is reduced to great straits, and unless funds are immediately provided all her work will be nugatory and vain. The next letter, dated 14 September, gives Halsall various naval information. On 17 September she is obliged to importune Killigrew once more on the occasion of sending him a letter from Scott dealing with political matters. Halsall, she asserts, will not return any answer, and although she is only in private lodgings she is continually being thwarted and vilipended by Carney, 'whose tongue needs clipping'. Four days later she transmits a five page letter from Scott to Halsall. On 25 September she sends under cover yet another letter from Scott with the news of De Ruyter's illness. Silence was her only answer. Capable and indeed ardent agent as she was, there can be no excuse for her shameful, nay, criminal, neglect at the hands of the government she was serving so faithfully and well. Her information[12] seems to have been received with inattention and disregard; whether it was that culpable carelessness which wrecked so many a fair scheme in the second Charles' days, or whether secret enemies at home steadfastly impeded her efforts remains an open question. In any case on 3 November she sends a truly piteous letter to Lord Arlington, Secretary of State, and informs him she is suffering the extremest want and penury. All her goods are pawned, Scott is in prison for debt, and she herself seems on the point of going to the common gaol. The day after Christmas Aphra wrote to Lord Arlington for the last time. She asks for a round L100 as delays have naturally doubled her expenses and she has had to obtain credit. Now she is only anxious to return home, and she declares that if she did not so well know the justness of her cause and complaint, she would be stark wild with her hard treatment. Scott, she adds, will soon be free.[13] Even this final appeal obtained no response, and at length-- well nigh desperate-- Mrs. Behn negotiated in England, from a certain Edward Butler, a private loan of some L150 which enabled her to settle her affairs and start for home in January, 1667. [Footnote 12: There do not appear to be any grounds for the oft-repeated assertions that Mrs. Behn communicated the intelligence when the Dutch were planning an attack (afterwards carried out) on the Thames and Medway squadrons, and that her warning was scoffed at.] [Footnote 13: Had he been imprisoned for political reasons it is impossible that there should have been so speedy a prospect of release.] But the chapter of her troubles was by no means ended. Debt weighed like a millstone round her neck. As the weary months went by and Aphra was begging in vain for her salary, long overdue, to be paid, Butler, a harsh, dour man with heart of stone, became impatient and resorted to drastic measures, eventually flinging her into a debtor's prison. There are extant three petitions, undated indeed, but which must be referred to the early autumn of 1668, from Mrs. Behn to Charles II. Sadly complaining of two years' bitter sufferings, she prays for an order to Mr. May[14] or Mr. Chiffinch[15] to satisfy Butler, who declares he will stop at nothing if he is not paid within a week. In a second document she sets out the reasons for her urgent claim of L150. Both Mr. Halsall and Mr. Killigrew know how justly it is her due, and she is hourly threatened with an execution. To this is annexed a letter from the poor distracted woman to Killigrew, which runs as follows:-- Sr. if you could guess at the affliction of my soule you would I am sure Pity me 'tis to morrow that I must submitt my self to a Prison the time being expird & though I indeauerd all day yesterday to get a ffew days more I can not because they say they see I am dallied w{th} all & so they say I shall be for euer: so I can not reuoke my doome I haue cryd myself dead & could find in my hart to break through all & get to y{e} king & neuer rise till he weare pleasd to pay this; but I am sick & weake & vnfitt for yt; or a Prison; I shall go to morrow: But I will send my mother to y{e} king w{th} a Pitition for I see euery body are words: & I will not perish in a Prison from whence he swears I shall not stirr till y{e} uttmost farthing be payd: & oh god, who considers my misery & charge too, this is my reward for all my great promises, & my indeauers. Sr if I have not the money to night you must send me som thing to keepe me in Prison for I will not starue. A. Behn. Endorsed: For Mr. Killigrew this. [Footnote 14: Baptist May, Esq. (1629-98), Keeper of the Privy Purse.] [Footnote 15: William Chiffinch, confidential attendant and pimp to Charles II.] [Illustration: (Letter transcribed in body text)] There was no immediate response however, even to this pathetic and heart-broken appeal, and in yet a third petition she pleads that she may not be left to suffer, but that the L150 be sent forthwith to Edward Butler, who on Lord Arlington's declaring that neither order nor money had been transmitted, threw her straightway into gaol. It does not seem, however, that her imprisonment was long. Whether Killigrew, of whom later she spoke in warm and admiring terms, touched at last, bestirred himself on her behalf and rescued her from want and woe, whether Mrs. Amy Amis won a way to the King, whether help came by some other path, is all uncertain. In any case the debt was duly paid, and Aphra Behn not improbably received in addition some compensation for the hardships she had undergone. 'The rest of her Life was entirely dedicated to Pleasure and Poetry; the Success in which gain'd her the Acquaintance and Friendship of the most Sensible Men of the Age, and the Love of not a few of different Characters; for tho' a Sot have no Portion of Wit of his own, he yet, like old Age, covets what he cannot enjoy.' More than dubious and idly romancing as the early _Memoirs_ are, nevertheless this one sentence seems to sum up the situation thenceforth pretty aptly, if in altogether too general terms. Once extricated from these main difficulties Mrs. Behn no doubt took steps to insure that she should not, if it lay in her power, be so situated again. I would suggest, indeed, that about this period, 1669, she accepted the protection of some admirer. Who he may have been at first, how many more there were than one, how long the various amours endured, it is idle to speculate. She was for her period as thoroughly unconventional as many another woman of letters has been since in relation to later times and manners, as unhampered and free as her witty successor, Mrs. de la Riviere Manley, who lived for so long as Alderman Barber's kept mistress and died in his house. Mrs. Behn has given us poetic pseudonyms for many of her lovers, Lycidas, Lysander, Philaster, Amintas, Alexis, and the rest, but these extended over many years, and attempts at identification, however interesting, are fruitless.[16] [Footnote 16: Amintas repeatedly stands for John Hoyle. In _Our Cabal_, however (_vide_ Vol. VI, p. 160), Hoyle is dubbed Lycidas.] There has been no more popular mistake, nor yet one more productive, not merely of nonsense and bad criticism but even of actual malice and evil, than the easy error of confounding an author with the characters he creates. Mrs. Behn has not been spared. Some have superficially argued from the careless levity of her heroes: the Rover, Cayman, Wittmore, Wilding, Frederick; and again from the delightful insouciance of Lady Fancy, Queen Lucy, and the genteel coquette Mirtilla, or the torrid passions of Angelica Bianca, Miranda and la Nuche; that Aphra herself was little better, in fact a great deal worse, than a common prostitute, and that her works are undiluted pornography. In her own day, probably for reasons purely political, a noisy clique assailed her on the score of impropriety; a little later came Pope with his jaded couplet The stage how loosely does Astrea tread Who fairly puts all characters to bed; and the attack was reinforced by an anecdote of Sir Walter Scott and some female relative who, after having insisted upon the great novelist lending her Mrs. Behn, found the _Novels_ and _Plays_ too loose for her perusal, albeit in the heyday of the lady's youth they had been popular enough. As one might expect, Miss Julia Kavanagh, in the mid-Victorian era[17] (_English Women of Letters_ 1863), is sad and sorry at having to mention Mrs. Behn-- 'Even if her life remained pure,[18] it is amply evident her mind was "tainted to the very core. Grossness was congenial to her.... Mrs. Behn's indelicacy was useless and worse than useless, the superfluous addition of a corrupt mind and vitiated taste".' One can afford to smile at and ignore these modest outbursts, but it is strange to find so sound and sane a critic as Dr. Doran writing of Aphra Behn as follows: 'No one equalled this woman in downright nastiness save Ravenscroft and Wycherley.... With Dryden she vied in indecency and was not overcome.... She was a mere harlot, who danced through uncleanness and dared them [the male dramatists] to follow.' Again, we have that she was 'a wanton hussy'; her 'trolloping muse' shamefacedly 'wallowed in the mire'; but finally the historian is bound to confess 'she was never dull'. [Footnote 17: _The Retrospective Review_, however (Vol. I, November, 1852), has an article, 'Mrs. Behn's Dramatic Writings,' which warmly praises her comedies. The writer very justly observes that 'they exhibit a brilliance of conversation in the dialogue, and a skill in arranging the plot and producing striking situations, in which she has few equals.' He frequently insists upon her 'great skill in conducting the intrigue of her pieces', and with no little acumen declares that 'her comedies may be cited as the most perfect models of the drama of the latter half of the seventeenth century.'] [Footnote 18: Which it certainly was not secundum mid-Victorian morals.] The morality of her plays is _au fond_ that of many a comedy of to-day: that the situations and phrasing in which she presents her amorous intrigues and merry cuckoldoms do not conform with modern exposition of these themes we also show yet would not name, is but our surface gloss of verbal reticence; we hint, point, and suggest, where she spoke out broad words, frank and free; the _motif_ is one and the same. If we judge Mrs. Behn's dramatic output in the only fair way by comparing it legitimately with the theatre of her age, we simply shall not find that superfluity of naughtiness the critics lead us to expect and deplore. There are not infrequent scenes of Dryden, of Wycherley, of Vanbrugh, Southerne, Otway, Ravenscroft, Shadwell, D'Urfey, Crowne, full as daring as anything Aphra wrote; indeed, in some instances, far more wanton. Particularizing, it has been objected that although in most Restoration comedies the hero, however vicious (even such a mad scrapegrace as Dryden's Woodall), is decently noosed up in wedlock when the curtain is about to fall, Mrs. Behn's Willmore (_Rover II_), Gayman (_The Lucky Chance_), Wittmore (_Sir Patient Fancy_) end up without a thought of, save it be jest at, the wedding ring. But even this freedom can be amply paralleled. In the Duke of Buckingham's clever alteration of _The Chances_ (1682), we have Don John pairing off with the second Constantia without a hint of matrimony; we have the intrigue of Bellmour and Laetitia in Congreve's _The Old Bachelor_ (1693), the amours of Horner in _The Country Wife_ (1675), of Florio and Artall in Crowne's _City Politics_ (1683), and many another beside. As for the cavilling crew who carped at her during her life Mrs. Behn has answered them and she was thoroughly competent so to do. Indeed, as she somewhat tartly remarked to Otway on the occasion of certain prudish dames pleasing to take offence at _The Soldier's Fortune_, she wondered at the impudence of any of her sex that would pretend to understand the thing called bawdy. A clique were shocked at her; it was not her salaciousness they objected to but her success. In December, 1670, Mrs. Behn's first play,[19] _The Forc'd Marriage; or, the Jealous Bridegroom_, was produced at the Duke's Theatre, Lincoln's Inn Field's, with a strong cast. It is a good tragi-comedy of the bastard Fletcherian Davenant type, but she had not hit upon her happiest vein of comedy, which, however, she approached in a much better piece, _The Amorous Prince_, played in the autumn of 1671 by the same company. Both these had excellent runs for their day, and she obtained a firm footing in the theatrical world. In 1673[20] _The Dutch Lover_[21] was ready, a comedy which has earned praise for its skilful technique. She here began to draw on her own experiences for material, and Haunce van Ezel owes not a little to her intimate knowledge of the Hollanders. [Footnote 19: Mr. Gosse in the Dictionary of National Biography basing upon the preface to _The Young King_, says that after knocking in vain for some time at the doors of the theatres with this tragi-comedy that could find neither manager nor publisher, she put it away and wrote _The Forc'd Marriage_, which proved more successful. Dr. Baker follows this, but I confess I cannot see due grounds for any such hypothesis.] [Footnote 20: The Duke's Company opened at their new theatre, Dorset Garden, 9 November, 1671.] [Footnote 21: 4to, 1673. Mrs. Behn's accurate knowledge of the theatre and technicalties theatrical as shown in the preface to this early play is certainly remarkable. It is perhaps worth noting that her allusion to the popularity of 1 _Henry IV_ was not included in _Shakspere Allusion-Book_ (ed. Furnivall and Munro, 1909), where it should have found a place.] These three plays brought her money, friends, and reputation. She was already beginning to be a considerable figure in literary circles, and the first writers of the day were glad of the acquaintance of a woman who was both a wit and a writer. There is still retailed a vague, persistent, and entirely baseless tradition that Aphra Behn was assisted in writing her plays by Edward Ravenscroft,[22] the well known dramatist. Mrs. Behn often alludes in her prefaces to the prejudice a carping clique entertained against her and the strenuous efforts that were made to damn her comedies merely because they were 'writ by a woman'. Accordingly, when her plays succeeded, this same party, unable to deny such approved and patent merit, found their excuse in spreading a report that she was not inconsiderably aided in her scenes by another hand. Edward Ravenscroft's name stands to the epilogue of _Sir Timothy Tawdrey_, and he was undoubtedly well acquainted with Mrs. Behn. Tom Brown (I suggest) hints at a known intrigue,[23] but, even if my surmise be correct, there is nothing in this to warrant the oft repeated statement that many of her scenes are actually due to his pen. On the other hand, amongst Aphra's intimates was a certain John Hoyle, a lawyer, well known about the town as a wit. John Hoyle was the son of Thomas Hoyle, Alderman and Lord Mayor of, and M.P. for York, who hanged himself[24] at the same hour as Charles I was beheaded. In the Gray's Inn Admission Register we have: '1659/60 Feb. 27. John Hoyle son and heir of Thomas H. late of the city of York, Esq. deceased.' Some eighteen years after he was admitted to the Inner Temple: '1678/9 Jan. 26. Order that John Hoyle formerly of Gray's Inn be admitted to this society _ad eundem statum_. (_Inner Temple Records_, iii, 131.) There are allusions not a few to him in Mrs. Behn's poems; he is the Mr. J. H. of _Our Cabal_; and in 'A Letter to Mr. _Creech_ at _Oxford_, Written in the last great Frost,' which finds a place in the _Miscellany_ of 1685, the following lines occur:-- To Honest H----le I shou'd have shown ye, A Wit that wou'd be proud t' have known ye; A Wit uncommon, and Facetious, A great admirer of _Lucretius_. There can be no doubt he was on terms of the closest familiarity[25] with Mrs. Behn, and he (if any), not Ravenscroft, assisted her (though we are not to suppose to a real extent) in her plays. There is a very plain allusion to this in Radcliffe's _The Ramble: News from Hell_ (1682):-- Amongst this Heptarchy of Wit The censuring Age have thought it fit, To damn a Woman, 'cause 'tis said The Plays she vends she never made. But that a _Greys Inn_ Lawyer does 'em Who unto her was Friend in Bosom, So not presenting Scarf and Hood New Plays and Songs are full as good.[26] Unfortunately Hoyle was reputed to be addicted to the grossest immorality, and rumours of a sinister description were current concerning him.[27] There is, in fact, printed a letter[28] of Mrs. Behn's wherein she writes most anxiously to her friend stating that the gravest scandals have reached her ears, and begging him to clear himself from these allegations. Hoyle was murdered in a brawl 26 May, 1692, and is buried in the vault belonging to the Inner Temple, which is presumably in the ground attached to the Temple Church. The entry in the Register runs as follows: 'John Hoyle, esq., of the Inner Temple was buried in the vault May ye 29, 1692.' Narcissus Luttrell in his _Diary_, Saturday, 28 May, 1692, has the following entry: 'Mr. Hoil of the Temple on Thursday night was at a tavern with other gentlemen, and quarrelling with Mr. Pitts' eldest son about drinking a health, as they came out Mr. Hoil was stabb'd in the belly and fell down dead, and thereon Pitts fled; and the next morning was taken in a disguise and is committed to Newgate.'[29] 30 June, 1692, the same record says: 'This day Mr. Pitts was tryed at the Old Bailey for the murder of Mr. Hoil of the Temple, and the jury found it manslaughter but the next heir has brought an appeal.' [Footnote 22: In view of the extremely harsh treatment Ravenscroft has met with at the hands of the critics it may be worth while emphasizing Genest's opinion that his 'merit as a dramatic writer has been vastly underrated'. Ravenscroft has a facility in writing, an ease of dialogue, a knack of evoking laughter and picturing the ludicrous, above all a vitality which many a greater name entirely lacks. As a writer of farce, and farce very nearly akin to comedy, he is capital.] [Footnote 23: _Letters from the Dead to the Living_: The Virgin's [Mrs. Bracegirdle] Answer to Mrs. Behn. 'You upbraid me with a great discovery you chanc'd to make by peeping into the breast of an old friend of mine; if you give yourself but the trouble of examining an old poet's conscience, who went lately off the stage, and now takes up his lodgings in your territories, and I don't question but you'll there find Mrs. _Behn_ writ as often in black characters, and stand as thick in some places, as the names of the generation of _Adam_ in the first of _Genesis_.' How far credence may be given to anything of Brown's is of course a moot point, but the above passage and much that follows would be witless and dull unless there were some real suggestion of scandal. Moreover, it cannot here be applied to Hoyle, whereas it very well fits Ravenscroft. This letter which speaks of 'the lash of Mr. C----r' must have been written no great time after the publication of Jeremy Collier's _A Short View of the Immorality of the English Stage_ (March, 1698), probably in 1701-2. Ravenscroft's last play, _The Italian Husband_, was produced at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1697, and he is supposed to have died a year or two later, which date exactly suits the detail given by Brown. Ravenscroft's first play, _Mamamouchi_, had been produced in 1672, and the 'an old poet' would be understood.] [Footnote 24: This occurrence is the subject of some lines in _The Rump_ (1662): 'On the happy Memory of Alderman Hoyle that hang'd himself.'] [Footnote 25: _The Muses Mercury_, December, 1707, refers to verses made on Mrs. Behn 'and her very good friend, Mr. Hoyle'.] [Footnote 26: My attention was drawn to these lines by Mr. Thorn Drury, who was, indeed, the first to suggest that Hoyle is the person aimed at. I have to thank him, moreover, for much valuable information on this important point.] [Footnote 27: cf. Luttrell's _Diary_, February, 1686-7, which records that an indictment for misconduct was actually presented against him at the Old Bailey, but the Grand Jury threw out the bill and he was discharged. The person implicated in the charge against Hoyle seems to have been a poulterer, cf. _A Faithful Catalogue of our Most Eminent Ninnies_, said to have been written by the Earl of Dorset in 1683, or (according to another edition of Rochester's works in which it occurs) 1686. In any case the verses cannot be earlier than 1687. Which made the wiser Choice is now our Strife, _Hoyle_ his he-mistress, or the Prince his wife: Those traders sure will be beiov'd as well, As all the dainty tender Birds they sell. The 'Prince' is George Fitzroy, son of Charles II by the Duchess of Cleveland, who was created Duke of Northumberland and married Catherine, daughter of Robert Wheatley, a poulterer, of Bracknell, Berks; and relict of Robert Lucy of Charlecote, Warwickshire.] [Footnote 28: _Familiar Letters of Love, Gallantry, etc._ There are several editions. I have used that of 1718, 2 vols.] [Footnote 29: In his MS. Commonplace Book (now in the possession of G. Thorn Drury, Esq., K.C.), Whitelocke Bulstrode writes:-- '27 May 92. 'M{r} Hoyle of y'e Temple, coming this morning about two of y{e} Clock fro y{e} Young Divel Tavern, was killed w{th} a sword; He died Instantly: It proceeded fro a quarrell about Drincking a Health; Killed by M{r} Pitt of Graies Inne y{t} Dranck w{th} them. M{r} Hoyle was an Atheist, a Sodomite professed, a corrupter of youth, & a Blasphemer of Christ.' The Young (or Little) Devil Tavern was in Fleet Street, on the south side, near Temple Bar, adjoining Dick's Coffee House. It was called Young (or Little) to distinguish it from the more famous house, The Devil (or Old Devil) Tavern, which stood between Temple Bar and the Inner Temple Gate.] In September, 1676, _The Town Fop_ was acted with applause, and the following year Mrs. Behn was very busy producing two comedies (of which one is a masterpiece) and one tragedy. _The Debauchee_, which was brought out this year at the Duke's House, a somewhat superficial though clever alteration of Brome's _Mad Couple Well Match'd_, is no doubt from her pen. It was published anonymously, 4to, 1677, and all the best critics with one accord ascribe it to Mrs. Behn. In the autumn of 1677 there was produced by the Duke's Company a version of Middleton's _No Wit, No Help Like a Woman's_, entitled, _The Counterfeit Bridegroom; or, The Defeated Widow_ (4to, 1677); it is smart and spirited. Genest was of opinion it is Aphra's work. He is probably right, for we know that she repeatedly made use of Middleton, and internal evidence fully bears out our stage historian.[30] Both _Abdelazer_[31] and _The Town Fop_ evidence in a marked degree her intimate knowledge of the earlier dramatists, whilst _The Rover (I)_ is founded on Killigrew. None the less, here she has handled her materials with rare skill, and successfully put new wine into old bottles. The critics, however, began to attack her on this point, and when _The Rover (I)_ appeared in print (4to 1677), she found it necessary to add a postscript, defending her play from the charge of merely being '_Thomaso_ alter'd'. With reference to _Abdelazer_ there is extant a very interesting letter[32] from Mrs. Behn to her friend, Mrs. Emily Price. She writes as follows:-- My Dear, In your last, you inform'd me, that the World treated me as a _Plagiery_, and, I must confess, not with Injustice: But that Mr. _Otway_ shou'd say, my Sex wou'd not prevent my being pull'd to Pieces by the Criticks, is something odd, since whatever Mr. _Otway_ now declares, he may very well remember when last I saw him, I receiv'd more than ordinary Encomiums on my _Abdelazer_, But every one knows Mr. _Otway's_ good Nature, which will not permit him to shock any one of our Sex to their Faces. But let that pass: For being impeach'd of murdering my _Moor_, I am thankful, since, when I shall let the World know, whenever I take the Pains next to appear in Print, of the mighty Theft I have been guilty of; But however for your own Satisfaction, I have sent you the Garden from whence I gather'd, and I hope you will not think me vain, if I say, I have weeded and improv'd it. I hope to prevail on the Printer to reprint _The Lust's Dominion_, &c., that my theft may be the more publick. But I detain you. I believe I sha'n't have the Happiness of seeing my dear _Amillia_ 'till the middle of _September_: But be assur'd I shall always remain as I am, Yours, A. Behn. [Footnote 30: Betterton's adaption of Marston's _The Dutch Courtezan_, which the actor calls _The Revenge; or, A Match in Newgate_, has sometimes been erroneously ascribed to Mrs. Behn by careless writers. She has also been given _The Woman Turn'd Bully_, a capital comedy with some clever characterization, which was produced at Dorset Garden in June, 1675, and printed without author's name the same year. Both Prologue and Epilogue, two pretty songs, _Oh, the little Delights that a Lover takes_; and _Ah, how charming is the shade_, together with a rollicking catch 'O _London_, wicked _London_-Town!' which is 'to be sung _a l'yvronge_, in a drunken humour', might all well be Mrs. Behn's, and the whole conduct of the play is very like her early manner. Beyond this, however, there is no evidence to suggest it is from her pen.] [Footnote 31: The overture, act-tunes, incidental music, were composed by Henry Purcell.] [Footnote 32: _Familiar Letters of Love, Gallantry, etc._, Vol. I (1718), pp. 31-2.] _The Rover (I)_ is undoubtedly the best known of Aphra Behn's comedies. It long remained a popular favourite in the theatre, its verve, bustle and wit, utterly defiant of the modest Josephs and qualmy prudes who censured these lively scenes. Steele has mention of this in an archly humorous paper, No. 51, _Spectator_, Saturday, 28 April, 1711. He pictures a young lady who has taken offence at some negligent expression in that chastest of ice-cold proprieties, _The Funeral_, and he forthwith more or less seriously proceeds to defend his play by quoting the example of both predecessors and contemporaries. Amongst the writers who are 'best skilled in this luscious Way', he informs us that 'we are obliged to the Lady who writ _Ibrahim_ [33] for introducing a preparatory Scene to the very Action, when the Emperor throws his Handkerchief as a Signal for his Mistress to follow him into the most retired Part of the Seraglio.... This ingenious Gentlewoman in this piece of Baudry refined upon an Author of the same Sex, who in _The Rover_ makes a Country Squire strip to his Holland Drawers. For _Blunt_ is disappointed, and the Emperor is understood to go on to the utmost.... It is not here to be omitted, that in one of the above-mentioned Female Compositions the _Rover_ is very frequently sent on the same Errand; as I take it above once every Act. This is not wholly unnatural; for, they say, the Men-Authors draw themselves in their Chief Characters, and the Women-Writers may be allowed the same Liberty.' [Footnote 33: _Ibrahim, the Thirteenth Emperor of the Turks_, produced in 1696 (410, 1696), a commendable tragedy by Mrs. Mary Pix, _nee_ Griffiths (1666-1720?). The plot is based on Sir Paul Ricaut's continuation of the Turkish history.] Early in 1678, in either the first or second week of January, _Sir Patient Fancy_ was received with great applause. A hint from Brome, more than a hint from Moliere, much wit, vivacity, and cleverness make up this admirable comedy. Throughout the whole of her career it is amply evident that Mrs. Behn, an omnivorous reader, kept in constant touch with and profited by the French literature and theatre of her day. The debt of the English stage to France at this period is a fact often not sufficiently acknowledged, but one which it would really be difficult to over-emphasize. No adequate critical knowledge of much of our English song, fiction and drama of the Restoration can be attained without a close study of their French models and originals. During the latter part of this year Mrs. Behn found time to revise and write up the romantic scenes she had composed two decades before as a girl in Surinam, and the result was a tragi-comedy, _The Young King_, which won considerable favour. Produced in March or early April,[34] 1679, it was not published till 1683, but a second edition was called for in 1698.[35] [Footnote 34: The date is fixed by the Epilogue 'at his R.H. second exile into Flanders'. The Duke of York sailed for Antwerp 4 March, 1679. He returned in August owing to the King's illness.] [Footnote 35: This fact sufficiently explodes the quite untenable suggestion that _The Young King_ in earlier days could find neither producer nor publisher. That the quarto did not appear until four years after the play had been seen on the stage is no argument of non-success. Ravenscroft's _Mamamouchi_ was produced early in 1672, and 'continu'd Acting 9 Days with a full house'. It specially delighted the King and Court. It was not printed, however, until 1675.] In March, _The Feign'd Courtezans_, one of Mrs. Behn's happiest efforts, appeared on the boards of the Duke's House. Not one tittle is borrowed, and its success gives striking proof of the capacity of her unaided powers. When printed, the comedy was dedicated in adulatory terms to Nell Gwynne. With the great Betterton, handsome Will Smith, Nokes, Underhill, Leigh, an inimitable trio, the famous Mrs. Barry, pretty and piquante Betty Currer, the beautiful and serenely gracious Mrs. Mary Lee, in the cast, it had a perfect galaxy of genius to give it life and triumph. In 1681 a second part continued the adventures of _The Rover_, and surprisingly good the sequel is. From 1678 to 1683 were years of the keenest political excitement and unrest. Fomented to frenzy by the murderous villainies of Gates and his accomplices, aggravated by the traitrous ambition and rascalities of Shaftesbury, by the deceit and weakness of Monmouth, and the open disloyalty of the Whiggish crew, party politics and controversy waxed hotter and fiercer until riots were common and a revolution seemed imminent. Fortunately an appeal in a royal declaration to the justice of the nation at large allayed the storm, and an overwhelming outburst of genuine enthusiasm ensued. Albeit the bill against him was thrown out with an 'ignoramus' by a packed jury 24 November, 1681, a year later, 28 November, 1682, Shaftesbury found it expedient to escape to Holland. Monmouth, who had been making a regal progress through the country, was arrested. Shortly after he was bailed out by his political friends, but he presently fled in terror lest he should pay the penalty of his follies and crimes, inasmuch as a true bill for high treason had been found against him. It was natural that at such a crisis the stage and satire (both prose and rhyme), should become impregnated with party feeling; and the Tory poets, with glorious John Dryden at their head, unmercifully pilloried their adversaries. In 1682 Mrs. Behn produced three comedies, two of which are mainly political. _The Roundheads_, a masterly pasquinade, shows the Puritans, near ancestors of the Whigs, in their most odious and veritable colours. _The City Heiress_ lampoons Shaftesbury and his cit following in exquisite caricature. The wit and humour, the pointed raillery never coarsening into mere invective and zany burlesque, place this in the very front rank of her comedies.[36] _The False Count_, the third play of this year, is non-political, and she has herein borrowed a suggestion from Moliere. It is full of brilliant dialogue and point, whilst the situations are truly ludicrous and entertaining. As might well be surmised, _The Roundheads_ and _The City Heiress_ were not slow to wake the rancour of the Whigs, who looked about for an opportunity of vengeance which they shortly found. On 10 August, 1682, there was produced at the Duke's Theatre an anonymous tragedy _Romulus and Hersilia; or, The Sabine War_. It is a vigorous play of no small merit and attracted considerable attention at the time.[37] Mrs. Behn contributed both Prologue and Epilogue, the former being spoken by that sweet-voiced blonde, winsome Charlotte Butler, the latter by Lady Slingsby, who acted Tarpeia. There was matter in the Epilogue which reflected upon the disgraced Duke of Monmouth, for whom, in spite of his known treachery and treasons, Charles still retained the fondest affection. Warm representations were made in high quarters, and the following warrant was speedily issued:-- Whereas the Lady Slingsby Comoedian and Mrs. Aphaw Behen have by acting and writeing at his Royall Highnesse Theatre committed severall Misdemeanors and made abusive reflections upon persons of Quality, and have written and spoken scandalous speeches without any License or Approbation of those that ought to peruse and authorize the same, These are therefore to require you to take into yo'r Custody the said Lady Slingsby and Mrs. Aphaw Behen and bring them before mee to answere the said Offence, And for soe doeing this shalbe yo'r sufficient Warr't. Given und'r my hand and seale this 12'th day of August, 1682. To Henry Legatt Messenger of His Mat'ties Chamber, etc. [Footnote 36: Gould in _The Play House, a Satyr_, stung by Mrs. Behn's success, derides that clean piece of Wit _The City Heiress_ by chaste _Sappho_ Writ, Where the Lewd Widow comes with Brazen Face, Just seeking from a Stallion's rank Embrace, T' acquaint the Audience with her Filthy Case. Where can you find a Scene for juster Praise, In _Shakespear_, _Johnson_, or in _Fletcher's_ Plays?] [Footnote 37: Publication was delayed. _Brooks' Impartial Mercury_, Friday, 17 Nov., 1682, advertises: 'To be published on Monday next, the last new play called _Romulus_.' The 4to is dated 1683. A broad sheet, 1682, gives both Prologue 'spoken by Mrs. Butler, written by Mrs. Behn,' and Epilogue 'spoken by the Lady Slingsby.' The 4to gives 'Prologue, spoken by Mrs. Butler,' 'Epilogue, Writ by Mrs. A. Behn. Spoken by Tarpeia.'] The lines particularly complained of ran as follows: of all Treasons, mine was most accurst; Rebelling 'gainst a KING and FATHER first. A Sin, which Heav'n nor Man can e're forgive; Nor could I _Act_ it with the face to live. . . . . . There's nothing can my Reputation save With all the _True_, the _Loyal_ and the _Brave_; Not my Remorse or death can Expiate With them a Treason 'gainst the KING and State. Coming from the mouth of the perjured Tarpeia they were of course winged with point unmistakable. It is not probable, however, that either authoress or actress was visited with anything more than censure and a fright. In any case their detention[38] (if brought about) must have been very shortliv'd, for the partizans of Monmouth, although noisy and unquiet, were not really strong, and they met with the most effective opposition at every turn. [Footnote 38: Curtis' _Protestant Mercury_, August 12-6, 1682, notices that both Lady Slingsby and Mrs. Behn have been ordered into custody in respect of this Epilogue.] In this same year the Whigs in spite of their utmost efforts signally failed to suppress, and could only retard the production of Dryden and Lee's excellent tragedy _The Duke of Guise_, first performed 4 December. The play created a furore, and its political purport as a picture of the baffled intrigues of Shaftesbury in favour of Lucy Walter's overweening son is obvious, nor is it rendered less so by Dryden's clever and caustic _Vindication of the Duke of Guise_ (1683). It is interesting to note that Lady Slingsby, who played the Queen Mother, Catherine de' Medici, in this play, has some very sardonic speeches put in her mouth; indeed, as Henri III aptly remarks,'she has a cruel wit'. In 1684 were published the famous _Love Letters between a Nobleman and his Sister_. The letters, supposed to have passed between Forde, Lord Grey,[39] and his sister-in-law Lady Henrietta Berkeley, fifth daughter of the Earl, are certainly the work of Mrs. Behn. Romantic and sentimental, with now and again a pretty touch that is almost lyrical in its sweet cadence, they enjoyed the same extraordinary popularity which very similar productions have attained at a recent date. A third edition was called for in 1707. [Footnote 39: Forde, Lord Grey of Werke, Earl of Tankerville, who succeeded to the title in 1675, was married to Lady Mary Berkeley. He eloped, however, with Lady Henrietta Berkley, and great scandal ensued. When he and his minions were brought to trial, 23 November, 1682, his mistress and a number of staunch Whigs boldly accompanied him into court. He was found guilty, but as his friends banded together to resist, something very like a riot ensued. He died 25 June, 1701. Lady Henrietta Berkeley, who never married, survived her lover nine years.] Mrs. Behn was also busy seeing her poems through the press. The title page is dated 1684, and they were issued with a dedication to the Earl of Salisbury.[40] In the same volume is included her graceful translation of the Abbe Tallemant's _Le Voyage de l'Isle d'Amour_, entitled, _A Voyage to The Isle of Love_. [Footnote 40: Astrea with her soft gay sighing Swains And rural virgins on the flowery Plains, The lavish Peer's profuseness may reprove Who gave her Guineas for the _Isle of Love_. --_Contemporary Satire_,-- (Harleian MSS.)] The following undated letter (preserved at Bayfordbury) addressed to Jacob Tonson, and first published in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, May, 1836, pleads hard for an extra payment of five pounds for her book. She writes:-- Deare Mr. Tonson I am mightly obleg{d} to you for y{e} service you have don me to Mr. Dryden; in whose esteeme I wou'd chuse to be rather then any bodys in the world; and I am sure I never, in thought, word, or deed merritted other from him, but if you had heard w{t} was told me, you wou'd have excus'd all I said on that account. Thank him most infinitly for y{e} hon. he offers, and I shall never think I can do any thing that can merritt so vast a glory; and I must owe it all to you if I have it. As for Mr. Creech, I would not have you afflict him w{th} a thing can not now be help'd, so never let him know my resentment. I am troubled for y{e} line that's left out of Dr. Garth,[41] and wish yo{r} man wou'd write it in y{e} margent, at his leasure, to all you sell. As for y{e} verses of mine, I shou'd really have thought 'em worth thirty pound; and I hope you will find it worth 25_l_; not that I shou'd dispute at any other time for 5 pound wher I am so obleeged; but you can not think w{t} a preety thing y{e} Island will be, and w{t} a deal of labor I shall have yet with it: and if that pleases, I will do the 2nd Voyage, w{ch} will compose a little book as big as a novel by it self. But pray speake to yor Bro{r} to advance the price to one 5lb more, 'twill at this time be more then given me, and I vow I wou'd not aske it if I did not really believe it worth more. Alas I wou'd not loose my time in such low gettings, but only since I am about it I am resolv'd to go throw w{th} it tho I shou'd give it. I pray go about it as soone as you please, for I shall finish as fast as you can go on. Methinks y{e} Voyage shou'd com last, as being y{e} largest volume. You know Mr. Couly's Dauid is last, because a large poem, and Mrs. Philips her Plays for y{e} same reason. I wish I had more time, I wou'd ad something to y{e} verses y{t} I have a mind too, but, good deare Mr. Tonson, let it be 5lb more, for I may safly swere I have lost y{e} getting of 50lb by it, tho that's nothing to you, or my satisfaction and humour: but I have been w{th}out getting so long y{t} I am just on y{e} poynt of breaking, espesiall since a body has no creditt at y{e} Playhouse for money as we usd to have, fifty or 60 deepe, or more; I want extreamly or I wo'd not urge this. Yo{rs} A. B. Pray send me y{e} loose papers to put to these I have, and let me know w{ch} you will go about first, y{e} songs and verses or that. Send me an answer to-day. [Footnote 41: This of course cannot be correct, but it is so transcribed. In the transcript of this letter made by Malone, and now in the possession of G. Thorn Drury, Esq., K.C., over the word 'Garth's' is written 'Q', and at the foot of the page a note by Mitford says: 'This name seems to have been doubtful in the MSS.' I have thought it best not to attempt any emendation.] It is probable that about this date, 1683-4, she penned her little novel _The Adventure of the Black Lady_, and also that excellent extravaganza _The King of Bantam_.[42] Both these and _The Unfortunate Happy Lady_ are written as if they had certainly been completed before the death of Charles II, in which case they must have lain by, MSS, in Mrs. Behn's desk. [Footnote 42: Neither of these was printed until eight years after her death. They first appear, each with its separate title page, 1697, bound up in the Third Edition, 'with Large Additions,' of _All the Histories and Novels, Written by the Late Ingenious Mrs. Behn, Entire in One Volume_, 1698. After Nos. vii, viii, ix, _Memoirs of the Court of the King of _Bantam_, _The Nun; or, the Perjured Beauty_, _The Adventure of the Black Lady_ follows a note: 'These last three never before published.' Some superficial bibliographers (e.g. Miss Charlotte E. Morgan in her unreliable monograph, _The English Novel till 1749_) have postulated imaginary editions of 1683-4 for _The Little Black Lady_ and _The King of Bantam_. _The Nun; or, the Perjured Beauty_ is universally confounded with _The History of the Nun_ (_vide_ Vol. V, p. 259, Introduction to that novel) and dated 1689. With reference to _The King of Bantam_ we have in the 1698 collected edition of the Novels the following '_Advertisement to the _Reader_._ The Stile of the Court of the King of _Bantam_, being so very different from Mrs. _Behn's_ usual way of Writing, it may perhaps call its being genuine in Question; to obviate which Objection, I must inform the Reader, that it was a Trial of Skill upon a Wager, to shew that she was able to write in the Style of the Celebrated _Scarron_, in Imitation of whom 'tis writ, tho' the Story be true. I need not say any thing of the other Two, they evidently confessing their admirable Author.'] The King, at the height of his power, after a short illness, died 6 February, 1685, an event that together with the accession of James naturally evoked a plethora of State Poems, to which flood Mrs. Behn contributed. Her Pindarics rank high amongst the semi-official, complimentary, threnodic or pastoral pseudo-Dithyrambs, of which the age was so bounteous; but it needed the supreme genius of a Dryden sustainedly to instil lyric fire and true poetry into these hybrid forms.[43] The nadir is sounded by the plumbeous productions of Shadwell, Nahum Tate, and 'Persons of Quality'. Aphra's _Pindarick on the Death of Charles II_ ran through two editions in 1685, and her _Poem to the Queen Dowager Catherine_ was published the same year. James II was crowned on St. George's Day, and she greeted her new monarch and old patron with a _Poem on the Happy Coronation of His Sacred Majesty_. A little later she published a _Miscellany_ of poems by various hands: amongst whom were Etheredge, Edmund Arwaker, Henry Crisp, and Otway, including not a few from her own pen, 'Together with Reflections on Morality, or Seneca Unmasqued. Translated from the Maximes of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld', a number of clever apophthegms tersely turned. [Footnote 43: Swift, although he amply fulfilled Dryden's famous prophecy, 'Cousin Swift, you will never be a Pindaric poet', was doubtless thinking of these Pindarics when in _The Battle of the Books_ he wrote: 'Then _Pindar_ slew ----, and ----, and _Oldham_, and ----, and _Afra_ the _Amazon_ light of foot.'] The following note,[44] however, affords ample evidence that at this juncture, maugre her diligence and unremitting toils, she was far from being in easy circumstances:-- 'Where as I am indebted to Mr. Bags the sum of six pownd for the payment of which Mr. Tonson has obleged him self. Now I do here by impowre Mr. Zachary Baggs, in case the said debt is not fully discharged before Michaelmas next, to stop what money he shall hereafter have in his hands of mine, upon the playing my first play till this aforesaid debt of six pownd be discharged. Witness my hand this 1st August, --85. A. Behn.' [Footnote 44: First published in _The Gentleman's Magazine_, May, 1836.] Early in 1686 a frolicksome comedy of great merit, _The Lucky Chance_, was produced by her at the Theatre Royal, the home of the United Companies. A Whiggish clique, unable to harm her in any other way, banded together to damn the play and so endeavoured to raise a pudic hubbub, that happily proved quite ineffective. _The Lucky Chance_, which contends with _The Rover (I)_, and _The Feign'd Courtezans_ for the honour of being Mrs. Behn's highest flight of comic genius, has scenes admittedly wantoning beyond the bounds of niggard propriety, but all are alive with a careless wit and a brilliant humour that prove quite irresistible. Next appeared those graceful translations from de Bonnecorse's _La Montre ... seconde partie contenant La Boete et Le Miroir_, which she termed _The Lover's Watch_ and _The Lady's Looking-Glass_. In 1687 the Duke of Albemarle's voyage to Jamaica[45] to take up the government in the West Indies gave occasion for a Pindaric, but we only have one dramatic piece from Mrs. Behn, _The Emperor of the Moon_, a capital three act farce, Italian in sentiment and origin. For some little time past her health had begun to trouble her.[46] Her three years of privation and cares had told upon her physically, and since then, 'forced to write for bread and not ashamed to own it,' she had spared neither mind nor bodily strength. Graver symptoms appeared, but yet she found time to translate from Fontenelle his version of Van Dale's _De Oraculis Ethnicorum_ as _The History of Oracles and the Cheats of the Pagan Priests_, a book of great interest. There was also published in 1687 an edition in stately folio of _AEesop's Fables with his Life in English, French and Latin_, 'illustrated with One hundred and twelve Sculptures' and 'Thirty One New Figures representing his Life', by Francis Barlow, the celebrated draughtsman of birds and animals. Each plate to the Life has a quatrain appended, and each fable with its moral is versified beneath the accompanying picture. In his brief address to the Reader Barlow writes: 'The Ingenious Mrs. A. Behn has been so obliging as to perform the English Poetry, which in short comprehends the Sense of the Fable and Moral; Whereof to say much were needless, since it may sufficiently recommend it self to all Persons of Understanding.' To this year we further assign the composition of no fewer than four novels, _The Unfortunate Bride_, _The Dumb Virgin_, _The Wandering Beauty_, _The Unhappy Mistake_. She was working at high pressure, and 1688 still saw a tremendous literary output. Waller had died 21 October, 1687, at the great age of eighty-one, and her Elegiac Ode to his Memory begins:-- How to thy Sacred Memory, shall I bring (Worthy thy Fame) a grateful Offering? I, who by Toils of Sickness, am become Almost as near as thou art to a Tomb? While every soft and every tender strain Is ruffl'd, and ill-natur'd grown with Pain. [Footnote 45: Christopher Monck, second Duke of Albermarle, was appointed Governor-General of Jamaica, 26 November, 1687. He died there early in the following autumn.] [Footnote 46: '_Sappho_ famous for her Gout and Guilt,' writes Gould in _The Poetess, a Satyr_.] This she sent to his daughter-in-law with the following letter[47]:-- Madam, At such losses as you have sustain'd in that of yo{r} Glorious ffather in Law M{r}. Waller, the whole world must wait on your sighs & mournings, tho' we must allow yours to be the more sensible by how much more (above your Sex) you are Mistriss of that Generous Tallent that made him so great & so admird (besids what we will allow as a Relation) tis therfore at your ffeet Madam we ought to lay all those Tributary Garlands, we humbler pretenders to the Muses believe it our Duty to offer at his Tombe-- in excuse for mine Madam I can only say I am very ill & have been dying this twelve month, that they want those Graces & that spiritt w{ch} possible I might have drest em in had my health & dulling vapors permitted me, howeuer Madam they are left to your finer judgment to determin whether they are worthy the Honour of the Press among those that cellibrat M{r}. Wallers great fame, or of being doomed to the fire & whateuer you decree will extreamly sattisfy Madam yo{r} most Devoted & most Obeadient Seruant A. BEHN. I humbly beg pardon for my yll writing Madam for tis with a Lame hand scarce able to hold a pen. [Footnote 47: Now published for the first time by the courtesy of G. Thorn Drury, Esq., K.C., who generously obliged me with a transcript of the original.] Her weakness, lassitude, and despondency are more than apparent; yet bravely buckling to her work, and encouraged by her success with Fontenelle, she Englished with rare skill his _Theory of the System of Several New Inhabited Worlds_, prefixing thereto a first-rate 'Essay on Translated Prose.' She shows herself an admirable critic, broad-minded, with a keen eye for niceties of style. _The Fair Jilt_ (licensed 17 April, 1688),[48] _Oroonoko_, and _Agnes de Castro_, followed in swift succession. She also published _Lycidus, a Voyage from the Island of Love_, returning to the Abbe Tallemant's dainty preciosities. On 10 June, James Francis Edward, Prince of Wales, was born at St. James's Palace, and Mrs. Behn having already written a _Congratulatory Poem_[49] to Queen Mary of Modena on her expectation of the Prince, was ready with a Poem on his Happy Birth. [Footnote 48: In the original edition of _The Fair Jilt_ (1688), we have advertised: 'There is now in the Press, _Oroonoko; or, The History of the Royal Slave_. Written by Madam _Behn_.'] [Footnote 49: In the second edition (1688), of this _Congratulatory Poem_ to Queen Mary of Modena we have the following advertisement:-- 'On Wednesday next will be Published the most Ingenious and long Expected History of _Oroonoko; or, the Royal Slave_. By Mrs. _Behn_.'] One of the most social and convivial of women, a thorough Tory, well known to Dryden, Creech, Otway and all the leading men of her day, warm helper and ally of every struggling writer, Astrea began to be completely overpowered by the continual strain, the unremittent tax upon both health and time. Overworked and overwrought, in the early months of 1689 she put into English verse the sixth book (_of Trees_) from Cowley's _Sex Libri Plantarum_ (1668). Nahum Tate undertook Books IV and V and prefaced the translation when printed. As Mrs. Behn knew no Latin no doubt some friend, perhaps Tate himself, must have paraphrased the original for her. She further published _The Lucky Mistake_ and _The History of the Nun; or, The Fair Vow Breaker_,[50] licensed 22 October, 1688. On the afternoon of 12 February, Mary, wife of William of Orange, had with great diffidence landed at Whitehall Stairs, and Mrs. Behn congratulated the lady in her Poem _To Her Sacred Majesty Queen Mary on her Arrival in England_. One regrets to find her writing on such an occasion, and that she realized the impropriety of her conduct is clear from the reference to the banished monarch. But she was weary, depressed, and ill, and had indeed for months past been racked with incessant pain. An agonizing complication of disorders now gave scant hope of recovery. It is in the highest degree interesting to note that during her last sickness Dr. Burnet, a figure of no little importance at that moment, kindly enquired after the dying woman. The Pindaric in which she thanks him, and which was printed March, 1689, proved the last poem she herself saw through the press. At length exhausted nature failed altogether, and she expired 16 April, 1689, the end hastened by a sad lack of skill in her physician. She is buried in the east cloisters of Westminster Abbey. A black marble slab marks the spot. On it are graven 'Mrs. Aphra Behn Dyed April, 16, A.D. 1689,' and two lines, 'made by a very ingenious Gentleman tho' no Poet':--[51] Here lies a Proof that Wit can never be Defence enough against Mortality.[52] [Footnote 50: The title page has 1689, but it was possibly published late in 1688.] [Footnote 51: Traditionally said to be John Hoyle.] [Footnote 52: Sam Briscoe, the publisher, in his Dedicatory Epistle to _Familiar Letters of Love, Gallantry, etc._ (2 vols., 1718), says: 'Had the rough Days of K. _Charles_ II _newly recover'd from the Confusion of a Civil War_, or the tempestuous Time of _James_ the Second, had the same _Sence of Wit_ as our _Gentlemen_ now appear to have, the first Impressions of _Milton's Paradise Lost_ had never been sold for _Waste Paper_; the Inimitable _Hudibras_ had never suffered the Miseries of a Neglected Cavalier; _Tom Brown_ the merriest and most diverting'st man, had never expir'd so neglected; Mr. _Dryden_'s Religion would never have lost him his _Pension_; or Mrs. _Behn_ ever had but _two Lines_ upon her _Grave-stone_.'] 'She was of a generous and open Temper, something passionate, very serviceable to her Friends in all that was in her Power; and could sooner forgive an Injury, than do one. She had Wit, Honour, Good-Humour, and Judgment. She was Mistress of all the pleasing Arts of Conversation, but us'd 'em not to any but those who love Plain-dealing.' So she comes before us. A graceful, comely woman,[53] merry and buxom, with brown hair and bright eyes, candid, sincere, a brilliant conversationalist in days when conversation was no mere slipshod gabble of slang but cut and thrust of poignant epigram and repartee; warm-hearted, perhaps too warm-hearted, and ready to lend a helping hand even to the most undeserving, a quality which gathered all Grub Street round her door. At a period when any and every writer, mean or great, of whatsoever merit or party, was continually assailed with vehement satire and acrid lampoons, lacking both truth and decency, Aphra Behn does not come off scot-free, nobody did; and upon occasion her name is amply vilified by her foes. There are some eight ungenerous lines with a side reference to the 'Conquests she had won' in Buckingham's _A Trial of the Poets for the Bays_, and a page or two of insipid spiritless rhymes, _The Female Laureat_, find a place in _State Poems_. The same collection contains _A Satyr on the Modern Translators_. 'Odi Imitatores servum pecus,' &c. By Mr. P----r,[54] 1684. It begins rather smartly:-- Since the united Cunning of the Stage, Has balk'd the hireling Drudges of the Age; Since _Betterton_ of late so thrifty 's grown, Revives Old Plays, or wisely acts his own; the modern poets Have left Stage-practice, chang'd their old Vocations, Atoning for bad Plays with worse Translations. In some instances this was true enough, but when the writer attacks Dryden he becomes ridiculous and imprecates May he still split on some unlucky Coast, And have his Works or Dictionary lost: That he may know what _Roman Authors_ mean, No more than does our blind Translatress _Behn_,[55] The Female Wit, who next convicted stands, Not for abusing _Ovid's_ verse but _Sand's_: She might have learn'd from the ill-borrow'd Grace, (Which little helps the Ruin of her Face) That Wit, like Beauty, triumphs o'er the Heart When more of Nature's seen, and less of Art: Nor strive in _Ovid's_ Letters to have shown As much of Skill, as Lewdness in her own. Then let her from the next inconstant Lover, Take a new Copy for a second Rover. Describe the Cunning of a jilting Whore, From the ill Arts herself has us'd before; Thus let her write, but _Paraphrase_ no more. These verses are verjuiced, unwarranted, unfair. Tom Brown too in his _Letters from the Dead to the Living_ has a long epistle 'From worthy Mrs. Behn the Poetess, to the famous Virgin Actress,' (Mrs. Bracegirdle), in which the Diana of the stage is crudely rallied. 'The Virgin's Answer to Mrs. Behn' contains allusions to Aphra's intrigue with some well-known dramatic writer, perhaps Ravenscroft, and speaks of many an other amour beside. But then for a groat Brown would have proved Barbara Villiers a virgin, and taxed Torquemada with unorthodoxy. Brown has yet another gird at Mrs. Behn in his _The Late Converts Exposed, or the Reason of Mr. Bays's Changing his Religion &c._ Considered in a Dialogue (1690, a quarto tract; and reprinted in a Collection of Brown's _Dialogues_, 8vo, 1704). Says Eugenius: 'You may remember Mr. Bays, how the famed _Astrea_, once in her Life-time unluckily lighted upon such a Sacred Subject, and in a strange fit of Piety, must needs attempt a Paraphrase on the Lord's Prayer. But alas poor Gentlewoman! She had scarce travell'd half way, when _Cupid_ served her as the Cut-Purse did the Old Justice in _Bartholmew_ Fair, tickled her with a Straw in her Ear, and then she could not budge one foot further, till she had humbly requested her Maker to grant her a private Act of Toleration for a little Harmless Love, otherwise called Fornication.' There is a marginal note to this passage: 'Mrs. _Behn's_ Miscell. Printed by _Jos. Hindmarsh_.' In _a Letter from the Dead Thomas Brown to the Living Heraclitus_ (1704), a sixpenny tract, this wag is supposed to meet Mrs. Behn in the underworld, and anon establishes himself on the most familiar terms with his 'dear _Afra_'; they take, indeed, 'an extraordinary liking to one another's Company' for 'good Conversation is not so overplentiful in these Parts.' A bitterer attack yet, _An Epistle to Julian_ (c. 1686-7), paints her as ill, feeble, dying:-- Doth that lewd Harlot, that Poetick Quean, Fam'd through _White Fryars_, you know who I mean, Mend for reproof, others set up in spight, To flux, take glisters, vomits, purge and write. Long with a Sciatica she's beside lame, Her limbs distortur'd, Nerves shrunk up with pain, And therefore I'll all sharp reflections shun, Poverty, Poetry, Pox, are plagues enough for one. In truth, Aphra Behn's life was not one of mere pleasure, but a hard struggle against overwhelming adversity, a continual round of work. We cannot but admire the courage of this lonely woman, who, poor and friendless, was the first in England to turn to the pen for a livelihood, and not only won herself bread but no mean position in the world of her day and English literature of all time. For years her name to a new book, a comedy, a poem, an essay from the French, was a word to conjure with for the booksellers. There are anecdotes in plenty. Some true, some not so reliable. She is said to have introduced milk-punch into England.[56] We are told that she could write a page of a novel or a scene of a play in a room full of people and yet hold her own in talk the while.[57] Her popularity was enormous, and edition after edition of her plays and novels was called for. [Footnote 53: 'She was a most beautiful woman, and a more excellent poet'. Col. Colepeper. _Adversaria_, Vol. ii (Harleian MSS.)] [Footnote 54: This piece finds a place in the unauthorised edition of Prior's Poems, 1707, a volume the poet himself repudiated. In the Cambridge edition of Prior's _Works_ (1905-7), reason is given, however, to show that the lines are certainly Prior's, and that he withdrew this and other satires (says Curll, the bookseller), owing to 'his great Modesty'. The Horatian tag (Epistles i, xiv, 19) is of course 'O Imitatores servum pecus'.] [Footnote 55: In his _Preface Concerning Ovid's Epistles_ affixed to the translation of the _Heroides_ (_Ovid's Epistles_), 'by Several Hands' (1680), Dryden writes: 'The Reader will here find most of the Translations, with some little Latitude or variation from the Author's Sence: That of _Oenone_ to _Paris_, is in Mr. Cowley's way of Imitation only. I was desir'd to say that the Author who is of the _Fair Sex_, understood not _Latine_. But if she does not, I am afraid she has given us occasion to be asham'd who do.'] [Footnote 56: 'Old Mr. John Bowman, the player, told me that Mrs. Behn was the First Person he ever knew or heard of who made the Liquor call'd Milk Punch.' --Oldys; MS. note in Langbaine. In a tattered MS. recipe book, the compilation of a good housewife named Mary Rockett, and dated 1711, the following directions are given how to brew this tipple. 'To make Milk Punch. Infuse the rinds of 8 Lemons in a Gallon of Brandy 48 hours then add 5 Quarts of Water and 2 pounds of Loaf Sugar then Squize the Juices of all the Lemons to these Ingredients add 2 Quarts of new milk Scald hot stirring the whole till it crudles grate in 2 Nutmegs let the whole infuse 1 Hour then refine through a flannel Bag.'] [Footnote 57: 'She always Writ with the greatest ease in the world, and that in the midst of Company, and Discourse of other matters. I saw her my self write _Oroonoko_, and keep her own in Discoursing with several then present in the Room.' --Gildon: _An Account of the Life of the Incomparable Mrs. Behn_, prefixed to _The Younger Brother_ (4to 1696). Southerne says, with reference to _Oroonoko_, 'That she always told his Story, more feelingly than she writ it.'] In 1690, there was brought out on the stage a posthumous comedy, _The Widow Ranter_.[58] But without her supervision, it was badly cast, the script was mauled, and it failed. In 1696 Charles Gildon, who posed as her favourite protege (and edited her writings), gave _The Younger Brother_. He had, however, himself tampered with the text. The actors did it scant justice and it could not win a permanent place in the theatrical repertory. In May, 1738, _The Gentleman's Magazine_ published _The Apotheosis of Milton_, a paper, full of interest, which ran through several numbers. It is a Vision, in which the writer, having fallen asleep in Westminster Abbey, is conducted by a Genius into a spacious hall, 'sacred to the Spirits of the Bards, whose Remains are buried, or whose Monuments are erected within this Pile. To night an Assembly of the greatest Importance is held upon the Admission of the Great Milton into this Society.' The Poets accordingly appear either in the habits which they were wont to wear on earth, or in some suitable attire. We have Chaucer, Drayton, Beaumont, Ben Jonson, and others who are well particularized, but when we get to the laureates and critics of a later period there are some really valuable touches. In 1738 there must have been many alive who could well remember Dryden, Shadwell, Otway, Prior, Philips, Sheffield Duke of Buckinghamshire, Dennis, Atterbury, Lee, Congreve, Rowe, Addison, Betterton, Gay. In the course of his remarks the guide exclaims to the visitor: 'Observe that Lady dressed in the loose _Robe de Chambre_ with her Neck and Breasts bare; how much Fire in her Eye! what a passionate Expression in her Motions; And how much Assurance in her Features! Observe what an Indignant Look she bestows on the President [Chaucer], who is telling her, _that none of her Sex has any Right to a Seat there_. How she throws her Eyes about, to see if she can find out any one of the Assembly who inclines to take her Part. No! not one stirs; they who are enclined in her favour are overawed, and the rest shake their Heads; and now she flings out of the Assembly. That extraordinary Woman is _Afra Behn_.' The passage is not impertinent, even though but as showing how early condemnatory tradition had begun to incrustate around Astrea. Fielding, however, makes his Man of the World tell a friend that the best way for a man to improve his intellect and commend himself to the ladies is by a course of Mrs. Behn's novels. With the oncoming of the ponderous and starched decorum of the third George's reign her vogue waned apace, but she was still read and quoted. On 12 December, 1786, Horace Walpole writes to the Countess of Upper Ossory, 'I am going to Mrs. Cowley's new play,[59] which I suppose is as _instructive_ as the _Marriage of Figaro_, for I am told it approaches to those of Mrs. Behn in Spartan delicacy; but I shall see Miss Farren, who, in my poor opinion is the first of all actresses.' Sir Walter Scott admired and praised her warmly. But the pinchbeck sobriety of later times was unable to tolerate her freedom. She was condemned in no small still voice as immoral, loose, scandalous; and writer after writer, leaving her unread, reiterated the charge till it passed into a byword of criticism, and her works were practically taboo in literature, a type and summary of all that was worst and foulest in Restoration days. The absurdities and falsity or this extreme are of course patent now, and it was inevitable the recoil should come. [Footnote 58: It is ushered in by one 'G. J. her friend'. This was almost certainly George Jenkins.] [Footnote 59: _The School for Greybeards_, produced at Drury Lane, 25 November, 1786. It owes much of its business to _The Lucky Chance_. See the Theatrical History of that comedy (Vol. iii, p. 180). Miss Farren acted Donna Seraphina, second wife of Don Alexis, one of the Greybeards. She also spoke the epilogue.] It is a commonplace to say that her novels are a landmark in the history of fiction. Even Macaulay allowed that the best of Defoe was 'in no respect... beyond the reach of Afra Behn'. Above all _Oroonoko_ can be traced directly and indirectly, perhaps unconsciously, in many a descendant. Without assigning her any direct influence on Wilberforce, much of the feeling of this novel is the same as inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe. She has been claimed to be the literary ancestress of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre and Chateaubriand; nor is it any exaggeration to find Byron and Rousseau in her train. Her lyrics, it has been well said, are often of 'quite bewildering beauty', but her comedies represent her best work and she is worthy to be ranked with the greatest dramatists of her day, with Vanbrugh and Etheredge; not so strong as Wycherley, less polished than Congreve. Such faults as she has are obviously owing to the haste with which circumstances compelled her to write her scenes. That she should ever recover her pristine reputation is of course, owing to the passing of time with its change of manners, fashions, thought and style, impossible. But there is happily every indication that-- long neglected and traduced-- she will speedily vindicate for herself, as she is already beginning to do, her rightful claim to a high and honourable place in our glorious literature. THE TEXT. The text of the dramatic work is primarily based upon the edition of 1724, four volumes, by far the best and most reliable edition of the collected theatre. Each play, however, has been carefully collated with the original quartos, some of which are of excessive rarity, and if, in the case of any divergence, the later reading is preferred, reason why is given in the Textual Notes upon that specific passage. To the Dramatis Personae are in each case added those characters which hitherto were negligently omitted: I have, further, consistently numbered the scenes and supplied (where necessary) the locales. In the order of the plays the 1724 edition has been followed as preserving the traditional and accepted arrangement. The only change herein made is the transferring of _The Emperor of the Moon_ from Vol. IV to Vol. Ill, and the placing of _The Amorous Prince_ before _The Widow Ranter_, so that the two posthumous plays may thus be found in their due order together at the end of Vol. IV. With regard to metrical division, I have (unless a special note on any one particular line draws attention to the contrary) in this difficult matter followed the first quartos, as at this point 1724 proves not so satisfactory, and prints much as prose which the earlier separate editions give as verse. A notable instance may be found in _The Amorous Prince_. To the above rule I adhere so strictly as even not to divide into lines several scenes in _The Widow Ranter_ and _The Younger Brother_ which are palpably blank verse, but yet which are not so set in the quartos of 1690 and 1696. I felt that the metrical difficulties and kindred questions involved were so capable of almost infinite variations, that to attempt a new and decisive text in this matter would not merely be hazardous but also unproductive of any real benefit or ultimately permanent result. The valuable Dedications and Prefaces, never before given in the collected editions, are here reprinted for the first time from the originals. With regard to the novels the first separate edition has in every case been collated. When impossible, however, so to do (as in the exception of _Oroonoko_), the earliest accessible text has been taken, and if any difficulty arose, all editions of any value whatsoever were likewise consulted. For _La Montre_ (_The Lover's Watch_), the original edition of 1686 was used. Any difference in text which has been adopted from later editions is duly noted in the textual apparatus to that piece. The Poems have in every case been printed from the first-- which are generally the only-- editions. Where they appeared as broadsides, these, when traceable, have been collated. THE PORTRAITS OF MRS. BEHN. Of Mrs. Behn there exist three portraits, one by Mary Beale, a second by John Riley, and the third by Sir Peter Lely. The Beale portrait has been engraved: 'Aphra Behn. From a Picture by Mary Beale in the collection of His Grace the Duke of Buckingham. Drawn by T. Uwins. Engraved by J. Fittler, A.R.A. London. 1 March, 1822. Published by W. Walker, 8 Grays Inn Square.' The original oil painting was purchased at the Stow Sale in 1848 (No. 57 in the sale catalogue), by J. S. Caldwell, a literary antiquarian, Linley Wood, Staffordshire. A letter which I wrote to _The Times Literary Supplement_ (26 November, 1914) on the subject of these portraits brought me a most courteous permission from Major-General F. C. Heath Caldwell, the present owner of Linley Wood, to view the picture. With regard to the well-known and most frequently reproduced portrait by Riley, this, engraved by R. Wise, figures as frontispiece to _The Unfortunate Bride_ (title page, 1700, and second title page, 1698). It is also given before the _Novels_ (1696, 1698, and other editions). Engraved by B. Cole, the same portrait fronts the _Plays_, 4 vols., 1724, and the _Novels_, 2 vols., 1735. It again appears 'H. R. Cook, Sculp.', published 1 August, 1813, by I. W. H. Payne, when it was included as an illustration to the _Lady's Monthly Museum_. The portrait by Sir Peter Lely, which is reproduced as frontispiece to this edition of Mrs. Behn, was exhibited at the South Kensington Portrait Exhibition of 1866 by Philip Howard, Esq., of Corby Castle, the head of the Corby branch of the Howard family. The portrait of Mrs. Behn which appears as frontispiece to the _Plays_, 2 vols., 1716, is none other than Christina of Sweden from Sebastian Bourdon's drawing now in the Louvre. A so-called portrait of Mrs. Behn, 'pub. Rob't Wilkinson', no date, is of no value, being, at best, a bad pastiche from some very poor engraving. * * * * * * * * * Errors and Irregularities: General Introduction even such a mad scrapegrace as Dryden's Woodall _text unchanged_ the Duke's Theatre, Lincoln's Inn Field's _all apostrophes in original_ [Footnote 21.] ... knowledge of the / theatre and technicalties theatrical _text unchanged_ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * THE ROVER; OR, THE BANISH'D CAVALIERS. PART I. [Transcriber's Note: Entrances and bracketed stage directions were printed in _italics_, with proper names in roman type. The overall _italic_ markup has been omitted for readability.] ARGUMENT. During the exile of Charles II a band of cavaliers, prominent amongst whom are Willmore (the Rover), Belvile, Frederick, and Ned Blunt, find themselves at Naples in carnival time. Belvile, who at a siege at Pampluna has rescued a certain Florinda and her brother Don Pedro, now loves the lady, and the tender feeling is reciprocated. Florinda's father, however, designs her for the elderly Vincentio, whilst her brother would have her marry his friend Antonio, son to the Viceroy. Florinda, her sister Hellena (who is intended for the veil), their cousin Valeria, and duenna Callis surreptitiously visit the carnival, all in masquerade, and there encounter the cavaliers. Florinda arranges to meet Belvile that night at her garden-gate. Meanwhile a picture of Angelica Bianca, a famous courtezan, is publicly exposed, guarded by bravos. Antonio and Pedro dispute who shall give the 1000 crowns she demands, and come to blows. After a short fray Willmore, who has boldly pulled down the picture, is admitted to the house, and declares his love, together with his complete inability to pay the price she requires. Angelica, none the less, overcome with passion, yields to him. Shortly after, meeting Hellena in the street, he commences an ardent courtship, which is detected by the jealous Angelica, who has followed him vizarded. Florinda that night at the garden-gate encounters Willmore, who, having been toping in the town, is far from sober, and her cries at his advances attract her brother and servants, whom she eludes by escaping back to the house. After a brawl, Willmore has to endure the reproaches of Belvile, who has appeared on the scene. During their discussion Antonio makes as about to enter Angelica's house before which they are, and Willmore, justling him to one side, wounds him. He falls, and the officers who run up at the clash of swords, arrest Belvile, who has returned at the noise, as the assailant, conveying him by Antonio's orders to the Viceroy's palace. Antonio, in the course of conversation, resigns Florinda to his rival, and Belvile, disguised as Antonio, obtains Florinda from Don Pedro. At this moment Willmore accosts him, and the Spaniard perceiving his mistake, soon takes his sister off home. Angelica next comes in hot pursuit of Willmore, but they are interrupted by Hellena, dressed as a boy, who tells a tale of the Rover's amour with another dame and so rouses the jealous courtezan to fury, and the twain promptly part quarrelling. Florinda, meanwhile, who has escaped from her brother, running into an open house to evade detection, finds herself in Ned Blunt's apartments. Blunt, who is sitting half-clad, and in no pleasant mood owing to his having been tricked of clothes and money and turned into the street by a common cyprian, greets her roughly enough, but is mollified by the present of a diamond ring. His friends and Don Pedro, come to laugh at his sorry case, now force their way into the chamber, and Florinda, whom her brother finally resigns to Belvile, is discovered. She is straightway united to her lover by a convenient priest. Willmore is then surprised by the apparition of Angelica, who, loading him with bitter reproaches for his infidelity, is about to pistol him, when she is disarmed by Antonio, and accordingly parts in a fury of jealous rage, to give place to Hellena who adroitly secures her Rover in the noose of matrimony. SOURCE. The entire plan and many details of both parts of _The Rover_ are taken openly and unreservedly from Tom Killigrew's _Thomaso, or The Wanderer_, an unacted comedy likewise in two parts, published for the first time in his collected works by Henry Herringman (folio, 1663-4). It is to be noticed, however, that whilst Killigrew's work is really one long play of ten closely consecutive acts, the scene of which is continually laid in Madrid, without any break in time or action, Mrs. Behn, on the other hand, admirably contrives that each separate part of _The Rover_ is complete and possesses perfect unity in itself, the locale being respectively, and far more suitably, in two several places, Naples and Madrid, rather than confined to the latter city alone. Mrs. Behn, moreover, introduces new characters and a new intrigue in her second part, thus not merely sustaining but even renewing the interest which in _Thomaso_ jades and flags most wearily owing to the author's prolixity and diffuseness. Killigrew, a royalist to the core, participated in the protracted exile of Charles II, and devoting this interim to literature, wrote _Thomaso_ whilst at Madrid, probably about the year 1654-5. Although undeniably interesting in a high degree, and not ill written, it shares in no small measure the salient faults of his other productions, boundless and needless verbosity, slowness of action, unconscionable length. For all its wit and cleverness, such blemishes would, without trenchant cutting, have been more than sufficient to prohibit it from any actual performance, and, indeed, _Thomaso_ may be better described as a dramatic romance than a comedy intended for the boards. Clumsy and gargantuan speeches, which few actors could have even memorized, and none would have ventured to utter on the stage, abound in every scene. This lack of technical acumen (unless, as may well be the case, Killigrew wrote much of these plays without any thought of presentation) is more than surprising in an author so intimately connected with the theatre and, after the Restoration, himself manager of the King's Company. Nor is _Thomaso_ without its patent plagiarisms. Doubtless no small part is simply autobiographical adventuring, but, beside many a reminiscence of the later Jacobeans, Killigrew has conveyed entire passages and lyrics wholesale without attempt at disguise. Thus the song, 'Come hither, you that love,' Act ii, Scene 3, is from Fletcher's _Captain_, Act iv, the scene in Lelia's chamber. Again, the procedure and orations of Lopus the mountebank are but the flimsiest alterations of _Volpone_, Act ii, Scene I, nor could Killigrew change Jonson for anything but the worse. He has even gone so far as to name his quack's spouse Celia, a distinct echo of Corvino's wife. In dealing with these two plays Mrs. Behn has done a great deal more than merely fit the pieces for the stage. Almost wholly rewriting them, she has infused into the torpid dialogue no small portion of wit and vivacity, whilst the characters, prone to devolve into little better than prosy and wooden marionettes, with only too apparent wires, are given life, vigour movement, individuality and being. In fact she has made the whole completely and essentially her own. In some cases the same names are retained. We find Phillipo, Sancho, Angelica Bianca, Lucetta, Callis, in Killigrew. But as Willmore is a different thing altogether to Thomaso, so Ned Blunt is an infinitely more entertaining figure than his prototype Edwardo. Amongst other details Killigrew, oddly and stupidly enough, gives his English gentlemen foreign names:-- Thomaso, Ferdinando, Rogero, Harrigo[*]. This jar is duly corrected in _The Rover_. [Footnote *: There is a strange commixture here. The character is familiarly addressed as 'Hal', the scene is Madrid, and he rejoices in the Milanese (not Italian) nomenclature Arrigo = Henry in that dialect.] Mrs. Behn has further dealt with the Lucetta intrigue in a far more masterly way than Killigrew's clumsily developed episode. In _Thomaso_ it occupies a considerable space, and becomes both tedious and brutally unpleasant. The apt conclusion of the amour in _The Rover_ with Blunt's parlous mishap is originally derived from Boccaccio, Second Day, Novel 5, where a certain Andreuccio finds himself in the same unsavoury predicament as the Essex squireen. However, even this was by no means new to the English stage. In _Blurt Master Constable_, Lazarillo de Tormes, at the house of the courtezan Imperia, meets with precisely the same accident, Act iii, Scene 3, Act iv, Scenes 2 and 3, and it is probable that Mrs. Behn did not go directly to the _Decameron_ but drew upon Middleton, of whom she made very ample use on another occasion, borrowing for _The City Heiress_ no small portion of _A Mad World, My Masters_, and racily reproducing in extenso therefrom Sir Bounteous Progress, Dick Folly-Wit, the mock grandee, and that most excellent of all burglaries good enough for Fielding at his best. In dealing with _Thomaso_ Astrea did not hesitate, with manifest advantage, to transfer incidents from Part II to Part I, and vice versa. Correcting, pruning, augmenting, enlivening, rewriting, she may indeed (pace the memory of the merry jester of Charles II) be well said to have clothed dry bones with flesh, and to have given her creation a witty and supple tongue. THEATRICAL HISTORY. The first part of _The Rover_ was produced at the Duke's House, Dorset Gardens, in the summer of 1677, and licensed for printing on 2 July of the same year. It met, as it fully deserved, with complete success, and remained one of the stock plays of the company. Smith, the original Willmore, and the low comedian Underhill as Blunt were especially renowned in their respective roles. Another famous Willmore was Will Mountford, of whom Dibdin relates, 'When he played Mrs. Behn's dissolute character of The Rover, it was remarked by many, and particularly by Queen Mary, that it was dangerous to see him act, he made vice so alluring.' Amongst the more notable representations of the eighteenth century we find:-- _Drury Lane; 18 February, 1703._ Willmore by Wilks; Hellena, Mrs. Oldfield; repeated on 15 October of the same year. _Haymarket; 20 January, 1707._ Willmore by Verbruggen; Blunt, Underhill; Hellena, Mrs. Bracegirdle; Angelica, Mrs. Barry; Florinda, Mrs. Bowman. _Drury Lane; 22 April, 1708._ Willmore by Wilks; Blunt, Estcourt; Frederick, Cibber; Hellena, Mrs. Oldfield; Angelica, Mrs. Barry; Florinda, Mrs. Porter. _Drury Lane; 30 December, 1715._ Willmore, Wilks; Blunt, Johnson; Hellena, Mrs. Mountfort; Angelica, Mrs. Porter. _Drury Lane; 6 March, 1716._ Don Pedro, Quin; Frederick, Ryan; Florinda, Mrs. Horton. _Lincoln's Inn Fields; 5 April, 1725._ 'Never acted there.' Performed for Ryan's benefit. Willmore, Ryan; Belvile, Quin; Blunt, Spiller; Hellena, Mrs. Bullock; Angelica, Mrs. Parker. _Covent Garden; 9 November, 1748._ Willmore, Ryan; Blunt, Bridgewater; Hellena, Mrs. Woffington; Angelica, Mrs. Horton. To make this performance more attractive there was also presented 'a musical entertainment', entitled, _Apollo and Daphne_, which had been originally produced at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1726. _Covent Garden; 19 February, 1757._ 'Not acted twenty years.' Willmore, Smith; Belvile, Ridout; Frederick, Clarke; Don Antonio, Dyer; Blunt, Shuter; Hellena, Mrs. Woffington; Angelica, Mrs. Hamilton; Florinda, Mrs. Elmy. This, the latest revival, was performed with considerable expense, and proved successful, being repeated no less than ten times during the season. Wilkinson says that Shuter acted Blunt very realistically, and, as the stage directions of Act iii require, stripped to his very drawers. On 8 March, 1790, J. P. Kemble presented at Drury Lane a pudibond alteration of _The Rover_, which he dubbed _Love in Many Masks_ (8vo, 1790). It was well received, and acted eight times; in the following season once. Willmore was played by Kemble himself; Belvile, Wroughton; Blunt, Jack Bannister; Stephano, Suett; Hellena, Mrs. Jordan; Angelica, Mrs. Ward; Florinda, Mrs. Powell; Valeria, Mrs. Kemble; Lucetta, Miss Tidswell. It is not entirely worthless from a purely technical point of view, but yet very modest and mediocre. As might well be surmised, the raciness and spirit of _The Rover_ entirely evaporate in the insipidity of emasculation. This is the last recorded performance of Mrs. Behn's brilliant comedy in any shape. THE ROVER; or, the Banish'd Cavaliers. PART I. PROLOGUE, Written by a Person of Quality. _Wits, like Physicians, never can agree, When of a different Society; And _Rabel's_ Drops were never more cry'd down By all the Learned Doctors of the Town, Than a new Play, whose Author is unknown: Nor can those Doctors with more Malice sue (And powerful Purses) the dissenting Few, Than those with an insulting Pride do rail At all who are not of their own Cabal._ _If a Young Poet hit your Humour right, You judge him then out of Revenge and Spite; So amongst Men there are ridiculous Elves, Who Monkeys hate for being too like themselves: So that the Reason of the Grand Debate, Why Wit so oft is damn'd, when good Plays take, Is, that you censure as you love or hate. Thus, like a learned Conclave, Poets sit Catholick Judges both of Sense and Wit, And damn or save, as they themselves think fit. Yet those who to others Faults are so severe, Are not so perfect, but themselves may err. Some write correct indeed, but then the whole (Bating their own dull Stuff i'th' Play) is stole: As Bees do suck from Flowers their Honey-dew, So they rob others, striving to please you._ _Some write their Characters genteel and fine, But then they do so toil for every Line, That what to you does easy seem, and plain, Is the hard issue of their labouring Brain. And some th' Effects of all their Pains we see, Is but to mimick good Extempore. Others by long Converse about the Town, Have Wit enough to write a leud Lampoon, But their chief Skill lies in a Baudy Song. In short, the only Wit that's now in Fashion Is but the Gleanings of good Conversation. As for the Author of this coming Play, I ask'd him what he thought fit I should say, In thanks for your good Company to day: He call'd me Fool, and said it was well known, You came not here for our sakes, but your own. New Plays are stuff'd with Wits, and with Debauches, That croud and sweat like Cits in _May_-day Coaches._ DRAMATIS PERSONAE. MEN. Don _Antonio_, the Vice-Roy's Son, Mr. _Jevorne_. Don _Pedro_, a Noble _Spaniard_, his Friend, Mr. _Medburne_. _Belvile_, an _English_ Colonel in love with _Florinda_, Mr. _Betterton_. _Willmore_, the _ROVER_, Mr. _Smith_. _Frederick_, an _English_ Gentleman, and Friend to _Belvile_ and _Blunt_, Mr. _Crosbie_. _Blunt_, an _English_ Country Gentleman, Mr. _Underhill_. _Stephano_, Servant to Don _Pedro_, Mr. _Richards_. _Philippo_, _Lucetta's_ Gallant, Mr. _Percival_. _Sancho_, Pimp to _Lucetta_, Mr. _John Lee_. _Risky_ and _Sebastian_, two Bravoes to _Angelica_. _Diego_, Page to Don _Antonio_. Page to _Hellena_. Boy, Page to _Belvile_. _Blunt's_ Man. Officers and Soldiers. WOMEN. _Florinda_, Sister to Don _Pedro_, Mrs. _Betterton_. _Hellena_, a gay young Woman design'd for a Nun, and Sister to _Florinda_, Mrs. _Barrey_. _Valeria_, a Kinswoman to _Florinda_, Mrs. _Hughes_. _Angelica Bianca_, a famous Curtezan, Mrs. _Gwin_. _Moretta_, her Woman, Mrs. _Leigh_. _Callis_, Governess to _Florinda_ and _Hellena_, Mrs. _Norris_. _Lucetta_, a jilting Wench, Mrs. _Gillow_. Servants, other Masqueraders, Men and Women. SCENE _Naples_, in Carnival-time. ACT I. SCENE I. _A chamber._ Enter _Florinda_ and _Hellena_. _Flor._ What an impertinent thing is a young Girl bred in a Nunnery! How full of Questions! Prithee no more, _Hellena_; I have told thee more than thou understand'st already. _Hell._ The more's my Grief; I wou'd fain know as much as you, which makes me so inquisitive; nor is't enough to know you're a Lover, unless you tell me too, who 'tis you sigh for. _Flor._ When you are a Lover, I'll think you fit for a Secret of that nature. _Hell._ 'Tis true, I was never a Lover yet-- but I begin to have a shreud Guess, what 'tis to be so, and fancy it very pretty to sigh, and sing, and blush and wish, and dream and wish, and long and wish to see the Man; and when I do, look pale and tremble; just as you did when my Brother brought home the fine _English_ Colonel to see you-- what do you call him? Don _Belvile_. _Flor._ Fie, _Hellena_. _Hell._ That Blush betrays you-- I am sure 'tis so-- or is it Don _Antonio_ the Vice-Roy's Son?-- or perhaps the rich old Don _Vincentio_, whom my father designs for your Husband?-- Why do you blush again? _Flor._ With Indignation; and how near soever my Father thinks I am to marrying that hated Object, I shall let him see I understand better what's due to my Beauty, Birth and Fortune, and more to my Soul, than to obey those unjust Commands. _Hell._ Now hang me, if I don't love thee for that dear Disobedience. I love Mischief strangely, as most of our Sex do, who are come to love nothing else-- But tell me, dear _Florinda_, don't you love that fine _Anglese_?-- for I vow next to loving him my self, 'twill please me most that you do so, for he is so gay and so handsom. _Flor._ _Hellena_, a Maid design'd for a Nun ought not to be so curious in a Discourse of Love. _Hell._ And dost thou think that ever I'll be a Nun? Or at least till I'm so old, I'm fit for nothing else. Faith no, Sister; and that which makes me long to know whether you love _Belvile_, is because I hope he has some mad Companion or other, that will spoil my Devotion; nay I'm resolv'd to provide my self this Carnival, if there be e'er a handsom Fellow of my Humour above Ground, tho I ask first. _Flor._ Prithee be not so wild. _Hell._ Now you have provided your self with a Man, you take no Care for poor me-- Prithee tell me, what dost thou see about me that is unfit for Love-- have not I a world of Youth? a Humour gay? a Beauty passable? a Vigour desirable? well shap'd? clean limb'd? sweet breath'd? and Sense enough to know how all these ought to be employ'd to the best Advantage: yes, I do and will. Therefore lay aside your Hopes of my Fortune, by my being a Devotee, and tell me how you came acquainted with this _Belvile_; for I perceive you knew him before he came to _Naples_. _Flor._ Yes, I knew him at the Siege of _Pampelona_, he was then a Colonel of _French_ Horse, who when the Town was ransack'd, nobly treated my Brother and my self, preserving us from all Insolencies; and I must own, (besides great Obligations) I have I know not what, that pleads kindly for him about my Heart, and will suffer no other to enter-- But see my Brother. Enter _Don Pedro_, _Stephano_, with a Masquing Habit, and _Callis_. _Pedro._ Good morrow, Sister. Pray, when saw you your Lover Don _Vincentio_? _Flor._ I know not, Sir-- _Callis_, when was he here? for I consider it so little, I know not when it was. _Pedro._ I have a Command from my Father here to tell you, you ought not to despise him, a Man of so vast a Fortune, and such a Passion for you-- _Stephano_, my things-- [Puts on his Masquing Habit. _Flor._ A Passion for me! 'tis more than e'er I saw, or had a desire should be known-- I hate _Vincentio_, and I would not have a Man so dear to me as my Brother follow the ill Customs of our Country, and make a Slave of his Sister-- And Sir, my Father's Will, I'm sure, you may divert. _Pedro._ I know not how dear I am to you, but I wish only to be rank'd in your Esteem, equal with the _English_ Colonel _Belvile_-- Why do you frown and blush? Is there any Guilt belongs to the Name of that Cavalier? _Flor._ I'll not deny I value _Belvile_: when I was expos'd to such Dangers as the licens'd Lust of common Soldiers threatned, when Rage and Conquest flew thro the City-- then _Belvile_, this Criminal for my sake, threw himself into all Dangers to save my Honour, and will you not allow him my Esteem? _Pedro._ Yes, pay him what you will in Honour-- but you must consider Don _Vincentio's_ Fortune, and the Jointure he'll make you. _Flor._ Let him consider my Youth, Beauty and Fortune; which ought not to be thrown away on his Age and Jointure. _Pedro._ 'Tis true, he's not so young and fine a Gentleman as that _Belvile_-- but what Jewels will that Cavalier present you with? those of his Eyes and Heart? _Hell._ And are not those better than any Don _Vincentio_ has brought from the _Indies_? _Pedro._ Why how now! Has your Nunnery-breeding taught you to understand the Value of Hearts and Eyes? _Hell._ Better than to believe _Vincentio_ deserves Value from any woman-- He may perhaps encrease her Bags, but not her Family. _Pedro._ This is fine-- Go up to your Devotion, you are not design'd for the Conversation of Lovers. _Hell._ Nor Saints yet a while I hope. [Aside.] Is't not enough you make a Nun of me, but you must cast my Sister away too, exposing her to a worse confinement than a religious Life? _Pedro._ The Girl's mad-- Is it a Confinement to be carry'd into the Country, to an antient Villa belonging to the Family of the _Vincentio's_ these five hundred Years, and have no other Prospect than that pleasing one of seeing all her own that meets her Eyes-- a fine Air, large Fields and Gardens, where she may walk and gather Flowers? _Hell._ When? By Moon-Light? For I'm sure she dares not encounter with the heat of the Sun; that were a Task only for Don _Vincentio_ and his _Indian_ Breeding, who loves it in the Dog-days-- And if these be her daily Divertisements, what are those of the Night? to lie in a wide Moth-eaten Bed-Chamber with Furniture in Fashion in the Reign of King _Sancho_ the First; the Bed that which his Forefathers liv'd and dy'd in. _Pedro._ Very well. _Hell._ This Apartment (new furbisht and fitted out for the young Wife) he (out of Freedom) makes his Dressing-room; and being a frugal and a jealous Coxcomb, instead of a Valet to uncase his feeble Carcase, he desires you to do that Office-- Signs of Favour, I'll assure you, and such as you must not hope for, unless your Woman be out of the way. _Pedro._ Have you done yet? _Hell._ That Honour being past, the Giant stretches it self, yawns and sighs a Belch or two as loud as a Musket, throws himself into Bed, and expects you in his foul Sheets, and e'er you can get your self undrest, calls you with a Snore or two-- And are not these fine Blessings to a young Lady? _Pedro._ Have you done yet? _Hell._ And this man you must kiss, nay, you must kiss none but him too-- and nuzle thro his Beard to find his Lips-- and this you must submit to for threescore Years, and all for a Jointure. _Pedro._ For all your Character of Don _Vincentio_, she is as like to marry him as she was before. _Hell._ Marry Don _Vincentio_! hang me, such a Wedlock would be worse than Adultery with another Man: I had rather see her in the _Hostel de Dieu_, to waste her Youth there in Vows, and be a Handmaid to Lazers and Cripples, than to lose it in such a Marriage. _Pedro._ You have consider'd, Sister, that _Belvile_ has no Fortune to bring you to, is banisht his Country, despis'd at home, and pity'd abroad. _Hell._ What then? the Vice-Roy's Son is better than that Old Sir Fisty. Don _Vincentio_! Don _Indian_! he thinks he's trading to _Gambo_ still, and wou'd barter himself (that Bell and Bawble) for your Youth and Fortune. _Pedro._ _Callis_, take her hence, and lock her up all this Carnival, and at Lent she shall begin her everlasting Penance in a Monastery. _Hell._ I care not, I had rather be a Nun, than be oblig'd to marry as you wou'd have me, if I were design'd for't. _Pedro._ Do not fear the Blessing of that Choice-- you shall be a Nun. _Hell._ Shall I so? you may chance to be mistaken in my way of Devotion-- A Nun! yes I am like to make a fine Nun! I have an excellent Humour for a Grate: No, I'll have a Saint of my own to pray to shortly, if I like any that dares venture on me. [Aside. _Pedro._ _Callis_, make it your Business to watch this wild Cat. As for you, _Florinda_, I've only try'd you all this while, and urg'd my Father's Will; but mine is, that you would love _Antonio_, he is brave and young, and all that can compleat the Happiness of a gallant Maid-- This Absence of my Father will give us opportunity to free you from _Vincentio_, by marrying here, which you must do to morrow. _Flor._ To morrow! _Pedro._ To morrow, or 'twill be too late-- 'tis not my Friendship to _Antonio_, which makes me urge this, but Love to thee, and Hatred to _Vincentio_-- therefore resolve upon't to morrow. _Flor._ Sir, I shall strive to do, as shall become your Sister. _Pedro._ I'll both believe and trust you-- Adieu. [Ex. _Ped._ and _Steph._ _Hell._ As become his Sister!-- That is, to be as resolved your way, as he is his-- [_Hell._ goes to _Callis_. _Flor._ I ne'er till now perceiv'd my Ruin near, I've no Defence against _Antonio's_ Love, For he has all the Advantages of Nature, The moving Arguments of Youth and Fortune. _Hell._ But hark you, _Callis_, you will not be so cruel to lock me up indeed: will you? _Call._ I must obey the Commands I hate-- besides, do you consider what a Life you are going to lead? _Hell._ Yes, _Callis_, that of a Nun: and till then I'll be indebted a World of Prayers to you, if you let me now see, what I never did, the Divertisements of a Carnival. _Call._ What, go in Masquerade? 'twill be a fine farewell to the World I take it-- pray what wou'd you do there? _Hell._ That which all the World does, as I am told, be as mad as the rest, and take all innocent Freedom-- Sister, you'll go too, will you not? come prithee be not sad-- We'll out-wit twenty Brothers, if you'll be ruled by me-- Come put off this dull Humour with your Clothes, and assume one as gay, and as fantastick as the Dress my Cousin _Valeria_ and I have provided, and let's ramble. _Flor._ _Callis_, will you give us leave to go? _Call._ I have a youthful Itch of going my self. [Aside.] --Madam, if I thought your Brother might not know it, and I might wait on you, for by my troth I'll not trust young Girls alone. _Flor._ Thou see'st my Brother's gone already, and thou shalt attend and watch us. Enter _Stephano_. _Steph._ Madam, the Habits are come, and your Cousin Valeria is drest, and stays for you. _Flor._ 'Tis well-- I'll write a Note, and if I chance to see _Belvile_, and want an opportunity to speak to him, that shall let him know what I've resolv'd in favour of him. _Hell._ Come, let's in and dress us. [Exeunt. SCENE II. _A Long Street._ Enter _Belvile_, melancholy, _Blunt_ and _Frederick_. _Fred._ Why, what the Devil ails the Colonel, in a time when all the World is gay, to look like mere Lent thus? Hadst thou been long enough in _Naples_ to have been in love, I should have sworn some such Judgment had befall'n thee. _Belv._ No, I have made no new Amours since I came to Naples. _Fred._ You have left none behind you in Paris. _Belv._ Neither. _Fred._ I can't divine the Cause then; unless the old Cause, the want of Mony. _Blunt._ And another old Cause, the want of a Wench-- Wou'd not that revive you? _Belv._ You're mistaken, _Ned_. _Blunt_ Nay, 'Sheartlikins, then thou art past Cure. _Fred._ I have found it out; thou hast renew'd thy Acquaintance with the Lady that cost thee so many Sighs at the Siege of _Pampelona_-- pox on't, what d'ye call her-- her Brother's a noble _Spaniard_-- Nephew to the dead General-- _Florinda_-- ay, _Florinda_-- And will nothing serve thy turn but that damn'd virtuous Woman, whom on my Conscience thou lov'st in spite too, because thou seest little or no possibility of gaining her? _Belv._ Thou art mistaken, I have Interest enough in that lovely Virgin's Heart, to make me proud and vain, were it not abated by the Severity of a Brother, who perceiving my Happiness-- _Fred._ Has civilly forbid thee the House? _Belv._ 'Tis so, to make way for a powerful Rival, the Vice-Roy's Son, who has the advantage of me, in being a Man of Fortune, a _Spaniard_, and her Brother's Friend; which gives him liberty to make his Court, whilst I have recourse only to Letters, and distant Looks from her Window, which are as soft and kind as those which Heav'n sends down on Penitents. _Blunt._ Hey day! 'Sheartlikins, Simile! by this Light the Man is quite spoil'd-- _Frederick_, what the Devil are we made of, that we cannot be thus concern'd for a Wench?-- 'Sheartlikins, our _Cupids_ are like the Cooks of the Camp, they can roast or boil a Woman, but they have none of the fine Tricks to set 'em off, no Hogoes to make the Sauce pleasant, and the Stomach sharp. _Fred._ I dare swear I have had a hundred as young, kind and handsom as this _Florinda_; and Dogs eat me, if they were not as troublesom to me i'th' Morning as they were welcome o'er night. _Blunt._ And yet, I warrant, he wou'd not touch another Woman, if he might have her for nothing. _Belv._ That's thy Joy, a cheap Whore. _Blunt._ Why, 'dsheartlikins, I love a frank Soul-- When did you ever hear of an honest Woman that took a Man's Mony? I warrant 'em good ones-- But, Gentlemen, you may be free, you have been kept so poor with Parliaments and Protectors, that the little Stock you have is not worth preserving-- but I thank my Stars, I have more Grace than to forfeit my Estate by Cavaliering. _Belv._ Methinks only following the Court should be sufficient to entitle 'em to that. _Blunt._ 'Sheartlikins, they know I follow it to do it no good, unless they pick a hole in my Coat for lending you Mony now and then; which is a greater Crime to my Conscience, Gentlemen, than to the Common-wealth. Enter _Willmore_. _Will._ Ha! dear _Belvile_! noble Colonel! _Belv._ _Willmore_! welcome ashore, my dear Rover!-- what happy Wind blew us this good Fortune? _Will._ Let me salute you my dear _Fred_, and then command me-- How is't honest Lad? _Fred._ Faith, Sir, the old Complement, infinitely the better to see my dear mad _Willmore_ again-- Prithee why camest thou ashore? and where's the Prince? _Will._ He's well, and reigns still Lord of the watery Element-- I must aboard again within a Day or two, and my Business ashore was only to enjoy my self a little this Carnival. _Belv._ Pray know our new Friend, Sir, he's but bashful, a raw Traveller, but honest, stout, and one of us. [Embraces _Blunt_. _Will._ That you esteem him, gives him an Interest here. _Blunt._ Your Servant, Sir. _Will._ But well-- Faith I'm glad to meet you again in a warm Climate, where the kind Sun has its god-like Power still over the Wine and Woman.-- Love and Mirth are my Business in _Naples_; and if I mistake not the Place, here's an excellent Market for Chapmen of my Humour. _Belv._ See here be those kind Merchants of Love you look for. Enter several Men in masquing Habits, some playing on Musick, others dancing after; Women drest like Curtezans, with Papers pinn'd to their Breasts, and Baskets of Flowers in their Hands. _Blunt._ 'Sheartlikins, what have we here! _Fred._ Now the Game begins. _Will._ Fine pretty Creatures! may a stranger have leave to look and love?-- What's here-- _Roses for every Month!_ [Reads the Paper. _Blunt._ Roses for every Month! what means that? _Belv._ They are, or wou'd have you think they're Curtezans, who herein _Naples_ are to be hir'd by the Month. _Will._ Kind and obliging to inform us-- Pray where do these Roses grow? I would fain plant some of 'em in a Bed of mine. _Wom._ Beware such Roses, Sir. _Will._ A Pox of fear: I'll be bak'd with thee between a pair of Sheets, and that's thy proper Still, so I might but strow such Roses over me and under me-- Fair one, wou'd you wou'd give me leave to gather at your Bush this idle Month, I wou'd go near to make some Body smell of it all the Year after. _Belv._ And thou hast need of such a Remedy, for thou stinkest of Tar and Rope-ends, like a Dock or Pesthouse.