The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland Volume III Part 2

There are several encomiums on Mrs. Behn prefixed to her lover's watch; among the rest, Mr. Charles Cotton, author of Virgil Travesty, throws in his mite in her praise; though the lines are but poorly writ. But of all her admirers, Mr. Charles Gildon, who was intimately acquainted with our poetess, speaks of her with the highest encomiums.

In his epistle dedicatory to her histories and novels, he thus expresses himself. 'Poetry, the supreme pleasure of the mind, is begot, and born in pleasure, but oppressed and killed with pain. This reflexion ought to raise our admiration of Mrs. Behn, whose genius was of that force, to maintain its gaiety in the midst of disappointments, which a woman of her sense and merit ought never to have met with. But she had a great strength of mind, and command of thought, being able to write in the midst of company, and yet have the share of the conversation: which I saw her do in writing Oroonoko, and other parts of her works, in every part of which you'll find an easy stile and a peculiar happiness of thinking. The pa.s.sions, that of love especially, she was mistress of, and gave us such nice and tender touches of them, that without her name we might discover the author.' To this character of Mrs. Behn may be very properly added, that given of her by the auth.o.r.ess of her life and memoirs, in these words.

'She was of a generous humane disposition, something pa.s.sionate, very serviceable to her friends in all that was in her power, and could sooner forgive an injury than do one. She had wit, humour, good-nature and judgment. She was mistress of all the pleasing arts of conversation: She was a woman of sense, and consequently a lover of pleasure. For my part I knew her intimately, and never saw ought unbecoming the just modesty of our s.e.x; though more gay and free, than the folly of the precise will allow.'

The authors of the Biographia Brittanica say, that her poetry is none of the best; and that her comedies, tho' not without humour, are full of the most indecent scenes and expressions. As to the first, with submission to the authority of these writers, the charge is ill-founded, which will appear from the specimen upon which Dryden himself makes her a compliment; as to the latter, I'm afraid it cannot be so well defended; but let those who are ready to blame her, consider, that her's was the sad alternative to write or starve; the taste of the times was corrupt; and it is a true observation, that they who live to please, must please to live.

Mrs. Behn perhaps, as much as any one, condemned loose scenes, and too warm descriptions; but something must be allowed to human frailty. She herself was of an amorous complexion, she felt the pa.s.sions intimately which she describes, and this circ.u.mstance added to necessity, might be the occasion of her plays being of that cast.

The stage how loosely does Astrea tread, Who fairly puts, all characters to bed.

Are lines of Mr. Pope:

And another modern speaking of, the vicissitudes to which the stage is subjected, has the following,

Perhaps if skill could distant times explore, New Behn's, new Durfey's, yet remain in store, Perhaps, for who can guess th' effects of chance, Here Hunt[4] may box, and Mahomet[5] may dance.

This author cannot be well acquainted with Mrs. Behn's works, who makes a comparison between them and the productions of Durfey. There are marks of a fine understanding in the most unfinished piece of Mrs. Behn, and the very worst of this lady's compositions are preferable to Durfey's bell. It is unpleasing to have the merit of any of the Fair s.e.x lessened. Mrs. Behn suffered enough at the hands of supercilious prudes, who had the barbarity to construe her sprightliness into lewdness; and because she had wit and beauty, she must likewise be charged with prost.i.tution and irreligion.

Her dramatic works are,

1, 2. The Rover: Or, the banished Cavalier. In two parts, both comedies; acted at the duke's theatre, and printed in 4to. 1677 and 1681. Those plays are taken in a great measure from Killegrew's Don Thomaso, or the wanderer.

3. The Dutch Lover, a Comedy, acted at the Duke's theatre, and printed in 4to, 1673. The plot of this play is founded upon a Spanish Comedy ent.i.tled, Don Fenise, written by Don Francisco de las Coveras.

4. Abdelazer; or the Moor's Revenge, a Tragedy, acted at the duke's theatre, and printed in 4to. 1671. It is taken from an old play of Marlow's, int.i.tled, l.u.s.t's Dominion; or the Lascivious Queen, a Tragedy.

5. The Young King; or the Mistake, a Tragi-Comedy, acted at the duke's theatre, and printed in 4to. in 1683. The design of this play is taken from the story of Alcamenes and Menalippa, in Calprenede's Cleopatra.

6. The Round-Heads; or the Good Old Cause, a Comedy; acted at the duke's theatre, and printed in 4to. 1682. It is dedicated to Henry Fitzroy-duke of Grafton.

7. The City Heiress; or Sir Timothy Treatwell, a Comedy; acted at the duke's theatre, and printed in 4to. in 1682, dedicated to Henry Earl of Arundel, and Lord Mowbray. Most of the characters in this play are borrowed, according to Langbaine, from Ma.s.singer's Guardian, and Middleton's Mad World my Masters.

8. The Town Fop, or Sir Timothy Tawdry, a Comedy, acted at the duke's theatre, and printed in 4to. 1677. This play is founded on a comedy written by one George Wilkins, ent.i.tled, the Miseries of inforced Marriage.

9. The False Count, or a New Way to play an old Game, a Comedy; acted at the duke's theatre, and printed in 4to. 1682 Isabella's being deceived by the Chimney Sweeper is borrowed from Mollier's precieuse Ridicules.

10. The Lucky Chances; or an Alderman's Bargain, a Comedy, acted by the King's company, and printed in 4to. in 1687. It is dedicated to Hyde Earl of Rochester. This play was greatly condemned by the critics; some incidents in it are borrowed from s.h.i.+rley's Lady of Pleasure.

11. The forced Marriage; or the jealous Bridegroom, a Tragi-Comedy, acted at the duke's theatre, and printed in 4to, 1671.

12. Sir Patient Fancy; a Comedy, acted at the duke's theatre, and printed in 4to. 1678. The plot of this play, and some of the characters, particularly Sir Patient, is borrowed from Moliere's Malades Imaginaires.

13. The Widow Ranter; or the History of Bacon in Virginia, a Tragi-Comedy, acted by the King's company, and printed 1690. It is uncertain where she had the history of Bacon; but the catastrophe seems founded on the story of Ca.s.sius, who died by the hand of his freed man. This play was published after Mrs. Behn's death by one G.I., her friend.

14. The Feigned Courtezan; or a Night's Intrigue, a Comedy, acted at the duke's theatre, and printed in 4to. 1679. It is dedicated to the famous Ellen Gwyn, King Charles IId's mistress, and is esteemed one of Mrs. Behn's best plays.

15. Emperor of the Moon, a Farce, acted at the Queen's theatre, and printed 4to. 1687. It is dedicated to the Marquis of Worcester. The Plot is taken from an Italian piece translated into French, under the t.i.tle of Harlequin Empereur, Dans le Monde de la Lune, and acted at Paris above eighty nights without intermission.

16. The Amorous Prince; or the Curious Husband, a Comedy, acted at the duke of York's theatre, and printed in 4to. 1671. The plot is borrowed from the novel of the Curious Impertinent in Don Quixote.

17. The younger Brother; or the Amorous Jilt; a Comedy, published after her death by Mr. Gildon. It was taken from a true story of colonel Henry Martin, and a certain lady.

Mrs. Behn's plays, all but the last, were published together in two volumes 8vo. But the edition of 1724 is in four volumes 12mo. including the Younger Brother.

The following is an account of her novels, and histories,

They are extant in two volumes 12mo. Lond. 1735, 8th edition, published by Mr. Charles Gildon, and dedicated to Simon Scroop, Esq; to which is prefixed the history of the Life and Memoirs of our auth.o.r.ess, written by one of the fair s.e.x.

1. The History of Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave: This was founded on a true story, the incidents of which happened during her residence at Surinam. It gave birth to Mr. Southern's celebrated play of that name; who in his dedication of it, speaking of his obligation to Mrs. Behn for the subject, says,

'She had a great command of the stage, and I have often wondered that she would bury her favorite hero in a novel, when she might have revived him in the scene. She thought either, that no actor could represent him, or she could not bear him represented; and I believe the last, when I remember what I have heard from a friend of her's, that she always told a story more feelingly than she writ.'

2. The Fair Jilt; or the Amours of Prince Tarquin and Miranda. This is likewise said to be derived from a true story, to a great part of which she tells she was an eye witness; and what she did not see, she learned from some of the actors concerned in it, the Franciscans of Antwerp, where the scene is laid.

3. The Nun, or the perjured Beauty, a true novel.

4. The History of Agnes de Castro.

5. The Lover's Watch; or the Art of making love. It is taken from M. Bonnecourte's le Montre, or the Watch. It is not properly a novel. A lady, under the name of Iris, being absent from her lover Damon, is supposed to send him a Watch, on the dial plate of which the whole business of a lover, during the twenty-four hours, is marked out, and pointed to by the dart of a Cupid in the middle.-

"Thus eight o'clock is marked agreeable to reverie; nine o'Clock, design to please no body; ten o'clock, reading of letters, &c."

To which is added, as from Damon to Iris, a description of the case of the watch.

6. The Lady's Looking-Gla.s.s, to dress themselves by. Damon is supposed to send Iris a looking-gla.s.s, which represents to her all her charms, viz. her shape, complexion, hair, &c. This likewise, which is not properly a novel, is taken from the French.

7. The Lucky Mistake, a new novel.

8. The Court of the King of Bantam.

9. The Adventures of the Black Lady. The reader will distinguish the originals from translations, by consulting the 2d and 3d tomes of Recueil des pieces gallantet, en prose et en verse. Paris 1684.

We have observed, that in the English translation of Ovid's Epistles, the paraphrase of Oenone's Epistle to Paris is her's. In the preface to that work Mr. Dryden pays her this handsome compliment.

"I was desired to say, that the author, who is of the fair s.e.x, understood not Latin; but if she does not, I'm afraid she has given us occasion to be ashamed who do."

Part of this epistle transcribed will afford a specimen of her verification.

Say lovely youth, why wouldst thou, thus betray, My easy faith, and lead my heart away.

I might some humble shepherd's choice have been, Had I not heard that tongue, those eyes not seen; And in some homely cot, in low repose, Liv'd undisturb'd, with broken vows and oaths; All day by shaded springs my flocks have kept, And in some honest arms, at night have slept.

Then, un-upbraided with my wrongs thou'dit been, Safe in the joys of the fair Grecian queen.

What stars do rule the great? no sooner you Became a prince, but you were perjured too.

Are crowns and falsehoods then consistent things?

And must they all be faithless who are Kings?

The G.o.ds be prais'd that I was humble born, Ev'n tho' it renders me my Paris' scorn.

And I had rather this way wretched prove, Than be a queen, dishonest in my love.

[Footnote 1: Memoirs prefixed to her Novels, by a lady.]

[Footnote 2: Memoires ubi supra.]