The Works of Aphra Behn Volume I Part 3

[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 s.e.x) 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, la.s.situde, 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt:-- '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 _s.e.x 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 t.i.tle 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 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, 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 a.s.sailed with vehement satire and acrid lampoons, lacking both truth and decency, Aphra Behn does not come off scot-free, n.o.body 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 Wh.o.r.e, 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 pa.s.sage: 'Mrs. _Behn's_ Miscell. Printed by _Jos.

Hindmarsh_.' In _a Letter from the Dead Thomas Brown to the Living Herac.l.i.tus_ (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 Lat.i.tude 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 s.e.x_, 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 s.p.a.cious hall, 'sacred to the Spirits of the Bards, whose Remains are buried, or whose Monuments are erected within this Pile. To night an a.s.sembly 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s bare; how much Fire in her Eye! what a pa.s.sionate Expression in her Motions; And how much a.s.surance in her Features! Observe what an Indignant Look she bestows on the President [Chaucer], who is telling her, _that none of her s.e.x has any Right to a Seat there_. How she throws her Eyes about, to see if she can find out any one of the a.s.sembly 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 a.s.sembly. That extraordinary Woman is _Afra Behn_.' The pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.signing 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 circ.u.mstances compelled her to write her scenes. That she should ever recover her pristine reputation is of course, owing to the pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sage. 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.