The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III | Page 9

this adventure it plainly appears, that the observation of a Dutchman's not being capable to love is false; for both Albert, and the Nestorian wooer, seem to have been warm enough in their addresses.
After passing some time in this manner at Antwerp, she embarked at Dunkirk for England; and in her passage, was near being lost, for the ship being driven on the coast, foundered within sight of land, but by the assistance of boats from the shore, they were all saved; and Mrs. Behn arriving in London, dedicated the rest of her life to pleasure and poetry. Besides publishing three volumes of miscellany poems, she wrote seventeen plays, and some histories and novels. She translated Fontenelle's History of Oracles, and plurality of worlds, to which last she annexed an Essay on Translation, and translated Prose. The Paraphrase of Oenone's, Epistle to Paris, in the English Translation of Ovid's Epistles is Mrs. Behn's; as are the celebrated Love Letters between a Nobleman and his Sister. Her wit gained her the esteem of Mr. Dryden, Mr. Southern, &c. and at the same time the love and addresses of several gentlemen, in particular one, with whom she corresponded under the name of Lycida, who it seems did not return her passion with equal warmth, and with the earnestness and rapture, she imagined her beauty had a right to command.
Mrs. Behn died after a long indisposition, April 16, 1689, and was buried in the cloister of Westminster Abbey. We shall beg leave to exhibit her character, as we find it drawn by some of her cotemporaries, and add a remark of our own. 'Mr. Langbain 'thinks her Memory will be long fresh among all lovers of dramatic poetry, as having been sufficiently eminent, not only for her theatrical performances; but several other pieces both in prose and verse, which gained her an esteem among the wits almost equal to that of the incomparable Orinda, Mrs. Katherine Phillips.'
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 passions, 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 authoress of her life and memoirs, in these words.
'She was of a generous humane disposition, 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, 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 sex; 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