The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III | Page 6

use at all,?But, in its full perfection of decay,?Turns vinegar, and comes again in play.?Thou hast a brain, such as it is indeed;?On what else mould thy worm of fancy feed??Yet in a Filbert I have often known?Maggots survive when all the kernel's gone.?This simile shall stand, in thy defence,?'Gainst such dull rogues as now and then write sense.?Thy style's the same, whatever be thy theme,?As some digestion turns all meat to phlegm.?He lyes, dear Ned, who says, thy brain it barren,?Where deep conceits, like vermin breed in carrion.?Thy stumbling founder'd jade can trot as high?As any other Pegasus can fly.?So the dull Eel moves nimbler in the mud,?Than all the swift-finn'd racers of the flood.?As skilful divers to the bottom fall,?Sooner than those that cannot swim at all,?So in the way of writing, without thinking,?Thou hast a strange alacrity in sinking.?Thou writ'st below ev'n thy own nat'ral parts,?And with acquir'd dulness, and new arts?Of studied nonsense, tak'st kind readers hearts.?Therefore dear Ned, at my advice forbear,?Such loud complaints 'gainst critics to prefer,?Since thou art turn'd an arrant libeller:?Thou sett'st thy name to what thyself do'st write;?Did ever libel yet so sharply bite?

Mrs. APHRA BEHN,
A celebrated poetess of the last age, was a gentlewoman by birth, being descended, as her life-writer says, from a good family in the city of Canterbury. She was born in Charles Ist's reign[1], but in what year is not known. Her father's name was Johnson, whose relation to the lord Willoughby engaged him for the advantageous post of lieutenant general of Surinam, and six and thirty islands, to undertake a voyage, with his whole family, to the West-Indies, at which time our poetess was very young. Mr. Johnson died at sea, in his passage thither; but his family arrived at Surinam, a place so delightfully situated, and abounding with such a vast profusion of beauties, that, according to Mrs. Behn's description, nature seems to have joined with art to render it perfectly elegant: her habitation in that country, called St. John's Hill, she has challenged all the gardens in Italy, nay, all the globe of the world, to shew so delightful a recess. It was there our poetess became acquainted with the story and person of the American Prince Oroonoko, whose adventures she has so feelingly and elegantly described in the celebrated Novel of that name, upon which Mr. Southern has built his Tragedy of Oroonoko, part of which is so entertaining and moving, that it is almost too much for nature. Mrs. Behn tells us, that she herself had often seen and conversed with that great man, and been a witness to many of his mighty actions, and that at one time, he, and Imoinda his wife, were scarce an hour in a day from her lodgings; that they eat with her, and that she obliged them in all things she was capable of, entertaining them with the lives of the Romans and great men, which charmed him with her company; while she engaged his wife with teaching her all the pretty works she was mistress of, relating stories of Nuns, and endeavouring to bring her to the knowledge of the true God. This intimacy between Oroonoko and Mrs. Behn occasioned some reflexions on her conduct, from which the authoress of her life, already quoted, justified her in the following manner; 'Here, says she, I can add nothing to what she has given the world already, but a vindication of her from some unjust aspersions I find are insinuated about this town, in relation to that prince. I knew her intimately well, and I believe she would not have concealed any love affair from me, being one of her own sex, whose friendship and secrecy she had experienced, which makes me assure the world that there was no intrigue between that Prince and Astr?a. She had a general value for his uncommon virtues, and when he related the story of his woes, she might with the Desdemona of Shakespear, cry out, That it was pitiful, wondrous pitiful, which never can be construed into an amour; besides, his heart was too violently set on the everlasting charms of his Imoinda, to be shook with those more faint (in his eye) of a white beauty; and Astrea's relations there present kept too watchful an eye over her, to permit the frailty of her youth, if that had been powerful enough.' After this lady's return to London, she was married to Mr. Behn, a Merchant there, but of Dutch extraction. This marriage strengthening her interest, and, perhaps, restoring her character, gave her an opportunity of appearing with advantage at court. She gave King Charles II. so accurate and agreeable an account of the colony of Surinam, that he conceived a great opinion of her abilities, and thought