was mistress of, and gave us such nice and tender touches of them, that without her name we might discover the author. --GILDON, CHARLES, 1698, Mrs. Behn's Histories and Novels, Epistle Dedicatory.

Aphra Behn was a graceful, comely woman, with brown hair and bright eyes, and was painted so in an existing portrait of her by John Ripley. She is said to have introduced milk punch into England. She deserves our sympathy as a warmhearted, gifted, and industrious woman, who was forced by circumstance and temperament to win her livelihood in a profession where scandalous writing was at that time obligatory. It is impossible, with what we know regarding her life, to defend her manners as correct or her attitude to the world as delicate. But we may be sure that a woman so witty, so active, and so versatile, was not degraded, though she might be lamentably unconventional. She was the George Sand of the Restoration, the "chère maître" to such men as Dryden, Otway, and Southerne, who all honoured her with their friendship. Her genius and vivacity were undoubted; her plays are very coarse, but very lively and humorous, while she possessed an indisputable touch of lyric genius. Her prose works are decidedly less meritorious than her dramas and the best of her poems.-GOSSE, EDMUND, 1885, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. IV, p. 130.

Despite the offensiveness of her writings, is personally a sympathetic figure. Her eighteen plays, have, with few exceptions, sufficient merit to entitle her to a respectable place among the dramatists of her age, and sufficient indelicacy to be unreadable in this. It may well be believed, on the authority of a female friend, that the authoress "had wit, humour, good-nature, and judgment; was mistress of all the pleasing arts of conversation; was a woman of sense, and consequently a woman of pleasure. She was buried in Westminster Abbey, but not in Poets' Corner. --GARNETT, RICHARD, 1895, The Age of Dryden, p. 146, 147.

OROONOKO

She had a great command of the stage, and I have often wondered that she would bury her favourite 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 believed 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.SOUTHERNE, THOMAS, 1696, Oroonoko, Dedication.

I have said that "Oroonoko" is the best known of Mrs. Behn's novels, but I doubt whether more than a very few of the present generation have read or even seen it, and I had some difficulty in procuring a copy.-FORSYTH, WILLIAM, 1871, The Novels and Novelists of the Eighteenth Century, p. 181.

The tragic and pathetic story of "Oroonoko" does only less credit to her excellent literary ability than to the noble impulse of womanly compassion and womanly horror which informs the whole narrative and makes of it one ardent and continuous appeal for sympathy and pity, one fervent and impassioned protest against cruelty and tyranny.-SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES, 1891, Social Verse, Studies in Prose and Poetry, p. 95.

Posterity is content to know that Astræa trod the stage loosely, and so she gets no credit for the merits of her novels. Yet these merits are real, for Mrs. Aphra Behn had passed her childhood in Surinam, where her father was governor; for some years after the Restoration she had lived at Antwerp as a Government agent; and it was on sundry experiences in these two places that she based her two best-known novels, published in 1698, after her death,-"Oroonoko" and "The Fair Jilt." For making use of incidents of real life in the service of fiction at a time when the heroic romance was at the height of its vogue, she deserves all credit. And yet it was no literary reform that she effected. . . The story of "Oroonoko," the love-lorn and magnanimous negro, of "very little religion" but "admirable morals, "who meets a tragic death, belongs to a class of romance that flourished almost a century later, when Rousseau had given popularity to the philosophical ideas that underlie it. In this novel Mrs. Behn is one of the early precursors of the romantic revival, and finds her logical place in that movement. But her bold conduct of a simple story and her popularity with her contemporaries

entitle her also to claim a share in the attempt, faint and ineffective, that the later seventeenth century witnessed, to bring romance into closer relation with contemporary life.-RALEIGH, WALTER, 1894, The English Novel, pp. 107, 108.

"Oroonoko" is the first humanitarian novel in English. Though its spirit cannot for a moment be compared, in moral earnestness, with "Uncle Tom's Cabin," yet its purpose was to awaken Christendom to the horrors of slavery. The time

being not yet ripe for it, the romance was for the public merely an interesting story to be dramatized.-CROSS, WILBUR L., 1899, The Development of the English Novel, p. 20.

GENERAL

I was desired to say that the author, who is of the fair sex, understood not Latin; but if she do not, I am afraid she has given us occasion to be ashamed who do. DRYDEN, JOHN, 1680, Ovid's Epistles, Preface.

But when you write of Love, Astrea, then Love dips his Arrows, where you wet your pen.

Such charming Lines did never Paper grace; Soft as your Sex; and smooth as Beauty's Face.

-COTTON, CHARLES, C 1687, Verses Prefixed to Mrs. Behn's translation of Bonnecorse's La Montre.

A Person lately deceased, but whose Memory will be long fresh amongst the Lovers of Dramatick Poetry, as having been sufficiently Eminent not only for her Theatrical Performances, but several other Pieces both in Verse and Prose; which gain'd her an Esteem among the Wits, almost equal to that of the incomparable Orinda, Madam Katharine Phillips.

Most of her Comedies have had the good fortune to please: and tho' it must be confest that she has borrow'd very much, not only from her own Country Men, but likewise from the French Poets yet it may be said in her behalf, that she has often been forc'd to it through hast and has borrow'd from others Stores, rather of Choice than for want of a fond of Wit of her own: it having been formerly her unhappiness to be necessitated to write for Bread, as she has publisht to the world. 'Tis also to her Commendation, that whatever she borrows she improves for the better: a Plea which our

late Laureat has not been asham'd to make use of. If to this, her Sex may plead in her behalf, I doubt not but she will be allowed equal with several of our Poets her Contemporaries.-LANGBAINE, GERARD, 1691, An Account of the English Dramatick Poets, p. 17.

The stage how loosely does Astræa tread, Who fairly puts all characters to bed! -POPE, ALEXANDER, 1733, The First Epistle of the Second book of Horace.

This young fellow lay in bed, reading one of Mrs. Behn's novels, for he had been instructed by a friend that he could not find a more effectual method of recommending himself to ladies, than by improving his understanding, and filling his mind with good literature.-FIELDING, HENRY, 1749, The History of Tom Jones.

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 passions. intimately which she describes, and this circumstance added to necessity, might be the occasion of her plays being of that cast.-CIBBER, THEOPHILUS, 1753, Lives of the Poets, vol. III, p. 26.

Her plays, which are numerous, abound with obscenity; and her novels are little better. Mr. Pope speaks thus of her: "The stage how loosely does Astræa tread, Who fairly puts all characters to bed!" The poet means behind the scenes. There is no doubt but she would have literally put them to bed before the spectators; but here she was restrained by the laws of the drama, not by her own delicacy, or the manners of the age. Sir Richard Steele tells us, that she "understood the practic part of love better than the speculative."--GRANGER, JAMES, 1769-1824, Biographical History of England, vol. V, p. 261.

A grand-aunt of my own, Mrs. Keith of Ravelstone, who was a person of some condition, being a daughter of Sir John Swinton of Swinton-lived with unabated vigour of intellect to a very advanced age. She was very fond of reading, and enjoyed it to the last of her long life. One day she asked me, when we happened to be alone together, whether I had ever seen Mrs. Behn's novels?-I confessed the charge. Whether I could get her a sight of them?—I said, with some hesitation, I

believed I could; but that I did not think she would like either the manners, or the language, which approached too near that of Charles II.'s time to be quite proper reading. "Nevertheless," said the good old lady, "I remember them being so much admired, and being so much interested in them myself, that I wish to look at them again." To hear was to obey. So I sent Mrs. Aphra Behn, curiously sealed up, with "private and confidential" on the packet, to my gay old grand-aunt. The next time I saw her afterwards, she gave me back Aphra, properly wrapped up, with nearly these words:-"Take back your bonny Mrs. Behn; and, if you will take my advice, put her in the fire, for I found it impossible to get through the very first novel. But is it not," she said, "a very odd thing, that I, an old woman of eighty and upwards, sitting alone, feel myself ashamed to read a book which, sixty years ago, I have heard read aloud for the amusement of large circles, consisting of the first and most creditable society in London ?"-SCOTT, SIR WALTER, c 1821, Letter to Lady Louisa Stuart, Lockhart's Life, ch. liv.

Her verses are natural and cordial, written in a masculine style, and yet womanly. withal. If she had given us nothing but such poetry as this ["Love Armed"], she would have been as much admired, and known among us all, to this day, as she consented to be among the rakes of her time. Her comedies indeed are alarming and justly incurred the censure of Pope: though it is probable, that a thoughtless good-humor made her pen run over, rather than real licentiousness; and that, although free enough in her life, she was not so "extravagant and erring" as persons with less mind. -HUNT, Leigh, 1847, Specimens of British Poetesses; Men, Women and Books.

Her name would have been excluded from all mention in these pages, had it not been necessary to mark the true state of female literature at this period. Aphara Behn is the first English authoress upon record whose life was openly wrong, and whose writings were obscene. IAMS, JANE, 1861, The Literary Women of England, p. 128.

WILL

In eighteen years she saw nineteen of her dramas applauded or hissed by the debauched and idle groundlings of the

Duke's Theatre; and forced to write what would please, she wrote in a style that has put a later generation very justly to the blush. But in power of sustained production she surpassed all her contemporaries expect Dryden, since beside this. ample list of plays, she published eight novels, some collections of poetry, and various miscellaneous volumes. The bulk of her writings, and the sustained force so considerable a body of literature displays, are more marked than the quality of her style, which is very irregular, uncertain and untutored. She possessed none of that command over her pen which a university training had secured to the best male poets of her time. But she has moments of extraordinary fire and audacity, when her verse throws off its languor, and progresses with harmony and passion. Her one long poem, "The Voyage to the Isle of Love," which extends to more than two thousand lines, is a sentimental allegory, in a vague and tawdry style, almost wholly without value; her best pieces occur here and there in her plays and among her miscellaneous poems. It is very unfortunate that one who is certainly to be numbered, as far as intellectual capacity goes, in the first rank of English female writers, should have done

her best to remove her name from the recollection of posterity by the indelicacy and indiscretion of her language.-GOSSE, EDMUND, 1880, English Poets, ed. Ward, vol. II, p. 419.

It is a pity, almost, that the next name must have a place accorded to it; certainly a pity that beside any records of what the more exalted spirit of woman has achieved, mention should be made of so unsexed a writer as Mrs. Aphra Behn. Yet she was a woman, writing much that was vigorous and a little that was poetical, and so must needs be catalogued among the verse writers with whom it is the business of these pages to deal.-ROBERTSON, ERIC S., 1883, English Poetesses, p. 9.

She was an undoubted wit, and was never dull, but so wicked and coarse that she forfeited all right to fame. -SANBORN, KATE, 1885, The Wit of Women, p. 195.

Her plays have in relation to those of her contemporaries a rather unfair reputation for license, but are of small literary worth. Her prose has much merit, and she ranks early and high in the list of

The "Apology" of Barclay is a learned and methodical treatise, very different from what the world expected on such a subject, and it was therefore read with avidity both in Britain and on the continent. . It would be erroneous, however, to regard this work of Barclay as an exposition of all the doctrines which have been or are prevalent among the Quakers, or, indeed, to consider it as anything more than the vehicle of such of his own views as, in his character of an apologist, he thought it desirable to state. The dedication of Barclay's "Apology" to King Charles II. has always been particularly admired for its respectful yet manly freedom of style, and for the pathos of its allusion to his majesty's own early troubles, as a reason for his extending mercy and favour to the persecuted Quakers. CHAMBERS, ROBERT, 1876, Chambers's Cyclopædia of English Literature, ed. Carruthers.

Barclay's great book, "The Apology, is remarkable as the standard exposition

of the principles of his sect, and is not only the first defence of those principles by a man of trained intelligence, but in many respects one of the most impressive theological writings of the century. In form it is a careful defence of each of the fifteen theses previously published. It is impressive in style; grave, logical, and often marked by the eloquence of lofty moral convictions.-STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1885, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. III, p. 169.

This remarkable book, which has been recommended by bishops to theological students as the best available for many purposes, is the standard exposition of Quakerism, and undoubtedly ranks among the classics of its period. Mr. Leslie Stephen describes it as "one of the most impressive theological writings of the century grave, logical, and often marked by the eloquence of lofty moral convictions. "The St. Paul of the Quakers,' says Coleridge of the author.-GARNETT, RICHARD, 1895, The Age of Dryden, p. 226.

GENERAL

The Indian Apostle.-THOROWGOOD, T., 1660, Jews in America, p. 24.

Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe UpBiblum God naneeswe Nukkone Testament kah wonk Wusku Testament. Ne quoshkinnumuk nashpe Wuttinneumoh Christ noh asooweesit John Eliot.-TITLE PAGE OF FIRST EDITION, 1661-63.

Since the death of the apostle Paul, a nobler, truer, and warmer spirit than John Eliot never lived.-EVERETT, EDWARD, 1835, Address at Bloody Brook, Orations and Speeches.

I have sometimes doubted whether there was more than a single man among our forefathers who realized that an Indian possesses a mind, and a heart, and an immortal soul. That single man was John Eliot. Eliot was full of love for them; and therefore so full of faith and

hope that he spent the labor of a lifetime in their behalf. . . . To learn a language utterly unlike all other tongues—a language which hitherto had never been learned, except by the Indians themselves from their mothers' lips a language never written, and the strange words of which seemed inexpressible by letters if the task were, first to learn this new variety of speech, and then to translate the Bible into it, and to do it so carefully that not one idea throughout the holy book should be changed . . . this was what the Apostle Eliot did. . . There is no impiety in believing that, when his long life was over, the apostle of the Indians was welcomed to the celestial abodes by the prophets of ancient days and by those earliest apostles and evangelists who had drawn their inspiration from the immediate presence of the Saviour. They first had preached truth and