rs,
To jeer us will make bold,
And laugh at patient anglers,
Who stand so long i' th' cold;
They wait on Miss,
We wait on this,
And think it easie labour;
And if you know, fish profits too,
Consult our _Holland_ neighbour.
Then who, &c."

D'Urfey was a favourite with Queen Anne, and many of his poems were
written at Knole, Penshurst, and other seats of the nobility.

Up to the time we have now reached, we have not had the opportunity of
enrolling the name of a lady among our humorists. Although in society
so many of the fair sparkle and overflow with quick and graceful
raillery, we find that when they come to impress their thoughts upon
paper they are invariably sentimental. Authors are often a contrast to
their writings, but no doubt the female mind is generally of a poetical
complexion. Thus, in the early part of the last century we meet with
only three lady humorists, Mrs. Manley, mostly noted for her scandalous
stories: Mrs. Behn, whose humour was crude, chiefly that of rough
harlequinade and gross immorality, and Mrs. Centlivre. Early
opportunities of study were afforded to the last in a remarkable way.
When flying from the anger of her stepmother, she met Anthony Hammond,
then at Cambridge, and went to live with him at the University,
disguised in boy's clothes. Remarkable for her beauty, she married, when
only fifteen, a nephew of Sir Stephen Fox, and upon his death at
sixteen, a Captain Carrol, who was killed in a duel. It was then partly
owing to pecuniary embarrassments that she went on the stage and wrote
plays--the first of her dramas appearing in her twentieth year. So great
was the prejudice then against lady writers, that at her publisher's
suggestion her first production was anonymous. But those, who began by
deriding her pretensions, ended by acknowledging her merit; she became
a great favourite and constant writer for the stage, and an intimate
friend of Farquhar and Steele. There is an absence of indelicacy in her
plays, but not a little farcical humour, especially in the character of
"Marplot" in "The Busybody," and of rich "Mrs. Dowdy" with her vulgarity
and admirers in "The Platonic Lady." She often adopts the tone of the
day in ridiculing learned ladies. In one place she speaks as if even at
that time the founding of a college for ladies was in contemplation--

_Lady Reveller._ Why in such haste, Cousin Valeria?

_Valeria._ Oh! dear Cousin, don't stop