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 felt the passions intimately
which she describes, and this circumstance added to necessity, might be
the occasion of her plays being of that cast.

The stage how loosely does Astrea tread,
Who fairly puts, all characters to bed.

Are lines of Mr. Pope:

And another modern speaking of, the vicissitudes to which the stage is
subjected, has the following,

Perhaps if skill could distant times explore,
New Behn's, new Durfey's, yet remain in store,
Perhaps, for who can guess th' effects of chance,
Here Hunt[4] may box, and Mahomet[5] may dance.

This author cannot be well acquainted with Mrs. Behn's works, who makes
a comparison between them and the productions of Durfey. There are marks
of a fine understanding in the most unfinished piece of Mrs. Behn, and
the very worst of this lady's compositions are preferable to Durfey's
bell. It is unpleasing to have the merit of any of the Fair Sex
lessened. Mrs. Behn suffered enough at the hands of supercilious prudes,
who had the barbarity to construe her sprightliness into lewdness;
and because she had wit and beauty, she must likewise be charged with
prostitution and irreligion.

Her dramatic works are,

1, 2. The Rover: Or, the banished Cavalier. I