d that a little too loosely she writt.

[Footnote 4: Aphra now appears on Mrs. Behn's gravestone, and is
the accepted form. This is, however, in all probability the third
inscription. _The Antiquities of Westminster_ (1711), quoting the
inscription, gives Aphara. Sometime in the eighteenth century a
certain Thomas Waine restored the inscription and added to the two
lines two more:--
Great Poetess, O thy stupendous lays
The world admires and the Muses praise.
The name was then Aphara. The _Biog. Brit._, whilst insisting on
Aphara as correct and citing the stone as evidence, none the less
prints Apharra. Her works usually have Mrs. A. Behn. One Quarto
misprints 'Mrs. Anne Behn'. There are, of course, many variants of
the name. Afara, and Afra are common. Oldys in his MS. notes on
Langbaine writes Aphra or Aphora, whilst the _Muses Mercury_,
September, 1707, has a special note upon a poem by Mrs. Behn to say
'this Poetess' true Name was Apharra.' Even Aphaw (Behen, in the
1682 warrant,) and Fyhare (in a petition) occur.]

[Footnote 5: He died in 1642.]

[Footnote 6: The Vicar of Wye, the Rev. Edgar Lambert, in answer to
my inquiries courteously writes: 'In company with Mr. C. S. Orwin,
whose book, _The History of Wye Church and College_, has just been
published, I have closely examined the register and find no mention
of "Johnson", nor of the fact that Aphara Amis' father was a
"barber".']

[Footnote 7: Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea (1660-1720),
sometime Maid of Honour to Queen Mary of Modena. She had true
lyric genius. For a generous appreciation see Gosse, _Gossip in a
Library_ (1891).]

[Footnote 8: Then unprinted but now included in the very voluminous
edition of Lady Winchilsea's _Poems_, ed. M. Reynolds, Chicago,
1903.]

To these is appended this note: 'Mrs. Behn was Daughter to a Barber, who
liv'd formerly in Wye, a little Market Town (now much decay'd) in Kent.
Though the account of her life before her Works pretends otherwise; some
Persons now alive Do testify upon their Knowledge that to be her
Original.' It is a pity that whilst the one error concerning Aphra's
birthplace is thus remedied, the mistake as to the nature of her
father's calling should have been initiated.

Aphra Amis, then, was born early in July, 1640, at Wye, Kent. When she
was of a tender age the Amis family left England for Surinam; her
father, who seems to have b