Rover (I)_, and _The Feign'd Courtezans_ for the
honour of being Mrs. Behn's highest flight of comic genius, has scenes
admittedly wantoning beyond the bounds of niggard propriety, but all are
alive with a careless wit and a brilliant humour that prove quite
irresistible. Next appeared those graceful translations from de
Bonnecorse's _La Montre ... seconde partie contenant La Boete et Le
Miroir_, which she termed _The Lover's Watch_ and _The Lady's
Looking-Glass_.

In 1687 the Duke of Albemarle's voyage to Jamaica[45] to take up the
government in the West Indies gave occasion for a Pindaric, but we only
have one dramatic piece from Mrs. Behn, _The Emperor of the Moon_,
a capital three act farce, Italian in sentiment and origin. For some
little time past her health had begun to trouble her.[46] Her three
years of privation and cares had told upon her physically, and since
then, 'forced to write for bread and not ashamed to own it,' she had
spared neither mind nor bodily strength. Graver symptoms appeared, but
yet she found time to translate from Fontenelle his version of Van
Dale's _De Oraculis Ethnicorum_ as _The History of Oracles and the
Cheats of the Pagan Priests_, a book of great interest. There was also
published in 1687 an edition in stately folio of _AEesop's Fables with
his Life in English, French and Latin_, 'illustrated with One hundred
and twelve Sculptures' and 'Thirty One New Figures representing his
Life', by Francis Barlow, the celebrated draughtsman of birds and
animals. Each plate to the Life has a quatrain appended, and each fable
with its moral is versified beneath the accompanying picture. In his
brief address to the Reader Barlow writes: 'The Ingenious Mrs. A. Behn
has been so obliging as to perform the English Poetry, which in short
comprehends the Sense of the Fable and Moral; Whereof to say much were
needless, since it may sufficiently recommend it self to all Persons of
Understanding.' To this year we further assign the composition of no
fewer than four novels, _The Unfortunate Bride_, _The Dumb Virgin_, _The
Wandering Beauty_, _The Unhappy Mistake_. She was working at high
pressure, and 1688 still saw a tremendous literary output. Waller had
died 21 October, 1687, at the great age of eighty-one, and her Elegiac
Ode to his Memory begins:--

How to thy Sacred Memory, shall I bring
(Worthy thy Fame) a grateful Offering?
I, who by Toils of Sickness, am become
Almost as near as