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Updated: June 25, 2025
He has borrowed very liberally from a play of Mrs. Behn's called The Amorous Jilt. Cynthia and Endymion, or The Lover of the Deities, a Dramatic Opera; acted at the Theatre-Royal 1697, dedicated to Henry Earl of Romney; this was acted with applause; and the author tells us, that King William's Queen Mary intended to have it represented at Court.
Behn's complaint about the public is true, James II was, none the less, himself a good friend to the stage, and many excellent plays were produced during his reign. There is, however, considerable evidence that at this period of strife religious and political, rebellion and revolt things theatrical were very badly affected, and the play-house poorly attended. p. 393 No Woman without Vizard. cf.
The plot is borrowed from the novel of the Curious Impertinent in Don Quixote. The younger Brother; or the Amorous Jilt; a Comedy, published after her death by Mr. Gildon. It was taken from a true story of colonel Henry Martin, and a certain lady. Mrs. Behn's plays, all but the last, were published together in two volumes 8vo.
Gosse calls her for amusement or for admonition, but the student of the period may find that Eliza Haywood's seventy or more books throw an interesting sidelight upon public taste and the state of prose fiction at a time when the half created novel was still "pawing to get free his hinder parts." E. Bernbaum, Mrs. Behn's Biography a Fiction, PMLA, XXVIII, 432.
The good bookseller was not accustomed to excitement, for the old ladies who dealt at his shop bought their hymn-books and manuals of devotion without any manifestations of impatience, and even the young ones, though they asked for Aphra Behn's novels in a whisper, came in very quietly and demurely.
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 may box, and Mahomet may dance.
Behn's gallantries at Antwerp, without being a little more particular, as we find her attacked by other lovers, and thought she found means to preserve her innocence, yet the account that she herself gives of her affairs there, is both humorous and entertaining.
"Sir A. Fountaine" was a Norfolk squire and a great collector of artistic things, most of which were sold not very long ago. "Cousin Dryden Leach" reminds us that Swift was also a cousin of Dryden the poet. "Oroonoko" refers to Afra Behn's introduction of the "noble savage" to English interest. "Patrick" was Swift's very unsatisfactory man-servant. "Bernage" a French Huguenot refugee.
Behn's return from the West Indies that, being introduced at court, she related to Charles the Second the terrible fate of the noble slave Oroonoko. At the solicitation of the king, she put her narrative into the form of a novel, which obtained a large circulation, and was dramatized by Southern in his tragedy of the same name.
None of the missives reveals emotions of any but the most tawdry romantic kind, warm desires extravagantly uttered, conventional doubts, causeless jealousies, and petty quarrels. Like Mrs. Behn's correspondence with the amorous Van Bruin these epistles have nothing to distinguish them except their excessive hyperbole.
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