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The Francion of Sorel and the Roman Bourgeois of Furetière the latter, published in 1666, of especial interest to students of the English novel had prepared the way for the exact opposite to the heroic romance; namely, the realistic story of every-day life. Bunyan and Richard Head, Mrs. Behn and Defoe each had marked a stage in the development of English fiction.
Behn has not approached within measuring distance of that supreme masterpiece. The stage history of The Forc'd Marriage; or, The Jealous Bridegroom is best told in the quaint phrase of old Downes. Produced in December, 1670 at the Duke's Theatre, Lincoln's Inn Fields, The Jealous Bridegroom, says the veteran prompter, 'wrote by Mrs.
Many books, written for temporary effect, had run through six or seven editions, and had then been gathered to the novels of Afra Behn, and the epic poems of Sir Richard Blackmore.
Behn, and Steele's story of Inkle and Yarico in an early Spectator, Pope's poor Indian in the Essay on Man, and allusions by Thomson, Shenstone, and Savage, show that poets and novelists could occasionally turn the theme to account.
But I think you ought to have enforced your project with some instances of illustrious females, who have appeared in the foremost classes of life, not only for heroic valour, but likewise for several branches of learning, wisdom, and policy such as Joan of Naples, the Maid of Orleans, Catherine de Medicis, Margaret of Mountfort, Madame Dacier, Mrs Behn, Mrs Manly, Mrs Stephens, Doctor of Physic, Mrs Mapp, Surgeon, the valiant Mrs Ross, Dragoon, and the learned Mrs Osborne, Politician.
No one save a historian would now read the corrupting works of Mrs. Aphra Behn; and yet it is a fact that those novels were read aloud among companies of ladies. A man winces now if he is obliged to turn to them; the girls in the "good old times" heard them with never a blush. Wherever we turn we find the same steady advance.
On her return to England, she married Behn, a merchant of Dutch extraction, and went to live in the Netherlands, where she acted as a British spy. By working upon the feelings of her lovers, she was able to convey information to the English government of the intention of the Dutch to enter the Thames to destroy the English fleet.
Behn, a Dutch merchant, but was a widow at the age of 26. She then became attached to the Court, and was employed as a political spy at Antwerp. Leaving that city she cultivated the friendship of various playwrights, and produced many plays and novels, also poems and pamphlets. The former are extremely gross, and are now happily little known. She was the first English professional authoress.
Behn had by that means considerably protracted the interest in "The Fair Jilt: or, the Amours of Prince Tarquin and Miranda" , and Mrs. Haywood, following her example, succeeded in giving a last stimulus to the jaded nerves of the readers of "The Force of Nature" and "The Injur'd Husband."
Our great-grandmothers were not less chaste because they spoke of things regarding which we remain silent in a mixed society: they were simply less squeamish. Mrs. Behn in her day, and Fielding in his, described a licentious scene openly and honestly without a suspicion of evil. But a great change has come over public taste, and I may even say over public morality, during the present century.
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