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Hence on the banks of the Oroonoko we have heard of mothers slaying their daughters out of compassion, and smothering them in the hour of their birth. They consider this barbarous pity as a virtue.
Oroonoko was a brave young chief, the grandson of a king whose dominions lay on the coast of Africa. He had distinguished himself in war, and already commanded all the forces of his grandfather's kingdom. Hitherto rather unsusceptible to female charms, he became deeply enamored of Imoinda, on returning victorious from a great war.
Behn's "Oroonoko," and still less did they command the realistic imagination that could make the travels of a Captain Singleton lifelike.
Perhaps, too, he was soothed by the companionship of persons whose rank may have flattered his vanity, while unlike Diderot and his old literary friends in Paris, they entered into no competition with him in the peculiar sphere of his own genius. Madame de Boufflers, indeed, wrote a tragedy, but he told her gruffly enough that it was a plagiarism from Southerne's Oroonoko.
Nor did the perfections of his Mind come short of those of his Person; for his Discourse was admirable upon almost any Subject; and whoever had heard him speak, would have been convinced of their Errors, that all fine Wit is confined to the white Men, especially to those of Christendom; and would have confessed that Oroonoko was as capable even of reigning well, and of governing as wisely, had as great a Soul, as politick Maxims, and was as sensible of Power, as any Prince civilized in the most refined Schools of Humanity and Learning, or the most illustrious Courts.
Accordingly, we find, that more of our English Tragedies have succeeded, in which the Favourites of the Audience sink under their Calamities, than those in which they recover themselves out of them. The best Plays of this Kind are 'The Orphan', 'Venice Preserved', 'Alexander the Great', 'Theodosius', 'All for Love', 'OEdipus', 'Oroonoko', 'Othello', &c.
He had nothing of Barbarity in his Nature, but in all Points addressed himself as if his Education had been in some European Court. This great and just character of Oroonoko gave me an extreme Curiosity to see him, especially when I knew he spoke French and English, and that I could talk with him.
Oroonoko or The Royal Slave, with its celebration of the virtues of a noble negro and his love for his Imoinda, and his brutal ill-treatment and death by torture at the hands of white murderers, undoubtedly took the fancy of the public. But to see at once Rousseau and Byron in it, Chateaubriand and Wilberforce and I know not what else, is rather in the "lunatic, lover, and poet" order of vision.
In a word, such handsome features, and exact symmetry in every part, made me consider that I had saved the life of an Indian prince, no less graceful and accomplished than the great Oroonoko whose memorable behavior and unhappy contingencies of life have charmed the world, both to admiration of his person, and compassion to his sufferings.
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