are the celebrated Love Letters
between a Nobleman and his Sister. Her wit gained her the esteem of Mr.
Dryden, Mr. Southern, &c. and at the same time the love and addresses of
several gentlemen, in particular one, with whom she corresponded under
the name of Lycida, who it seems did not return her passion with equal
warmth, and with the earnestness and rapture, she imagined her beauty
had a right to command.

Mrs. Behn died after a long indisposition, April 16, 1689, and was
buried in the cloister of Westminster Abbey. We shall beg leave to
exhibit her character, as we find it drawn by some of her cotemporaries,
and add a remark of our own. 'Mr. Langbain 'thinks her Memory will
be long fresh among all lovers of dramatic poetry, as having been
sufficiently eminent, not only for her theatrical performances; but
several other pieces both in prose and verse, which gained her an esteem
among the wits almost equal to that of the incomparable Orinda, Mrs.
Katherine Phillips.'

There are several encomiums on Mrs. Behn prefixed to her lover's watch;
among the rest, Mr. Charles Cotton, author of Virgil Travesty, throws in
his mite in her praise; though the lines are but poorly writ. But of all
her admirers, Mr. Charles Gildon, who was intimately acquainted with our
poetess, speaks of her with the highest encomiums.

In his epistle dedicatory to her histories and novels, he thus expresses
himself. 'Poetry, the supreme pleasure of the mind, is begot, and born
in pleasure, but oppressed and killed with pain. This reflexion ought to
raise our admiration of Mrs. Behn, whose genius was of that force, to
maintain its gaiety in the midst of disappointments, which a woman of
her sense and merit ought never to have met with. But she had a great
strength of mind, and command of thought, being able to write in the
midst of company, and yet have the share of the conversation: which I
saw her do in writing Oroonoko, and other parts of her works, in every
part of which you'll find an easy stile and a peculiar happiness of
thinking. The passions, that of love especially, she was mistress of,
and gave us such nice and tender touches of them, that without her name
we might discover the author.' To this character of Mrs. Behn may be
very properly added, that given of her by the authoress of her life and
memoirs, in these words.

'She was of a generous humane disposition, something passionate, very
serviceable to her friends in all that was in