nge fit of Piety, must needs attempt a
Paraphrase on the Lord's Prayer. But alas poor Gentlewoman! She had
scarce travell'd half way, when _Cupid_ served her as the Cut-Purse did
the Old Justice in _Bartholmew_ Fair, tickled her with a Straw in her
Ear, and then she could not budge one foot further, till she had humbly
requested her Maker to grant her a private Act of Toleration for a
little Harmless Love, otherwise called Fornication.' There is a marginal
note to this passage: 'Mrs. _Behn's_ Miscell. Printed by _Jos.
Hindmarsh_.' In _a Letter from the Dead Thomas Brown to the Living
Heraclitus_ (1704), a sixpenny tract, this wag is supposed to meet Mrs.
Behn in the underworld, and anon establishes himself on the most
familiar terms with his 'dear _Afra_'; they take, indeed, 'an
extraordinary liking to one another's Company' for 'good Conversation is
not so overplentiful in these Parts.' A bitterer attack yet, _An Epistle
to Julian_ (c. 1686-7), paints her as ill, feeble, dying:--

Doth that lewd Harlot, that Poetick Quean,
Fam'd through _White Fryars_, you know who I mean,
Mend for reproof, others set up in spight,
To flux, take glisters, vomits, purge and write.
Long with a Sciatica she's beside lame,
Her limbs distortur'd, Nerves shrunk up with pain,
And therefore I'll all sharp reflections shun,
Poverty, Poetry, Pox, are plagues enough for one.

In truth, Aphra Behn's life was not one of mere pleasure, but a hard
struggle against overwhelming adversity, a continual round of work.
We cannot but admire the courage of this lonely woman, who, poor and
friendless, was the first in England to turn to the pen for a
livelihood, and not only won herself bread but no mean position in the
world of her day and English literature of all time. For years her name
to a new book, a comedy, a poem, an essay from the French, was a word to
conjure with for the booksellers. There are anecdotes in plenty. Some
true, some not so reliable. She is said to have introduced milk-punch
into England.[56] We are told that she could write a page of a novel or
a scene of a play in a room full of people and yet hold her own in talk
the while.[57] Her popularity was enormous, and edition after edition of
her plays and novels was called for.

[Footnote 53: 'She was a most beautiful woman, and a more excellent
poet'. Col. Colepeper. _Adversaria_, Vol. ii (Harleian MSS.)]

[Footnote 54: This piece finds a place