had, however, himself tampered with the text. The actors
did it scant justice and it could not win a permanent place in the
theatrical repertory. In May, 1738, _The Gentleman's Magazine_ published
_The Apotheosis of Milton_, a paper, full of interest, which ran through
several numbers. It is a Vision, in which the writer, having fallen
asleep in Westminster Abbey, is conducted by a Genius into a spacious
hall, 'sacred to the Spirits of the Bards, whose Remains are buried, or
whose Monuments are erected within this Pile. To night an Assembly of
the greatest Importance is held upon the Admission of the Great Milton
into this Society.' The Poets accordingly appear either in the habits
which they were wont to wear on earth, or in some suitable attire. We
have Chaucer, Drayton, Beaumont, Ben Jonson, and others who are well
particularized, but when we get to the laureates and critics of a later
period there are some really valuable touches. In 1738 there must have
been many alive who could well remember Dryden, Shadwell, Otway, Prior,
Philips, Sheffield Duke of Buckinghamshire, Dennis, Atterbury, Lee,
Congreve, Rowe, Addison, Betterton, Gay. In the course of his remarks
the guide exclaims to the visitor: 'Observe that Lady dressed in the
loose _Robe de Chambre_ with her Neck and Breasts bare; how much Fire in
her Eye! what a passionate Expression in her Motions; And how much
Assurance in her Features! Observe what an Indignant Look she bestows on
the President [Chaucer], who is telling her, _that none of her Sex has
any Right to a Seat there_. How she throws her Eyes about, to see if she
can find out any one of the Assembly who inclines to take her Part. No!
not one stirs; they who are enclined in her favour are overawed, and the
rest shake their Heads; and now she flings out of the Assembly. That
extraordinary Woman is _Afra Behn_.' The passage is not impertinent,
even though but as showing how early condemnatory tradition had begun to
incrustate around Astrea. Fielding, however, makes his Man of the World
tell a friend that the best way for a man to improve his intellect and
commend himself to the ladies is by a course of Mrs. Behn's novels. With
the oncoming of the ponderous and starched decorum of the third George's
reign her vogue waned apace, but she was still read and quoted. On 12
December, 1786, Horace Walpole writes to the Countess of Upper Ossory,
'I am going to Mrs. Cowley's new play,[59] which I suppose is as
_inst