Page:Men of Kent and Kentishmen.djvu/29

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
AND KENTISHMEN.
15

applied first to one John Lloyd for instruction, but subsequently became associated with Lutterel, many of whose plates he finished. He married a lady of fortune, by whose means he entered into business on his own account, but still assisted by Lutterel. He executed numerous portraits of the most celebrated characters of the time after the paintings of Kneller, Lely, Wissing, Riley, etc., and some subject plates. He died in 1719.

[See "Strut's Dictionary," and "Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting," where there is a portrait.]


Afra Behn,

Dramatist and Novelist,

Was the daughter of John Johnson, a barber at Wye, where she was baptized 10th July, 1640, though a reference to her in the "Gentleman's Magazine" (Vol. 87, part 2. p. 322) says she was born at Canterbury in 1642. When quite young she went out to Surinam with a relative (whom she called her father), who was appointed Governor. Here she became acquainted with the Chief, Oroonoko, whose history she subsequently moulded into a novel on which Southern founded his tragedy bearing that title. On her return she married Mr. Behn, an English merchant, of Dutch descent. This marriage introduced her to Court, and she was employed by Charles II. on a private embassy. On her return she devoted the remainder of her life to "pleasure and poetry." She published three volumes of poems in 1684, 1685, and 1688 respectively. She wrote seventeen plays and several histories and