A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Behn, (Aphra)
BEHN, (APHRA) poetically called Astrea, an English Poetess and Novel-writer. Born in the Reign of Charles I. died, after a long Illness, 1689.
Daughter of a gentleman of good family in Canterbury, of the name of Johnson, who, being lieutenant-general of Surinam, &c. embarked with his family for the West-Indies, at which time Aphra was very young. Her father died on the passage; but the rest arrived at Surinam, where the natural beauties of the situation allotted them, seem to have first awakened her poetical powers; and perhaps the luxurious indulgence and state of their way of life, helped to give her that taste for pleasure, which she afterwards retained. Here she became acquainted with the American prince Oroonoko, whose story she afterwards gave to the public, from which Southerne took his play of the Royal Captive, He and his wife Climene, or Imoinda, were almost constantly with her. Some censures were passed on her respecting this intimacy; but it appears to have been without foundation. His great merit would naturally awaken esteem; and his story render him interesting to a young and romantic mind; but Aphra was also the friend of his wife, whom he tenderly loved, and her conduct was watched by anxious and respectable relations.
She appears to have returned to England an orphan, and married Mr. Behn, an eminent merchant in London, of Dutch extraction; but he died soon after. The account she gave of Surinam so highly pleased Charles II. and perhaps the foreign connexions she had formed, in consequence of her marriage, that he thought her a proper person to entrust with the management of some affairs during the Dutch war, which was the occasion of her going over to Antwerp. By the means of Vander Albert, who had been in love with her in England, and visited her, on her arrival, in 1666, she became acquainted with the design of their admiral de Witt, of sailing up the river Thames, in order to burn the shipping. She transmitted this intelligence to her court; but, though well-founded, it was treated with ridicule, which so disgusted Mrs. Behn, that she gave up all concern in political transactions during her stay at Antwerp, and entered into all the amusements and gallantries of that city. On her return to London, she was near being lost, with the rest of the crew; but, by the assistance of boats from shore, though the ship was wrecked, all the lives were saved. The rest of her life was dedicated to poetry and pleasure. Her conduct, though it has been said not to have been vicious in reality, and her writings, were very reprehensible, though the latter abounded in wit and the language of the passions. She published three volumes of miscellaneous poems, separately, in 1684, 1685, and 1688. They consisted of pieces by the earl of Rochester, Sir George Etherige, Mr. Henry Crisp, and others, with some pieces of her own. She wrote, also, seventeen plays, some histories, and novels, extant in 12mo. 1735. She translated Fontenelle's History of Oracles, and his Plurality of Worlds, to which last she prefixed an Essay on Translation and translated Prose, The Paraphrase of Œnone's Epistle to Paris, in the English Translation of Ovid's Epistles, is by Mrs. Behn. Dryden says of it, that "she understood not Latin, but shamed those that did." She wrote also the celebrated Letters between a Nobleman and his Sister, printed in 1684. She was a fine woman, a brunette, of a quick and pleasing countenance. Had not Mrs. Behn been so strongly tinctured with the prevalent dissipation and loose morality of the age, her talents would have ranked her higher in the list of female writers.