A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Manley, (Mrs.)
Mrs. Manley received an education suitable to her birth; and gave early discoveries of a genius above her years. She had the misfortune to lose her mother while yet an infant, and her father before she was grown up; which was the cause of many calamities that befel her: for she was cheated into a marriage by a relation of the same name, to whose care Sir Roger had bequeathed her, and who at the time had a wife living. She was brought to London, and soon deserted by him; and in the morning of her life, passed away three wretched years in solitude. When she appeared in the world again, she fell by mere accident in the way of the duchess of Cleveland, a mistress of Charles II, who protected her for a little time; but being a woman of a fickle temper, she grew tired of her in six months, and discharged her under pretence that she intrigued with her son. On this she retired again into solitude, and wrote her first tragedy, called The Royal Mischief, which was acted at the theatre in Lincoln's-Inn Fields, in 1696, and received such unbounded applause, that her acquaintance began to be courted by meh of wit and gaity; and relaxing from the conduct she had hitherto maintained, she afterwards engaged in a life of intrigue. In her retired hours she wrote the four vols, of the Memoirs of the New Atalantis, in which she was not only free with her own sex, but with many distinguished personages. Her father had always been attached to the cause of Charles I, and she herself had a confirmed aversion to a Whig ministry; so that many of the characters were only satires on those who had brought about the revolution. Upon this a warrant was granted to seize the printer and publisher; but Mrs. Manley, who had too much generosity to let them suffer on her account, voluntarily presented herself before the court of King's Bench, as the author. She was, however, admitted to bail; and, from the feigned names and places of action, nothing being brought home to her, she was acquitted. Not long after, a total change of ministry ensued, when she lived in high reputation, and amused herself with writing poems and letters, and conversing with wits. The second edition of a volume of her Letters was published in 1713. Lucius, the first Christian King of Great Britain, a Tragedy, was likewise acted at Drury-lane in 1717. She dedicated it to Sir Richard Steele, whom she had abused in her Atalantis; but with whom she was now on such good terms, that he wrote the prologue, as Mr. Prior did the epilogue. These, with the comedy of the Lost Lover, or the Jealous Husband, acted in 1696, were all her dramatic works. She was employed in writing for Queen Anne's ministry, certainly with the consent and privity, if not under the direction of Doctor Swift; during which time, she formed a connexion with Mr. John Barber, alderman of London, at whose house she died 1724.