Part 29

p. 7 _two Orinda’s_. ‘The matchless Orinda’ was Mrs. Katherine Philips (_née_ Fowler), précieuse and poetess (1631-64). After marriage the lady divided her time between London and her husband’s house at Cardigan, where she was the centre of a circle of admirers and friends who adopted various fanciful names, e.g. Silvander (Sir Edward Dering), Antenor (her husband). Her verses and a translation of Corneille’s _Pompée_ (Dublin, 1663) became famous. At the height of her popularity she died of smallpox at a house in Fleet Street, 22 June, 1664. For an excellent account of her see Gosse, _Seventeenth Century Studies_.

p. 8 _N. Tate_. Nahum Tate, born in Dublin, 1652, was educated at Trinity College. He does not appear to have followed any definite profession. Coming to London he produced much miscellaneous literary work, and was even entrusted by Dryden with a portion of the second part of _Absalom and Achitophel_ (1682), the master himself enriching it with some two hundred lines. Tate succeeded (24 December, 1692) Shadwell in the laureateship which he did not hold till his death (12 August, 1715) as Rowe was appointed to that post, 1 August, 1715. His plays are perhaps not so mediocre as they are often judged to be, but they have been damned by his outrageous mangling of King Lear (1681), which, none the less, persevered on the stage for many a long decade.[6] Perhaps he is chiefly known for this, and a version of the Psalms (the first twenty appeared in 1695) written in conjunction with Nicholas Brady (1696).

[6] The Fool was not restored until the time of Macready, when (25 January, 1838), under his Covent Garden management, the rôle was entrusted to Miss Priscilla Horton (Mrs. German Reed), who, it is recorded, achieved great success.

p. 9 _G. J._ George Jenkins, who, it will be remembered, edited Mrs. Behn’s posthumous play, _The Widow Ranter, vide_ Vol. IV, p. 215, and note p. 415 on G. J. (p. 222).

p. 18 _cock, and comb_. Cock = set his hat jauntily. For comb (his wig), cf. Dryden’s prologue to _The Conquest of Granada, II_ (1670):--

when Vizard Masque appears in Pit, Straight every Man who thinks himself a Wit Perks up; and, managing his Comb with grace, With his white Wigg sets off his Nut-brown Face.

And Shadwell’s _The Humorists_ (1671), Act v, where Briske says: ‘No man appears better upon a Bench in the Play-House; when I stand up to expose my Person between the Acts, I take out my Comb and with a _bonne mien_ comb my Perriwig to the Tune the Fiddles Play: Thus, look you; fa, la, la, la.’ Also Congreve, _The Way of the World_, iii, xii (1700): ‘The gentlemen stay but to comb, madam, and will wait on you.’ The phrase is frequent.

p. 20 _Scrutore_. cf. Vol. V, p. 73, _The Fair Jilt_: ‘Scrutore perpetually employ’d,’ and note on that passage (p. 519).

p. 75 _Varrio_. Antonio Verrio, the celebrated Neapolitan painter, was born at Lecce, in the Terra di Otranto, about 1639. His earliest pictures were done for ecclesiastics--the Jesuits College, Naples, the high altar in the Carmelite Church, Toulouse. His facility of execution and rich colouring gained him fame, and Charles II appointed him to direct the royal tapestry works at Mortlake. Soon, however, Verrio was transferred to Windsor to paint the walls and ceilings. Under Charles II and his successor Verrio was in high favour. At the Revolution he threw up his office of surveyor of the royal gardens (a sinecure) and refused to employ his pencil for William of Orange. He had, however, many commissions from nobles and private persons. His sight failing, Queen Anne bestowed on him a pension of £200 a year. He died 1707. A list of Verrio’s ceilings will be found in Jesse’s _Eton and Windsor_. Pope, _Windsor Forest_, has a couplet (307-8):--

from her roofs when Verrio’s colours fall, And leave inaminate the naked wall.

p. 75 _Gibbon_. Grinling Gibbons, the celebrated sculptor in wood, was born at Rotterdam, 4 April, 1648. He came to London in 1667. He was first brought into notice by Evelyn, who introduced him to the King. Charles II gave Gibbons a place in the board of works. Besides being employed at Windsor, Gibbons decorated other of the royal palaces in marble sculpture as well as wood. His exquisite carvings are to be found in many noble houses. They are unrivalled for their presentment of foliage, fruit, flowers; of a marvellous delicacy and beauty. In 1714 he was appointed master carver to George I. He died at his house in Bow Street, 3 August, 1721.

p. 76 _noble Clifdon_. Evelyn, 23 July, 1679, writes: ‘To Court: after dinner I visited that excellent painter, Verrio, whose works in _fresco_ in the King’s palace, at Windsor, will celebrate his name as long as those walls last.... I went to Clifden, that stupendous natural rock, wood, and prospect, of the Duke of Buckingham’s, buildings of extraordinary expense. The grots in the chalky rock are pretty: it is a romantic object, and the place altogether answers the most poetical description that can be made of solitude, precipice, prospect, or whatever can contribute to a thing so very like their imaginations. The stand somewhat like Frascati as to its front, and, on the platform, is a circular view to the utmost verge of the horizon which, with the serpenting of the Thames, is admirable. The staircase is for its materials singular; the cloisters, descents, gardens, and avenue through the wood, august and stately; but the land all about wretchedly barren, and producing nothing but fern. Indeed, as I told his Majesty that evening (asking me how I liked Clifden) without flattery, that it did not please me so well as Windsor for the prospect and park, wch is without compare; there being but one only opening and that narrow, wch led one to any variety, whereas, that of Windsor is everywhere great and unconfined.’

Pope’s reference is quoted to triteness:--

Cliveden’s proud alcove The bow’r of wanton Shrewsbury and love.

--_Moral Essays_, iii, 307-8.

p. 76 _Sir Samuel Morland, or Sir Robert Gorden_. Sir Samuel Morland, the celebrated inventor and projector, was born in 1625. Having served the Commonwealth, he turned royalist, and on Cromwell’s death joined the King at Breda. He was rewarded at the Restoration with a baronetcy, a pension, and the appointment of Master of Mechanics to the King. He devoted himself to practical science, and his house was long the resort of the curious to view his models, inventions, &c. In a MS. (Harleian) treatise he shows an accurate knowledge of steam power and explains how it can be employed to work cylinders in raising water, a subject to which he had paid particular attention, having brought water from a considerable distance to the top of Windsor Castle. He died blind and in penury, 30 December, 1695.

_Sir Robert Gordon_, Bart. was born 7 March, 1647. He became famous for his scientific pursuits, and in the neighbourhood of Gordonstown (Elginshire), his birthplace, he was long known as ‘Sir Robert the Warlock’. A MS. account of the family says: he was ‘particularly skilled in mechanics and chemistry.... He contrived a curious machine or pump for raising water, wch was tried in the Fleet and highly approved of, and found far to exceed anything of that kind then known, both for the facility of working and the quantity of water it discharged.’ Gordon sat in the Scotch parliament, and seems to have been a favourite with James II, who was interested in his experiments. He died 1704.

p. 79 _l’heure du Bergere_. cf. ‘the hour of the Berjere’. _The Feign’d Curtezans_, iii, 1 (Vol. II, p. 346), and note on that passage (p. 441).

POEMS UPON SEVERAL OCCASIONS (1684).

p. 115 _To the Right Honourable, James_. James Cecil, 4th Earl of Salisbury, Viscount Cranbourn, was the eldest son of James, 3rd Earl of Salisbury, and Margaret, daughter of John Manners, Earl of Rutland. He married Frances, one of the three daughters and coheiresses of Simon Bennet of Beechampton, Bucks, when she was only thirteen years old. A firm Tory, he was in 1688-9 committed to the Tower as a recusant, but the prosecution was waived. His name was forged by Robert Young to a document purporting to be that of an Association to seize the Prince of Orange, and declare for King James. On this account he was a second time committed to the Tower, 7 May, 1692, but as nothing could be proved his bail was soon formally discharged in the Court of King’s Bench. He died 25 October, 1693, leaving an only son, three years old, who succeeded him. He was buried at Hatfield, 29 October.

p. 117 _Ogs and Doegs reign’d_. Shadwell is scarified as Og by Dryden, _Absalom and Achitophel, II_ (1682), Elkanah Settle as Doeg.

p. 117 _Baxter’s zeal_. This ardent Presbyterian divine was considerably harassed during the reign of Charles II. He had bidden farewell to the Church of England in the great Blackfriars church, 16 May, 1662, three days before the Act of Uniformity was passed, but he still held forth with unabated zest and vigor in meeting-houses and conventicles whenever opportunity offered. He was imprisoned 28 February, 1684-5 on a charge of libelling the Church in his _Paraphrase of the New Testament_ (1685). His sermons, devotional and other writings amount to nearly two hundred.

p. 119 _J. Cooper, Buckden_. John Cooper (who doubtless wrote the following lines initialled J. C.), was a contributor to Dryden’s _Miscellany_, at the end of which (Vol. I) is advertised: ‘Poems upon Several Occasions; written by Mrs. _Behn_; are now in the Press, and will be published this Term.’ Cooper was also the translator of the _OEnone to Paris_ epistle in the _Heroides_ ‘By Several Hands’ (1680).

Buckden is a village and parish some sixty-one miles from London, and four miles south-west from Huntingdon.

p. 120 _Orinda. vide_ note _supra_ (on p. 7), ‘two _Orinda’s_’.

p. 120 _No dying Swan_. cf. Ovid, _Heroides_, vii, 1-2:--

Sic, ubi fata vocant, udis abiectus in herbis, Ad vada Mæandri concinit albus olor.

and _Metamorphoseon_ v. 386-7:--

non illo plura Caystros Carmina cycnorum labentibus audit in undis.

p. 121 _J. Adams_. John Adams was a member, and afterwards a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. He proceeded B.A. 1682, M.A. 1686, and is mentioned as a Professor of Theology, whence we infer that he took Orders. In 1712 he was ‘Collegii Regalis Praepositus’. He prefixed a copy of complimentary verses (1 January, 1682), to Creech’s _Lucretius_, and was also a contributor to Dryden’s _Miscellany_.

John Adams, the celebrated topographer, who in 1680 laboriously drew up the _Index Villaris_, a gazetteer dedicated to Charles II, was a barrister of the Inner Temple, and must be carefully distinguished from the Cambridge litterateur.

p. 123 _T. C._ i.e. Thomas Creech, who was born at Blandford, Dorset, 1659. In Lent Term, 1675, he was admitted as a commoner at Wadham College, Oxford. Having studied hard he graduated M.A. 13 June, 1683 (B.D. 18 March, 1696), and was elected a Fellow of All Souls, 1 November, 1683. For two years (1694-6) he was headmaster of Sherborne, and then returned to Oxford. Melancholia, however, grew upon him, and after accepting the college living of Welwyn (where he never resided) he committed suicide, his body being discovered (June, 1700), in a garret in his lodging at the house of an apothecary named Ives. Creech’s translation of _Lucretius_ was printed at Oxford, 1682. It is of value, and Munro in his edition of the poet speaks of his predecessor as ‘a man of sound sense and good taste’, no mean praise from so great a scholar.

p. 125 _her Pen Can be instructed_. An obvious allusion to the rumour that Mrs. Behn was assisted in her work by Hoyle.

p. 127 _the learned Daphnis_. Thomas Creech.

p. 128 _barbarous Getans_. Ovid in exile cries:--

Nec te mirari, si sint vitiosa, decebit Carmina, quae faciam paene poeta Getes.

--_Ep. ex Ponto_, IV, xiii, 17-8.

p. 129 _Achitophels_. Achitophel==the Earl of Shaftesbury.

p. 129 _murmuring Shimei’s_. Shimei, Slingsby Bethel, by poll chosen one of the sheriffs for the City of London on Midsummer day, 1680, was a factious fanatic, who had formerly been one of the committee of safety. Burnet says that his miserable way of living and extreme miserliness rendered him disagreeable to everybody, even his own party. Dryden very justly lashes him, _Absalom and Achitophel_, I, 585-629.

p. 133 _In an Azure Mantle_. This phrase is very nearly equivalent to Ovid’s ‘purpureus Amor’ (Amorum, ii, I, 38); and Hieronymus Angerianus in his _Erotopaignion_, repeats the same expressive adjective: ’.urpureus lumina pandit Amor.’

p. 137 _H. Watson_. Henry Watson was a member of Christ’s College, Cambridge.

p. 138 _Groves appear’d_. Martinus Scriblerus (Pope) #PERI BATHOUS;# _or, The Art of Sinking in Poetry: written in the Year_ MDCCXXVII, chap. xii, has: ‘1. The Florid Style than which none is more proper to the Bathos, as flowers, which are the lowest of vegetables, are most gaudy, and do many times grow in great plenty at the bottom of ponds and ditches.

A fine writer in this kind presents you with the following posie:

The groves appear all drest with wreaths of flowers, And from their leaves drop aromatic showers, Whose fragrant heads in mystic twines above Exchange their sweets, and mix’d with thousand kisses As if the willing branches strove To beautify and shade the grove,--

(which, indeed, most branches do).’ Pope, as often, is not a little unfair in his critique.

p. 144 _Eternal Night_.

Soles occidere, et redire possunt: Nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux, Nox est perpetua una dormienda.

--Catullus, _Ad Lesbiam_.

p. 148 _On a Juniper-Tree_. This poem is also to be found in the following editions of Rochester’s Works: _Poems on Several Occasions by the Rt. Hon. the Earl of R----. Printed at Antwerpen_. [London.] 1680? In _The Works of the Earls of Rochester, Roscommon, Dorset_, 1712; 1718; 1731; 1739 (in which year there were two several and slightly divergent editions); 1752; 1800? It must not, however, be for a moment supposed that the Earl of Rochester has any claim to the authorship of this piece. Unscrupulous booksellers collected songs, poems, satires of every kind under his name and included them amongst his oft-reprinted works without explanation or discrimination. With the opening lines of this poem cf. Horace, _Sermonum_, i, viii:--

Olim truncus eram ficulnus, inutile lignum, cum faber, incertus scammum faceretne Priapum, maluit esse deum.

p. 148 _Busks_. A Busk is ‘A strip of wood, whalebone, steel, or other rigid material passed down the front of a corset and used to stiffen and support it’. _N.E.D._ which quotes, inter alia, 1688, R. Holme, _Armoury_, in, 94/2: ‘A Busk ... is a strong peece of Wood, or Whalebone thrust down the middle of the Stomacker.’

p. 151 _Mr. Grinhil_. John Greenhill, the famous portrait-painter, was born at Salisbury about 1644. He was the eldest son of the registrar of the diocese of Salisbury. About 1662 he migrated to London and became a pupil of Sir Peter Lely. Almost instant success awaited him, and his progress proved so rapid as to excite the master’s jealousy. He married early, and was at first industrious. After a few years, however, he became a boon companion of the free-living theatrical and literary circles of the day, and fell into irregular habits. 19 May, 1676, whilst returning from the Vine Tavern, Greenhill fell into the gutter in Long Acre, was carried to his lodging in Lincoln’s Inn Fields where he died that same night. He is buried in St. Giles-in-the-Fields. Amongst his portraits, which are highly esteemed, are those of Charles II; James, Duke of York; Shaftesbury; Locke; Davenant; Cowley; William Cartwright, the actor. This Poem on Greenhill’s death has been included amongst _Poems on Several Occasions by the Rt. Hon. the Earl of R---- Printed at Antwerpen_. [London.] 1680? And again, in _Poems on Several Occasions by the R. H. the E. of R. London_. 1712.

p. 153 _Mr. J. H._ i.e. Mr. John Hoyle.

p. 156 _Our Cabal_. Considerable research has unhappily failed to identify most of the personages whose initials appear in this poem. Mr. J. H., however, is John Hoyle, Mrs. Behn’s well-known intimate, to whom so many of her poems are addressed. In _The Muses Mercury_ for January, 1708, the verses for Mr. E. B. and Mrs. F. M. are given with this note: ‘The following poem was written by Mrs. _Behn_ on one Mr. _Edward Butler_ and Mrs. _Masters_, and is a Description of the Success of their Passion, in a little Journey took into the Country, with many more Gentlemen and Ladies of that Time, whom we shall speak of hereafter’. a promise which was never fulfilled.

p. 163 _The Willing Mistriss_. This song was reprinted in _The Muses Mercury_, December, 1707, when it is termed ‘A Song for _J. H._’ with this note prefixed: ‘The following Verses are call’d, _A Song_ by the late Mrs. _Behn_; we have a Copy of them in her own Hand Writing, as well as of many others never printed, except in our Mercuries; and by her putting her _Nom de Guerre_ Astræa to them, we find they were made upon her Self and her very good Friend Mr. _Hoyle_.’ At the end of the third stanza we have: ‘As Amorous as these Verses may be thought, they have been reduc’d to bring them within the Rules of Decency, which all Writers ought to observe, or instead of a _Diversion_ they will become a _Nuisance_.’

p. 165 _Song. When Jemmy_. This was reprinted in _The Muses Mercury_, September, 1707: as ‘On Capt. ---- going to the Wars in Flanders’, _A Song. To a Scotch Tune_, and signed Astræa. _The Muses Mercury_ adds the following note: ‘Tho this Poetess’s true Name was _Apharra_, yet she in her Amours and Poetical Characters, assum’d the _Nomme de Guerre_ of _Astræa_: And thus we find this Song subscrib’d by her self, which shews it came from her Heart, however imperfect it may be otherwise.’ Surely, so dainty and, indeed, pathetic a little song can need no plea for admittance into any poetical collection.

p. 166 _To Mr. Creech_. This poem appears as ‘To The Unknown Daphnis on his Excellent translation of _Lucretius_’, dated ‘_London_. Jan. 25, 1682’, and signed ‘_A. Behn_’ in the second edition of Creech’s translation of _Lucretius_ (Oxford, 1683), there are also commendatory verses prefixed to this edition by Waller, Evelyn, Otway, Tate, Duke and others.

p. 168 _The Learned Thirsis_ is Thomas Sprat (1635-1713), the famous Bishop of Rochester and Dean of Westminster, who matriculated from Wadham, 12 November, 1651, and 25 September, 1652, was elected a scholar. He graduated B.A. 25 June, 1654, M.A. three years later. He took his B.D. and D.D. 3 July, 1669. From 30 June, 1657 to 24 March, 1670 (when he resigned), he held a Wadham fellowship. Cowley, in his _Ode to the Royal Society_, had praised Sprat’s _History of the Royal Society of London_ (1667), and when Cowley died, in 1667, Sprat wrote _An Account of the Life of Mr. Abraham Cowley._

p. 169 _Strephon the Great_ is John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647-80), who was admitted a fellow commoner at Wadham, 18 January, 1659-60. He was created M.A. 9 September, 1661, when little more than fourteen. The four silver pint pots he presented to his college are still preserved.

p. 171 _To Mrs. W._ i.e. Anne Wharton, born in Oxfordshire about 1632, second daughter and coheiress of Sir Henry Lee, third baronet of Ditchley, by Anne, daughter of Sir John Danvers of Cornbury; 16 September, 1673, she married as his first wife Thomas Wharton (afterwards first Marquis of Wharton), to whom she brought £10,000 dowry and £2,500 a year. The match proved childless and unhappy, and it was only owing to Burnet’s persuasions that she did not separate from her husband in 1682. She died at Adderbury, 29 October, 1685, and was buried at Winchendon on 10 November following. Anne Wharton’s _Elegy on the Death of the Earl of Rochester_, which may be found in _Examen Miscellaneum_ (1702), drew a poem from Waller in which he says that she

Shews that still in her he lives. Her Wit is graceful, great, and good, Ally’d in Genius, as in Blood.

The earl’s mother was aunt to Mrs. Wharton’s father, Sir Henry Lee. Rochester died 26 July, 1680. On p. 242 of _The Temple of Death_, a miscellany (1695), may be read Mrs. Wharton’s ‘To Mrs. A. Behn, on what she Writ of the Earl of Rochester’. Various other of her poems have appeared in similar collections.

p. 173 _The Return_. The first two stanzas of this poem appear in _The Muses Mercury_, August, 1707, as ‘To _J. Hoyle_, Esq.’

p. 175 _my Lady Morland_. Mrs. Behn is here complimenting her friend Carola, daughter of Sir Roger Harsnett, Knight, and second wife of Sir Samuel Morland, whom she married in Westminster Abbey, 26 October, 1670. Lady Morland died 10 October, 1674, aged twenty-two.

For an account of the Queen’s visit to Tunbridge Wells (’.he place of all Europe the most rural and simple, and yet, at the same time, the most entertaining and agreeable’., see Grammont’s _Memoirs_. Rochester has a famous satire, _Tunbridge Wells_. Burr’s _History of Tunbridge Wells_ will be found to give a very full account of that fashionable watering-place.

p. 177 _Song to Ceres_. _The Wavering Nymph; or, Mad Amyntas_ was the name given to a Restoration revival of Randolph’s beautiful and truly poetic _Amyntas or The Impossible Dowry_. The title of the editio princeps runs thus: _Amyntas or The Impossible Dowry. A Pastoral Acted before the King and Queen at Whitehall. Written by Thomas Randolph_.

_Pastorem, Tityre, pingues_ _Pascat oportet oves, diductum dicere Carmen._

_Oxford, Printed by Leonard Lichfield for Francis Bordman_, 1638.

In the pastoral, Ceres, by an obscure oracle, has announced the dowry to be given to Urania, the daughter of her priest. Amyntas, conceiving it impossible to bestow this required dowry, has lost his wits. The wavering nymph is Laurinda. Eventually the divine riddle is happily solved.

There is no record of the revival for which Mrs. Behn wrote these two songs, but the play was undoubtedly put on at the Duke’s house. It was probably acted in 1682-3, when a large number of the older plays were staged, especially such as gave scope for scenic effects and the introduction of musical interludes. In the spring of 1703, _Amyntas_, reduced to three acts as _The Fickle Shepherdess_, was produced at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Mrs. Bracegirdle acted Amyntas, and Mrs. Barry, Clorinda (Laurinda).

p. 178 _The Disappointment_. This poem, which was extremely popular, was sent by Mrs. Behn to John Hoyle, her friend, with a letter in which she anxiously urges him to give the lie to various scandals of a grave nature that were current concerning his private life. The letter and the poem are both to be found in the various editions of _Familiar Letters of Love, Gallantry, &c._ This poem was also printed in _Poems on Several Occasions by the Rt. Hon. the Earl of R---- Antwerpen._ [London.] 1680(?) And in _Poems on Several Occasion by the R. H. the E. of R._ London. (1712). Under the title _The Insensible_ it is to be found in the following editions of Rochester, 1718; 1731; 1739 (in which year there were two several and slightly divergent editions); 1752; 1800 (?); and in a selected reprint _circa_ 1884. In these editions which contain _The Insensible_, _The Disappointment_ is the title given to a different poem seemingly based on Ovid, _Amorum_, iii, vii. The whole subject has frequently been treated by poets and amorists of all time. Also cf. _supra_ note on a _Juniper-Tree_.