# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Behn, Aphra

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BEHN, APHRA,
A celebrated English poetess, was descended from a good family In the city of Canterbury. She was born In the reign of Charles the First, but in what year is uncertain. Her father's name was Johnson. He was related to Lord Willoughby, and by his interest was appointed lieutenant-general of Surinam and thirty-six islands, and embarked for the West Indies when Aphra was very young Mr. Johnson died on the passage, but his family arrived at Surinam, where Aphra became acquainted with the American prince Oroonoko, whose story she has given In her celebrated novel of that name. She relates that "she had often seen and conversed with that great man, and been a witness to many of his mighty actions; and that at one time, he and Imoinda his wife. Were scarce an hour in a day from her lodgings." The intimacy between Oroonoko and the poetess occasioned some reflections on her conduct, from which she was subsequently cleared.
The afflictions she met with at Surinam, in the death of her parents and relations, obliged her to return to England, where, soon after her arrival, she married Mr. Behn, an eminent merchant in London, of Dutch extraction. King Charles the Second, whom she highly pleased by the entertaining and accurate account she gave him of the colony of Surinam, thought her a proper person to be entrusted with the management of some affairs during the Dutch. ​war, which was the cause of her going to Antwerp. Hore she discovered the design formed by the Dutch, of sailing up the Thames, in order to bum the English ships; she made this discovery through her lover, Vander Albert, a Dutchman.
Mrs. Behn could not doubt the truth of this communication, and sent information of it immediately by express to England. But her Intelligence (though well grounded, as the event showed) being disregarded and ridiculed, she renounced all state affairs, and amused herself during her stay at Antwerp, with the pleasures of the city.
After some time she embarked at Dunkirk, for England, and in the passage was near being lost; the ship was driven on the coast for four days, but by the assistance of boats the crew were all saved.
Mrs. Behn published three volumes of poems; the first in 1684, the second in 1685, the third In 1688. They consist of songs and other little pieces, by the Earl of Rochester, Sir George Etherage, Mr. Henry Crisp, and others, with some pieces of her own. To the second volume is annexed a translation of the Duke de Rochefoucault's moral reflections, under the title of "Seneca Unmasked." She wrote also seventeen plays, some histories and novels. She translated Fontenelle's History of Oracles, and Plurality of Worlds, to which last she annexed an essay on translation and translated prose. The Paraphrase of Ænone's Epistle to Paris, in the English translation of Ovid's Epistles, is Mrs. Behn's; and Mr. Dryden, in the preface to that work, pays her the following compliment:—"I was desired to say, that the author, who is of the fair sex, understood not Latin; but if she do not, I am afraid she has given us who do, occasion to be ashamed." She was also the authoress of the celebrated Letters between "A Nobleman and his Sister," printed in 1684; and of eight love-letters to a gentleman whom she passionately loved, and with whom she corresponded under the name of Lycidas. She died, after a long indisposition, April 16th, 1689, and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey.