THE

RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW.

ART. I.-Mrs. Behn's Dramatic Writings.

Plays written by the late ingenious Mrs. BEHN. In four volumes. The third edition. London: Printed for Mary Poulson, and sold by A. Bettesworth, in Paternoster Row, and F. Clay, Without Temple Bar. M. DCC. XXIV.

THE

HE literature of the Past has for us a varied interest, which increases in its bearings as it becomes more remote from our own times. Beauty of composition, intelligence, and sentiment, are qualities which depend upon circumstances that are not altogether regulated by the ordinary course of historical events, and they appear at times as individual cases of unusual development, or as more general developments produced at periods by unusual encouragement or excitement. The great mass of the literature of the past is forgotten, because it contained either none of these qualities, or to so small an amount in proportion to its bulk, that it will not repay the general reader the labour of seeking for them. But there are other points of view in which this literature has a more general interest, which increases according to its antiquity, or, perhaps we may say, according to its rarity. Our knowledge of social condition and social manners, by tradition, goes back but a short distance, and no contemporary chroniclers have drawn up, or indeed could have drawn up, pictures of society which would have satisfied our inquiries. It would have required a mind more comprehensive than that which was enough to mark down the mere historical or political events of the day. These at once struck every one; but the features of social condition and social progress were too familiar to the mind of contemporaries to excite that attention which would lead the annalist to record them. It is only by closely studying the popular literature of the time, which deals in what were then familiar and trivial objects, that we can gain a knowledge of that which thus passed unheeded by the chronicler.

This popular literature varies in character at different periods, 1.—1.

1

and naturally becomes less abundant the farther we go back. In the middle ages it consists chiefly of popular poetry, and of stories. Even then, in the religious mysteries and miracle plays, it was found necessary to humour so far the taste of the vulgar, as to introduce humorous scenes from popular life; and the few examples of these scenes which are preserved are amongst the most valuable illustrations of contemporary manners. They were, in fact, the first rude attempts at Comedy in the modern acceptation of the term. After the Reformation, these religious plays were succeeded by the regular drama. This was itself at first a mere representation, on the stage, of historical subjects; and even the comedies were but similar representations of the old medieval novelettes, selected from writers like Boccaccio, with no intention of depicting contemporary manners; although, as was the case with the older religious plays, when the dramatist attempted to paint domestic scenes, or popular manners at all, he was compelled of necessity to copy what he saw going on around him. This was the case even with Shakespeare. Gradually, however, the practice became more and more prevalent, of taking the whole plot of the play from contemporary events, or contemporary manners, making it in fact a newspaper or a satire; for the idea of bringing contemporary history on the stage does not belong exclusively to modern times. Comedy, employed to caricature contemporary manners and vices, took a great extension under our first James and Charles, and was revived in all its force after the restoration. In the earlier part of the reign of Charles the Second, the popular taste appears to have had a leaning towards tragedy, but this did not last long; and the number of comedies printed, between the restoration and the end of the seventeenth century, was very great. Many of them are full of talent, admirable in plot, and sparkling with wit; but the very circumstance which makes them most interesting to the historian has caused them to be forgotten. They represent manners and sentiments which people no longer understand, and books which need a commentary can never be really popular. Moreover, the dramatic writings of the latter half of the seventeenth century labour under another difficulty; they partake, in an extraordinary degree, in the looseness of that proverbially loose age, and they are calculated only to shock the delicacy of the present day.

It is principally with a view to their interest, as making us acquainted with the manners and sentiments of the age to which

they belong, that we take up the dramatic writings of Mrs. Behn. Aphra Behn was a woman of diversified talent, for she shone in her day, not only as a dramatist, but as a poet and a novelist. Bred up in the gallantries of the age of Charles the Second, she seems to have lived a free and easy life, devoted to literature, amid a crowd of admirers attracted by her beauty and wit, both of which she is said to have possessed in no ordinary degree, reckoning among those admirers most of the great geniuses of her day-an Aspasia of the seventeenth century. And, like Aspasia of old, she had a turn for politics too; for she was actually sent as a sort of petticoat ambassador to Amsterdam, where she proved her capability in intrigues of all descriptions. That she was a woman deeply acquainted with the world is evident from her dramatic writings, which, perhaps, give us a more vivid picture of English society in the latter half of the seventeenth century, than those of any other writer of the same class. In fact, they may be taken as the best types of this class of the literature of that period; often loose, in an extraordinary degree, in language and sentiment, they exhibit a brilliance of conversation in the dialogue, and a skill in arranging the plot and producing striking situations, in which she has few equals. Her taste, as well as her talent, lay in comedy, and not in tragedy. We may regard her indeed as our earliest English female comic writer of any worth.

The two objects against which comedy at this time chiefly bent its satire, were political and religious parties, and the follies of society. In the former, as might be expected, we find an extreme exaggeration of caricature, which responds to the bitterness of political feeling which then existed, and which has been preserved traditionally almost to our times. Roundheads and non-conformists, of all descriptions, are made the butt of the bitterest ridicule; while the cavaliers, or the "heroics," as they were called in the slang of the day, are always, even in their wildest extravagance, treated with indulgence. It would be difficult to point out a more absurd libel on history than the comedy of "The Roundheads; or, the good old cause;' yet it seems then to have been considered as within the limits of legitimate satire, and no doubt drew shouts of applause. It was indeed, at that time, the fashion to picture all the heroes of the commonwealth in the most vulgar colours possible. We will venture on an illustration from the comedy just quoted, the scene of which is laid at the moment of the intrigues which preceded the arrival of Monk in the metropolis. The state council-chamber is here degraded to the level of a pot-house; and Lambert, Fleetwood,

Desborough, Hewson, Duckenfield, Wariston, and Cobbet, the leading members of what was called the Rump, are supposed to be in council, over their glasses, and half drunk. The dialogue proceeds as follows:

"Hews. What think ye now, my Lords, of settling the nation a little ? I find my head swim with politics, and what ye call ums.

War. Wons, and wad ya settle the nation when we reel ourselves?

Hews. Who, pox! shall we stand making children's shoes all the year? No, no, let's begin to settle the nation, I say, and go through-stitch with our work.

Duc. Right, we have no head to obey; so that if this Scotch general do come whilst we dogs fight for the bone, he runs away with it.

Hews. Shaw, we shall patch up matters with the Scotch general, I'll warrant you. However, here's to our next Head-one and all.

[All drink.

Fleet. Verily, Sirs, this health-drinking savoureth of monarchy, and is a type of malignancy.

War. Bread, my lord! no preaching o'er yar liquor; wee's now for a cup o' th' creature.

Cob. In a gadly way you may; it is lawful.

Lam. Come, come, we're dull; give us some music. Come, my lord, I'll give you a song. I love music as I do a drum; there's life and soul in’t— call my music.

ye

Fleet. Yea, I am for any music, except an organ.

War. Sbread, sirs! and I's a hornpipe. I've a faud theefe here shall dance Dance tol a Hornpipe, with any statesman a ya aud.

All. He, he, he!

Duc. I know not what your faud theefe can do; but I'll hold you a wager Colonel Hewson and Colonel Desborough shall dance ye the saint's jig with sinner of your kirk or field conventicler.

any

War. Wons, and I's catch 'em at that sport, I's dance tol 'em for a Scotch pound: but farst your song, my lord; I hope 'tis boody, or else 'tis not

werth a feart.

All. He, he, he!"

Lambert then sings a vulgar song, after which the scene continues

“War. The diel a me, wele sung, my lord; and gen aud trades fail, yas make a quaint minstrel.

All. He, he, he!

War. Noo, sirs, yar dance! [They fling cushions at one another, and grin. Music plays.]- Marry, sirs, an this be yar dancing, tol dance and ne'er stir stap, the diel lead the dance for Archibald.

When they have flung cushions thus awhile to the music time, they beat each other from the table, one by one, and fall into a godly dance; after a while Wariston rises, and dances ridiculously awhile amongst them; then to the time of the tune, they take out the rest, as at the cushion-dance, or in that nature. Wariston being the last taken in, leads the rest.

-Haud, minstrels, haud; bread a gued! I's fatch ad ladies in-lead away, minstrels, tol my lady's apartment. [Music playing before all. Ex. dancing."

This was the sort of satire to which the old republicans were exposed in the merry days of Charles the Second. The Rover; or the Banished Cavaliers,' a long but well composed comedy, full of clever intrigue and amusing embarrassments, though, like most of the others, extremely loose, is a picture, with much less of caricature, of the lives and manners of the cavaliers when the triumph of the Commonwealth obliged them to remain in banishment. It shows us whence came in that flood of licentiousness which overwhelmed this country at the return of the Stuarts.

"The Widow Ranter' is a satire on the management of our colonies, which was then miserable in the extreme. Mrs. Behn had spent her youth in Surinam, where she was the intimate friend of the American prince Oroonoko, and she might therefore consider as in a manner her own province whatever related to the colonies on the other side the Atlantic. At this time occurred the insurrection in Virginia, which, from its leader, Colonel Nathaniel Bacon, is known as Bacon's rebellion, and which was no doubt the consequence of misgovernment. The old writers on the subject acknowledge that the origin of the rising was wrapped in a considerable degree of mystery, and perhaps Mrs. Behn's history of it is as good as any other. It seems to have excited much interest in England; and the comedy of 'Widow Ranter' shows us how early our dramatists adopted the practice of benefiting by the excitement of the moment, in bringing such subjects on the stage. We learn from the popular literature of that and the following age, that it was the common practice of broken down fortune-recruiters to repair to the West Indies and the slave colonies, in the hope of marrying rich widows of planters: on this custom the plot of the comedy just alluded to chiefly turns. The cowardice and ignorance of the men to whom the management of the affairs of the colony was left are painted, as usual, in broad caricature, yet it covers no doubt a considerable portion of truth. It is perhaps one of the wittiest of Mrs. Behn's comedies. The following is an admirable caricature on the self-importance of colonial magistrates. It must be premised that Timorous, Whimsey, Whiff, and Boozer, are four Virginian justices of the peace; and in the scene from which we are going to quote, Timorous and a Virginian captain, named Dullman, are carousing at the Widow Ranter's.

"Dull. So- -I see, let the world go which way it will, widow, you are resolved for mirth ;-but, come-to the conversation of the times.

Ran. The times! why, what a devil ails the times? I see nothing in the times but a company of coxcombs that fear without a cause.