Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/135

Rh 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,