As any other Pegasus can fly.
So the dull Eel moves nimbler in the mud,
Than all the swift-finn'd racers of the flood.
As skilful divers to the bottom fall,
Sooner than those that cannot swim at all,
So in the way of writing, without thinking,
Thou hast a strange alacrity in sinking.
Thou writ'st below ev'n thy own nat'ral parts,
And with acquir'd dulness, and new arts
Of studied nonsense, tak'st kind readers hearts.
Therefore dear Ned, at my advice forbear,
Such loud complaints 'gainst critics to prefer,
Since thou art turn'd an arrant libeller:
Thou sett'st thy name to what thyself do'st write;
Did ever libel yet so sharply bite?

* * * * *


Mrs. APHRA BEHN,

A celebrated poetess of the last age, was a gentlewoman by birth, being
descended, as her life-writer says, from a good family in the city of
Canterbury. She was born in Charles Ist's reign[1], but in what year is
not known. Her father's name was Johnson, whose relation to the lord
Willoughby engaged him for the advantageous post of lieutenant general
of Surinam, and six and thirty islands, to undertake a voyage, with his
whole family, to the West-Indies, at which time our poetess was very
young. Mr. Johnson died at sea, in his passage thither; but his family
arrived at Surinam, a place so delightfully situated, and abounding