, a celebrated English poetess, descended from a good family in
, a celebrated English poetess, descended from a good family in the city of Canterbury, was
born in the reign of Charles I. but in what year is not certain her father’s name was Johnson who beino-related
to the lord Willoughby, and by his interest having been
appointed lieutenant general of Surinam, and six-andthirty islands, embarked with his family for the West Indies; at which time Aphara was very young. Mr. Johnson
died in his passage, but his family arrived at Surinam,
where our poetess became acquainted with the American
prince Oroonoko, whose story she has given us in her
celebrated novel of that name. She tells us, “she had
often seen and conversed with that great man, and had been
a witness to many of his mighty actions; and that at one
time, he and Climene (or Imoinda his wife) were scarce an
hour in a day from her lodgings.
” The intimacy betwixt
Oroonoko and our poetess occasioned some reflections on
her conduct, from which the authoress of her life justifies
her in the following manner: “Here,
” says she, “I can
add nothing to what she has given the world already, but
a vindication of her from some unjust aspersions I find are
insinuated about this town, in relation to that prince. I
knew her intimately well, and I believe she would not have
concealed any love affairs from me, being one of her own
sex, whose friendship and secrecy she had experienced,
which makes me assure the world, there was no affair betwixt that prince and Astraea, but what the whole plantation were witnesses of; a generous value for his uncommon
virtues, which every one that but hears them, finds in himself, and his presence gave her no more. Besides, his
heart was too violently set on the everlasting charms of his
Imoinda, to be shook with those more faint (in his eye) of
a white beauty; and Astrsea’s relations, there present, had
too watchful an eye over her, to permit the frailty of her
youth, if that had been powerful enough.
”