The morality of her plays is _au fond_ that of many a comedy of to-day: that the situations and phrasing in which she presents her amorous intrigues and merry cuckoldoms do not conform with modern exposition of these themes we also show yet would not name, is but our surface gloss of verbal reticence; we hint, point, and suggest, where she spoke out broad words, frank and free; the _motif_ is one and the same. If we judge Mrs. Behn’s dramatic output in the only fair way by comparing it legitimately with the theatre of her age, we simply shall not find that superfluity of naughtiness the critics lead us to expect and deplore. There are not infrequent scenes of Dryden, of Wycherley, of Vanbrugh, Southerne, Otway, Ravenscroft, Shadwell, D’Urfey, Crowne, full as daring as anything Aphra wrote; indeed, in some instances, far more wanton. Particularizing, it has been objected that although in most Restoration comedies the hero, however vicious (even such a mad scrapegrace as Dryden’s Woodall), is decently noosed up in wedlock when the curtain is about to fall, Mrs. Behn’s Willmore (_Rover II_), Gayman (_The Lucky Chance_), Wittmore (_Sir Patient Fancy_) end up without a thought of, save it be jest at, the wedding ring. But even this freedom can xxxi be amply paralleled. In the Duke of Buckingham’s clever alteration of _The Chances_ (1682), we have Don John pairing off with the second Constantia without a hint of matrimony; we have the intrigue of Bellmour and Laetitia in Congreve’s _The Old Bachelor_ (1693), the amours of Horner in _The Country Wife_ (1675), of Florio and Artall in Crowne’s _City Politics_ (1683), and many another beside. As for the cavilling crew who carped at her during her life Mrs. Behn has answered them and she was thoroughly competent so to do. Indeed, as she somewhat tartly remarked to Otway on the occasion of certain prudish dames pleasing to take offence at _The Soldier’s Fortune_, she wondered at the impudence of any of her sex that would pretend to understand the thing called bawdy. A clique were shocked at her; it was not her salaciousness they objected to but her success. In December, 1670, Mrs. Behn’s first play,19 _The Forc’d Marriage; or, the Jealous Bridegroom_, was produced at the Duke’s Theatre, Lincoln’s Inn Field’s, with a strong cast. It is a good tragi-comedy of the bastard Fletcherian Davenant type, but she had not hit upon her happiest vein of comedy, which, however, she approached in a much better piece, _The Amorous Prince_, played in the autumn of 1671 by the same company. Both these had excellent runs for their day, and she obtained a firm footing xxxii in the theatrical world. In 167320 _The Dutch Lover_21 was ready, a comedy which has earned praise for its skilful technique. She here began to draw on her own experiences for material, and Haunce van Ezel owes not a little to her intimate knowledge of the Hollanders.