In your last, you inform’d me, that the World treated me as a _Plagiery_, and, I must confess, not with Injustice: But that Mr. _Otway_ shou’d say, my Sex wou’d not prevent my being pull’d to Pieces by the Criticks, is something odd, since whatever Mr. _Otway_ now declares, he may very well remember when last I saw him, I receiv’d more than ordinary Encomiums on my _Abdelazer_, But every one knows Mr. _Otway’s_ good Nature, which will not permit him to shock any one of our Sex to their Faces. xxxviii But let that pass: For being impeach’d of murdering my _Moor_, I am thankful, since, when I shall let the World know, whenever I take the Pains next to appear in Print, of the mighty Theft I have been guilty of; But however for your own Satisfaction, I have sent you the Garden from whence I gather’d, and I hope you will not think me vain, if I say, I have weeded and improv’d it. I hope to prevail on the Printer to reprint _The Lust’s Dominion_, &c., that my theft may be the more publick. But I detain you. I believe I sha’n’t have the Happiness of seeing my dear _Amillia_ ’till the middle of _September_: But be assur’d I shall always remain as I am, Yours, A. Behn. _The Rover (I)_ is undoubtedly the best known of Aphra Behn’s comedies. It long remained a popular favourite in the theatre, its verve, bustle and wit, utterly defiant of the modest Josephs and qualmy prudes who censured these lively scenes. Steele has mention of this in an archly humorous paper, No. 51, _Spectator_, Saturday, 28 April, 1711. He pictures a young lady who has taken offence at some negligent expression in that chastest of ice-cold proprieties, _The Funeral_, and he forthwith more or less seriously proceeds to defend his play by quoting the example of both predecessors and contemporaries. Amongst the writers who are ‘best skilled in this luscious Way’, he informs us that ‘we are obliged to the Lady who writ _Ibrahim_ 33 for introducing a preparatory Scene to the very Action, when the Emperor throws his Handkerchief as a Signal for his Mistress to follow him xxxix into the most retired Part of the Seraglio.... This ingenious Gentlewoman in this piece of Baudry refined upon an Author of the same Sex, who in _The Rover_ makes a Country Squire strip to his Holland Drawers. For _Blunt_ is disappointed, and the Emperor is understood to go on to the utmost.... It is not here to be omitted, that in one of the above-mentioned Female Compositions the _Rover_ is very frequently sent on the same Errand; as I take it above once every Act. This is not wholly unnatural; for, they say, the Men-Authors draw themselves in their Chief Characters, and the Women-Writers may be allowed the same Liberty.’