p. [173] The Return. The first two stanzas of this poem appear in The Muses Mercury, August, 1707, as 'To J. Hoyle, Esq.'
p. [175] my Lady Morland. Mrs. Behn is here complimenting her friend Carola, daughter of Sir Roger Harsnett, Knight, and second wife of Sir Samuel Morland, whom she married in Westminster Abbey, 26 October, 1670. Lady Morland died 10 October, 1674, aged twenty-two.
For an account of the Queen's visit to Tunbridge Wells ('the place of all Europe the most rural and simple, and yet, at the same time, the most entertaining and agreeable'), see Grammont's Memoirs. Rochester has a famous satire, Tunbridge Wells. Burr's History of Tunbridge Wells will be found to give a very full account of that fashionable watering-place.
p. [177] Song to Ceres. The Wavering Nymph; or, Mad Amyntas was the name given to a Restoration revival of Randolph's beautiful and truly poetic Amyntas or The Impossible Dowry. The title of the editio princeps runs thus: Amyntas or The Impossible Dowry. A Pastoral Acted before the King and Queen at Whitehall. Written by Thomas Randolph.
Pastorem, Tityre, pingues
Pascat oportet oves, diductum dicere Carmen.
Oxford, Printed by Leonard Lichfield for Francis Bordman, 1638.
In the pastoral, Ceres, by an obscure oracle, has announced the dowry to be given to Urania, the daughter of her priest. Amyntas, conceiving it impossible to bestow this required dowry, has lost his wits. The wavering nymph is Laurinda. Eventually the divine riddle is happily solved.
There is no record of the revival for which Mrs. Behn wrote these two songs, but the play was undoubtedly put on at the Duke's house. It was probably acted in 1682-3, when a large number of the older plays were staged, especially such as gave scope for scenic effects and the introduction of musical interludes. In the spring of 1703, Amyntas, reduced to three acts as The Fickle Shepherdess, was produced at Lincoln's Inn Fields. Mrs. Bracegirdle acted Amyntas, and Mrs. Barry, Clorinda (Laurinda).
p. [178] The Disappointment. This poem, which was extremely popular, was sent by Mrs. Behn to John Hoyle, her friend, with a letter in which she anxiously urges him to give the lie to various scandals of a grave nature that were current concerning his private life. The letter and the poem are both to be found in the various editions of Familiar Letters of Love, Gallantry, &c. This poem was also printed in Poems on Several Occasions by the Rt. Hon. the Earl of R—— Antwerpen. [London.] 1680(?) And in Poems on Several Occasion by the R. H. the E. of R. London. (1712). Under the title The Insensible it is to be found in the following editions of Rochester, 1718; 1731; 1739 (in which year there were two several and slightly divergent editions); 1752; 1800 (?); and in a selected reprint circa 1884. In these editions which contain The Insensible, The Disappointment is the title given to a different poem seemingly based on Ovid, Amorum, iii, vii. The whole subject has frequently been treated by poets and amorists of all time. Also cf. supra note on a Juniper-Tree.