the well-known tale of Sir Walter Scott's aunt, Mrs. Keith of Ravelston. This sprightly old lady took a fancy, when in her eightieth year, to re-read Mrs. Behn's books, and persuaded Sir Walter to send them to her. A hasty glance at them was more than enough, and back they came to Scott with an entreaty that he would put them in the fire. The ancient gentlewoman confessed herself unable to linger over pages which she had not been ashamed nor abashed to hear read aloud to large parties in her youth.
It must be remembered, however, that Aphra Behn, uncompromisingly bad though she was, wrote the first English didactic novel, "Oroonoka," the "Uncle Tom's Cabin" of its day. It has the advantage of "Uncle Tom" in being a true tale, Mrs. Behn having seen the slave, Oroonoka, and his wife, Imoinda, in the West Indies, and having witnessed his tragic fate. It was written at the solicitation of Charles II., and was a popular anti-slavery novel, with certain points of resemblance to Mrs. Stowe's famous book; in the grace and beauty of its Africans, for example; in the strength and constancy of their affections, and
