| Chapter 1: | ‘The Fulsom Gingle of the Times’ |
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However, she seems more likely to be deriding A Discourse of Ecclesiastical Politie by Samuel Parker, which asserted the authority of Civil Magistrates over the citizen’s conscience in matters of religion in 1669 and which had a Defence and Continuation published in 1671. Notably, Parker had already published An Account of the Nature and Extent of Divine Dominion and Goodness in 1666, an Oxford response to the Cambridge theologian Henry More’s writing on The Immortality of the Soule in 1659 and his An Explanation of the Grand Mystery of Godlinesse 1660.14
This, with Behn’s allusions to it and to Hobbesian thought and ideas, illustrates the persistence and the prevalence of pre-Commonwealth philosophical thought into the 1670s. The slighting tone of Behn’s remarks suggests that she may have had some slight connection with Oxford thought, rather than that of the Platonist Cambridge of the time, and, moreover, that she herself had had greater opportunities than usual for a woman for intellectual discussion at some time.15 Duffy makes a point of her acquaintance with so many who attended the University;16 Her poem to Thomas Creech includes the lines:
But this delight of all Mankind and thine:
For Ages past of Dullness, this alone
This charming Hero would attone,
And make Thee glorious to succeeding time. (vol. 1, 27)
This is a rather backhanded compliment; nevertheless, it indicates knowledge of at least one Oxford college, which is slightly confirmed by her reference to ‘a late learned Doctor’, in the epistle—presumably the former Warden of Wadham, John Wilkins, who had died in November 1672.17 As one of the group who formed the Royal Society, he would have been well known in London. References like this in the epistle show that Behn was assuming a similar cultural background and knowledge amongst those who would buy the printed copies of her play to read.
Behn is presupposing her readers have the kind of social awareness that enables one to allude to current catchphrases or happenings in the news and find almost certain common understanding even with a stranger. More than this, however, she is assuming that her readers are well and widely read.