Update
Show Summary Details

Page of

PRINTED FROM OXFORD REFERENCE (www.oxfordreference.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2023. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single entry from a reference work in OR for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

date: 21 June 2025

Aphra Behn 1640–89
English dramatist, poet, and novelist 

  1. Love ceases to be a pleasure, when it ceases to be a secret.
    The Lover's Watch (1686) ‘Four o' Clock. General Conversation’
  2. Variety is the soul of pleasure.
    The Rover pt. 2 (1681) act 1; see Cowper
  3. Come away; poverty's catching.
    The Rover pt. 2 (1681) act 1
  4. Money speaks sense in a language all nations understand.
    The Rover pt. 2 (1681) act 3