For Mrs. Manley there was more excuse. That poor daughter of an old royalist had some reason to depict human nature as bad in man and in woman. The young orphan trusted herself to the guardianship of a seductive kinsman, who married her when he had a wife still living. This first wrong destroyed her, but not her villainous cousin; and unfortunately, the woman upon whom the world looked cool, incurred the capricious compassion of the Duchess of Cleveland. When the caprice was over, and Mrs. Manley had only her own resources to rely upon, she scorned the aid offered her by General Tidcombe, and made her first venture for the stage in the tragedy of "Royal Mischief," produced at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, in 1696. It is all desperate love, of a very bad quality, and indiscriminate murder, relieved by variety in the mode of killing; one unfortunate gentleman, named Osman, being thrust into a cannon and fired from it, after which his wife, Selima, is said to be
"Gathering the smoking relics of her lord!"
The authoress in her next venture, in the same year, a comedy, written in a week, and which perished in a night, "The Lost Lover," introduced what the public had been taught to appreciate--a virtuous wife. Her other pieces, written at intervals of ten years, were, "Almyna," founded on the story of the Caliph who was addicted to marrying one day, and beheading his wife the next; and "Lucius," a semi-sacred play, on the supposed first Christian king of Britain--both unsuccessful.
Mrs. Manley survived till 1724. When not under the "protection" of a friend, or in decent mourning for the lovers who died mad for her, she was engaged in composing the _Memoirs of the New Atalantis_,--a satire against the Whig ministry, the authorship of which she courageously avowed, rather than that the printer and publisher should suffer for her. The Tory ministry which succeeded, employed her pen; and with Swift's Alderman Barber,--he being Tory printer, she resided till her death, mistress of the house, and of the alderman.
Contemporary with Mrs. Manley was Miss Trotter, the daughter of a Scottish officer, but better known as Mrs. Cockburn, wife and widow of an English clergyman. She was at first a very learned young lady, whose speculations took her to the Church of Rome, from which in later years she seceded. She was but seventeen, when, in 1696, her sentimental tragedy, "Agnes de Castro," was played at Drury Lane. Her career, as writer for the stage, lasted ten years, during which she produced five pieces, all of a sentimental but refined class,--illustrating love, friendship, repentance, and conjugal faith. There is some amount of word-spinning in these plays; and this is well marked by Genest's comment on Mrs. Cockburn's "Revolution of Sweden,"--namely, that if Constantia, in the third act, had been influenced by common sense, she would have spoiled the remainder of the play.