The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood Part 7

"Sometimes, when surrounded by my Friends, such as Anthony Hammond, Esq; Mr. Philip Horneck, Mr. Philips, Mr.----, Mrs. Centlivre, Mrs.

Fowk, Mrs. Eliza Haywood, and other celebrated Wits, of which my House, for some Years has been the general Rendezvous, a good Bowl of Punch before me, and the Gla.s.s going round in a constant Circle of Mirth and Good Humour, I have, in a Moment, beheld Sights which has froze my very Blood, and put me into Agonies that disordered the whole Company" (p. 131).

The last anecdote in the first section is a repet.i.tion at some length of the story of Campbell's adventures in Holland, not as related in Defoe's "Life and Adventures," but according to the version in Mrs Haywood's "Dumb Projector." The beginning, which has to do with a grave old gentleman who was bit by a viper, is told in almost the same words; indeed some letters that pa.s.sed between the characters are identically the same, and the end, though much abbreviated, contains a number of sentences taken word for word from the earlier telling of the story.

Finally, Mrs. Haywood was the first and hitherto the only writer of the Campbell pamphlets who had printed letters supposedly addressed to the prophet by his clients. The device was peculiarly hers. The "Original Letters sent to Mr. Campbel by his Consulters" in the "Secret Memoirs"

are similar to those already composed by her for "A Spy upon the Conjurer." There is no reason to think that she did not invent the later epistles as well as the former.

If, then, a number of anecdotes in the "Secret Memoirs" are suggestive of Mrs. Haywood's known writings, and if one of them remained in her memory thirteen years later; if the pamphlet carefully alludes to Eliza Haywood as one of the dumb seer's particular friends, and if it repeats in slightly different form her peculiar account of the dumb projector's journey into Holland; and if, finally, the book contains a series of letters to Campbell from fict.i.tious correspondents fashioned on the last already used by her, we may conclude that in all likelihood the auth.o.r.ess whose name had previously been a.s.sociated with Duncan Campbell literature was again concerned in writing or revising this latest work.

At least a cautious critic can say that there is no inherent improbability in the theory that Defoe with journalistic instinct, thinking that Campbell's death in 1730 might stimulate public interest in the wizard, had drafted in the rough the ma.n.u.script of a new biography, but was prevented by the troubles of his last days from completing it; that after his death the ma.n.u.script fell into the hands of Mrs. Haywood, or perhaps was given to her by the publishers Millan and Chrichley to finish; that she revised the material already written, supplemented it with new and old matter of her own, composed a packet of Original Letters, and sent the volume to press. The origin of the "Appendix, by Way of Vindication of Mr. Duncan Campbel" remains unknown, and any theory about the authorship of the "Secret Memoirs" must be regarded in last a.n.a.lysis as largely conjectural.[11a]

Though the author of the original "Life and Adventures" has received most of the credit due to Campbell's biographer, Mrs. Haywood, as we have seen, was not less active in exploiting the deaf and dumb gentleman. Her "Spy upon the Conjurer" was fubbed off upon the public as often as Defoe's earlier volume, and neither writer could claim any advantage over the other from his second and slighter contribution. Each held successfully his own coign of vantage. Eliza Haywood, in contemporary opinion, outranked Defoe almost as far as an interpreter of the heart as he surpa.s.sed her in concocting an account of a new marvel or a tale of strange adventure. The arbitress of the pa.s.sions indeed wrote nothing to compare in popularity with "Robinson Crusoe," but before 1740 her "Love in Excess" ran through as many editions as "Moll Flanders" and its abridgments, while "Idalia: or, the Unfortunate Mistress" had been reprinted three times separately and twice with her collected novels before a reissue of Defoe's "Fortunate Mistress" was undertaken. When in 1740 Applebee published a new edition of "Roxana,"

he had it supplemented by "a continuation of nearly one hundred and fifty pages, many of which are filled with rubbish about women named Cleomira and Belinda."[12] Here again Mrs. Haywood's red herring crossed the trail of Defoe, for oddly enough the sheets thus accurately characterized were transcribed word for word from Eliza's second novel, "The British Recluse." At the point where the heroine swallows a sleeping potion supposing it poison, faints, and is thought to be dead, the narrative breaks off abruptly with the words:

"Though the History of Cleomira and Belinda's Misfortunes, may be thought foreign to my Affairs ... yet it is absolutely necessary I should give it a Place, because it is the Source, or Spring, of many strange and uncommon Scenes, which happened to me during the remaining Part of my Life, and which I cannot give an Account of without"

...[13]

The pages which follow relate how Roxana became reconciled to her daughter, died in peace, and was buried at Hornsey. The curious reader finds, however, no further mention of Belinda and her friend. Evidently Applebee's hack simply stole as much copy as he needed from an almost forgotten book, trusting to receive his money before the fraud was discovered. The volumes of Eliza Haywood were indeed a mine of emotional scenes, and those who wished to read of warm desires or palpitating pa.s.sions had to turn to her romances or do without. Wretched as her work seems in comparison to the modern novel, it was for the time being the nearest approach to idealistic fiction and to the a.n.a.lysis of human feelings. Defoe's romances of incident were the triumphant culmination of the picaresque type; Mrs. Haywood's sentimental tales were in many respects mere vague inchoations of a form as yet to be produced. But when freed from the impurities of intrigue and from the taint of scandal, the novel of heart interest became the dominant type of English fiction. Unfortunately, however, Eliza Haywood was too practical a writer to outrun her generation. The success of "A Spy upon the Conjurer" may have convinced her that a ready market awaited stories of amorous adventure and hinted libel. At any rate, she soon set out to gratify the craving for books of that nature in a series of writings which redounded little to her credit, though they brought her wide notoriety.

FOOTNOTES [1]

_Tatler_, No. 14; _Spectator_, Nos. 323, 474, 560.

[2]

Particularly the incongruous description of Duncan Campbell's first appearance in London, where the writer finds the "heavenly youth" seated like a young Adonis in the "center of an angelic tribe" of "the most beautiful females that ever my eyes beheld," etc. G.A. Aitken's edition of _The Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell_, 87-9.

[3]

_The Supernatural Philosopher_ ... by William Bond, of Bury St. Edmonds [Transcriber's note: sic], Suffolk. The preface signed by Campbell to Defoe's _Life and Adventures_ states that the book was revised by "a young gentleman of my acquaintance." Professor Trent, however, includes Mrs. Haywood with Bond as a possible a.s.sistant in the revision. See _The Cambridge History of English Literature_, IX, 23.

[4]

Neither Defoe nor Mrs. Haywood contributed to the little budget of miscellaneous matter prefixed to the second issue of the _Life and Adventures_ (August, 1720) and sometimes found separately under the t.i.tle: _Mr. Campbell's Pacquet, for the Entertainment of Gentlemen and Ladies. Containing I. Verses to Mr. Campbell, Occasioned by the History of his Life and Adventures. By Mrs. Fowke, Mr. Philips, &c. II. The Parallel, a Poem. Comparing the Poetical Productions of Mr. Pope, with the Prophetical Predictions of Mr. Campbell. By Capt. Stanhope_, [i. e.

W. Bond.] _III. An Account of a most surprizing Apparition; sent from Launceston in Cornwall. Attested by the Rev. Mr. Ruddie, Minister there._ London: For T. Bickerton. 1720. See W. Lee, _Daniel Defoe_, 322-8.

[5]

_Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell_, 171.

[5a]

This volume was announced in the _British Journal_ as early as Dec. 15, 1722.

[6]

She or Bond may have inserted the pa.s.sage to advertise a projected work.

Mr. Spectator had already remarked of the letters that came to his office: "I know some Authors, who would pick up a _Secret History_ out of such materials, and make a Bookseller an Alderman by the Copy." (No.

619.)

[7]

Defoe's _Life and Adventures_ is mentioned on pp. 17 (with a quotation), 61, 111, 246, 257.

[8]

Part II. Being a Collection of Letters found in Mr. Campbell's Closet.

By the Lady who wrote the foregoing sheets. Part III. Containing some Letters from Persons of Mr. Campbell's more particular Acquaintance.

[9]

"The Pleasure with which you received my _Spy_ on the Conjurer, encourages me to offer you a little Supplement to it, having since my finishing that Book, had the opportunity of discovering something concerning Mr. Campbell, which I believe your Lordship will allow to be infinitely more surprizing than any Thing I have yet related." _The Dumb Projector_, 5. Mr. G. A. Aitken, in his introduction to Defoe's _Life and Adventures_, gives the two pieces unhesitatingly to Mrs. Haywood, while other students of Defoe,--Leslie Stephen, Lee, Wright, and Professor Trent,--are unanimous in their opinion that the first exploiter of the dumb wizard could have had no hand in the writing of these amplifications. The latest bibliographer of romances and tales, Mr. Arundell Esdaile, however, follows the B.M. catalogue in listing _The Dumb Projector_ under the convenient name of Defoe.

[10]

No. 125, Sat.u.r.day. 23 November, 1728.

[11]

_The Female Spectator_, 1745, II, 246.

[11a]

In 1734 appeared a compilation of tables for computing Easter, etc., ent.i.tled _Time's Telescope Universal and Perpetual, Fitted for all Countries and Capacities_ ... By _Duncan Campbell_. What connection, if any, this book had with the fortune-teller or with any of the persons connected with his biography appears not to have been determined.

[12]

G.A. Aitken, Introduction to _The Fortunate Mistress_, viii.

[13]

_The Fortunate Mistress; or, a History of the Life and Vast Variety of Fortunes of Mademoiselle de Beleau_.... London: Printed for E. Applebee.

1740. p. 359. Pp. 300-59 are taken from _The British Recluse_.

CHAPTER IV

SECRET HISTORIES AND SCANDAL NOVELS

Some tentative experiments in the way of scandal-mongering may be found in Mrs. Haywood's work even before the first of her Duncan Campbell pamphlets. Many of the short romances discussed in the second chapter were described on the t.i.tle-page as secret histories, while others apparently indistinguishable from them in kind were denominated novels.

"Love in Excess" and "The Unequal Conflict," for instance, were given the latter t.i.tle, but a tale like "Fantomina," evidently imaginary, purported to be the "Secret History of an Amour between two Persons of Condition." "The British Recluse" was in sub-t.i.tle the "Secret History of Cleomira," and "Cleomelia: or, the Generous Mistress" claimed to be the "Secret History of a Lady Lately arriv'd from Bengall." The writer attached no particular significance to her use of the term, but employed it as a means of stimulating a meretricious interest in her stories. In fact she goes out of her way in the Preface to "The Injur'd Husband" to defend herself and at the same time to suggest the possibility that her novel might contain references to English contemporaries. The defence is carefully worded so that it does not const.i.tute an absolute denial, but rather whets the curiosity.

"It is not, therefore, to excuse my Want of Judgment in the Conduct, or my Deficiency of Expressing the Pa.s.sions I have endeavour'd to represent, but to clear myself of an Accusation, which, I am inform'd, is already contrived and prepared to thunder out against me, as soon as this is publish'd, that I take this Pains. A Gentleman, who applies the little Ingenuity he is Master of to no other Study than that of sowing Dissention among those who are so unhappy, and indeed unwise, as to entertain him, either imagines, or pretends to do so, that tho' I have laid the Scene in Paris, I mean that the Adventure shou'd be thought to have happen'd in London; and that in the Character of a French Baroness I have attempted to expose the Reputation of an English Woman of Quality. I shou'd be sorry to think the Actions of any of our Ladies such as you'd give room for a Conjecture of the Reality of what he wou'd suggest. But suppose there were indeed an Affinity between the Vices I have describ'd, and those of some Woman he knows (for doubtless if there be, she must be of his Acquaintance) I leave the World to judge to whom she is indebted for becoming the Subject of Ridicule, to me for drawing a Picture whose Original is unknown, or to him who writes her Name at the Bottom of it.

"However, if I had design'd this as a Satyr on any Person whose Crimes I had thought worthy of it, I shou'd not have thought the Resentment of such a one considerable enough to have obliged me to deny it. But as I have only related a Story, which a particular Friend of mine a.s.sures me is Matter of Fact, and happen'd at the Time when he was in Paris: I wou'd not have it made Use of as an Umbrage for the Tongue of Scandal to blast the Character of any one, a Stranger to such detested Guilt."

Before long the term "secret history" fell into disrepute, so that writers found it necessary to make a special plea for the veracity of their work. "The Double Marriage," "The Mercenary Lover," and "Persecuted Virtue" were distinguished as "true secret histories," and in the Preface to "The Pair Hebrew: or, a True, but Secret History of Two Jewish Ladies, Who lately resided in London" Mrs. Haywood at once confessed the general truth of the charge against the type and defended the accuracy of her own production.

"There are so many Things, meerly the Effect of Invention, which have been published, of late, under the t.i.tle of SECRET HISTORIES, that, to distinguish this, I am obliged to inform my Reader, that I have not inserted one Incident which was not related to me by a Person nearly concerned in the Family of that unfortunate Gentleman, who had no other Consideration in the Choice of a Wife, than to gratify a present Pa.s.sion for the Enjoyment of her Beauty."

About 1729 Eliza Haywood seems to have found the word "Life" or "Memoirs" on the t.i.tle-page a more effective means for gaining the credence of her readers, and after that time she wrote, in name at least, no more secret histories. The fictions so denominated in "Secret Histories, Novels and Poems" were in no way different from her novels, and had only the slightest, if any, foundation in fact.

A novel actually based upon a real occurrence, however, is "Dalinda, or the Double Marriage. Being the Genuine History of a very Recent, and Interesting Adventure" (1749), not certainly known to have been written by Mrs. Haywood, but bearing in the turns of expression, the letters, and the moralized ending, almost indubitable marks of her handiwork. One at least of her favorite quotations comes in at an appropriate point, and the Preface to the Reader states that the author's sole design is to show the danger of inadvertently giving way to the pa.s.sions--a stock phrase with the author of "Love in Excess." The "Monthly Review" informs us that the story is "the affair betwixt Mr. Cresswell and Miss Scrope, thrown into the form of a novel."[1] The situation is somewhat similar to that described in "The Mercenary Lover."

Dalinda's unhappy pa.s.sion for Malvolio incites him to ruin her, and though he deludes her with an unregistered marriage at the Fleet, he has no scruples against marrying the rich Flavilla. Wishing to possess both Flavilla's fortune and Dalinda's charms, he effects a reconciliation with the latter by promising to own their prior contract, but when he comes out into the open and proposes to entertain her as a mistress, she indignantly returns to her grandmother's house, where she summons her brother and her faithful lover, Leander, to force her perfidious husband to do her justice. The latter half of the novel is a tissue of intrigue upon intrigue, with a complication of lawsuits and letters in which Malvolio's villainy is fully exposed, and he is forced to separate from Flavilla, but is unable to exert his claims upon Dalinda. She in turn cannot wring from him any compensation, nor can she in conscience recompense the faithful love of Leander while her husband is living.

Thus all parties are sufficiently unhappy to make their ways a warning to the youth of both s.e.xes.

Evidently the history, though indeed founded on fact, differs from the works of Mrs. Haywood's imagination only in the tedious length of the legal proceedings and the uncertainty of the outcome. The only reason for basing the story on the villainy of Mr. Cresswell was to take advantage of the momentary excitement over the scandal. A similar appeal to the pa.s.sion for diving into the intrigues of the great is apparent in the t.i.tle of a novel of 1744, "The Fortunate Foundlings: Being the Genuine History of Colonel M----rs, and his Sister, Madame du P----y, the issue of the Hon. Ch----es M----rs. Son of the late Duke of R---- L----D. Containing many wonderful Accidents that befel them in their Travels, and interspersed with the Characters and Adventures of Several Persons of Condition, in the most polite Courts of Europe." The Preface after the usual a.s.surances that the work is compiled from original doc.u.ments and is therefore more veracious than "the many Fictions which have been lately imposed upon the World, under the specious t.i.tles of Secret Histories, Memoirs, &c," informs us that the purpose of the publication is to encourage virtue in both s.e.xes by showing the amiableness of it in real characters. Instead of exposing vice in the actions of particular persons, the book is a highly moral laudation of those scions of the house of Manners whose names are adumbrated in the t.i.tle. It cannot, therefore, be cla.s.sed as a scandal novel or secret history.

The latter term, though loosely applied to the short tale of pa.s.sion for the purpose of stimulating public curiosity, meant strictly only that type of pseudo-historical romance which interpreted actual history in the light of court intrigue. In France a flood of histories, annals, anecdotes, and memoirs,--secret, gallant, and above all true,--had been pouring from the press since 1665. The writers of these works proceeded upon the ostensible theory that secret history in recognizing woman's influence upon the destiny of nations was more true than "pure" history, which took into account only religious, political, social, or moral factors in judging the conduct of kings and statesmen. Did not Anthony suffer the world to slip from his fingers for the love of Cleopatra?

Although the grand romances had a little exhausted the vein of cla.s.sical material, Mme Durand-Bedacier and Mme de Villedieu compiled sundry annals of Grecian and Roman gallantry.[2] But the cycle of French secret history was much more extensive. Romancing historians ferreted out a prodigious amount of intrigue in every court from that of Childeric to Louis XIV, and set out to remodel the chronicle of the realm from the standpoint of the heart. Nearly every reign and every romantic hero was the subject of one or more "monographs," among which Mme de La Fayette's "Princesse de Cleves" takes a prominent place. The thesaurus and omnium gatherum of the genus was Sauval's "Intrigues galantes de la cour de France" (1695), of which Dunlop remarks that "to a pa.s.sion, which has, no doubt, especially in France, had considerable effect in state affairs, there is a.s.signed ... a paramount influence." But romancers with a nose for gallantry had no difficulty in finding material for their pens in England during the times of Henry VIII, Elizabeth, and Henrietta Maria. But most frequently of all was chosen the life of the Queen of Scots.