The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood Part 9

[4]

A. Lang, _History of English Literature_ (1912), 458. See _ante_, p. 25.

[5]

Re-issued as _The Unfortunate Princess, or, the Ambitious Statesman_, 1741.

[6]

J.E. Wells, _Fielding's Political Purpose in Jonathan Wilde_, PMLA, XXVIII, No. I, pp. 1-55. March, 1913. See also _The Secret History of Mama Oello_, 1733. "The Curaca Robilda's Character [i.e. Sir Robert Walpole's] will inform you that there were Evil Ministers even amongst the simple Indians" ... and _The Statesman's Progress: Or, Memoirs of the Life, Administration, and Fall of Houly Chan, Primier Minister to Abensader, Emperor of China_ (1733).

[7]

A.C. Ewald, _Sir Robert Walpole_ (1878), 444.

[8]

A.C. Ewald, _Sir Robert Walpole_, 450.

[9]

Lord Hervey's _Memoirs_, London, 1884, II, 143.

[10]

_The Unfortunate Princess_, 18, etc.

[11]

_Memoirs of a Certain Island_, II, 249. "Marama [the d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough] has been for many Years a Grandmother; but Age is the smallest of her Imperfections:--She is of a Disposition so perverse and peevish, so designing, mercenary, proud, cruel, and revengeful, that it has been a matter of debate, if she were really Woman, or if some Fiend had not a.s.sumed that Shape on purpose to affront the s.e.x, and fright Mankind from Marriage."

[12]

J. Nichols, _Literary Anecdotes_, III, 649, records the tradition that Chapman was the publisher of Mrs. Haywood's _Utopia_.

[13]

Anne Mason, formerly Lady Macclesfield, and the Earl of Rivers, whom Savage claimed as his father.

[14]

She had a way of rechristening her friends by romantic t.i.tles. See her poem, "To Mr. Walter Bowman ... Occasion'd by his objecting against my giving the Name of Hillarius to Aaron Hill, Esq."

[15]

_Memoirs of a Certain Island_, I, 43-7 condensed.

[16]

For an account of Clio see an article by Bolton Corney, "James Thomson and David Mallet," _Athenaeum_, II, 78, 1859. And Miss Dorothy Brewster, _Aaron Hill_, 188. Her unsavory biography ent.i.tled _Clio, or a Secret History of the Amours of Mrs. S-n--m_, was still known at the time of _Polly Honeycombe_, 1760.

[17]

_The Authors of the Town; a Satire. Inscribed to the Author of the Universal Pa.s.sion_. For J. Roberts, 1725. A number of lines from this poem appear later in Savage's "On False Historians," _Poems_ (Cooke's ed.), II, 189.

[18]

_Letters from the Lady Mary Wortley Montagu_, Everyman edition, 4.

[19]

Compare the picture of Gloat.i.tia, for instance, with the following of a lady in _La Belle a.s.semblee_, I, 22. "To form any Idea of what she was, one must imagine all that can be conceived of Perfection--the most blooming Youth, the most delicate Complection, Eyes that had in them all the Fire of Wit, and Tenderness of Love, a Shape easy, and fine proportion'd Limbs; and to all this, a thousand unutterable Graces accompanying every Air and little Motion."

[20]

Miss C.E. Morgan, _The Novel of Manners_, 221. _Bath-Intrigues_ was included in Mrs. Haywood's Works, 1727. Another work contained in the same two volumes, _The Perplex'd d.u.c.h.ess; or, Treachery Rewarded: Being some Memoirs of the Court of Malfy. In a Letter from a Sicilian n.o.bleman, who had his Residence there, to his Friend in London_ (1728), may be a scandal novel, though the t.i.tle suggests a reworking of Webster's _d.u.c.h.ess of Malfi_. I have not seen the book.

[21]

Ascribed to Mrs. Haywood in the advertis.e.m.e.nts of her additional _Works_, 1727. The B.M. copy, catalogued under "Ariel," contains only a fragment of 24 pages.

[22]

Miss M.P. Conant, _The Oriental Tale in England in the Eighteenth Century (1908), pa.s.sim._

[23]

The "key" is almost the sole contribution to Mrs. Haywood's bibliography in Bohn's Lowndes. Most of the personages mentioned are described in the notes of John Wilson Croker's _Letters to and from the Countess of Suffolk_ (1824).

[24]

The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift, ed. by F. Elrington Ball (1913), Vol. IV, 264, 266. The Countess of Suffolk, in a playful attack on Swift, wrote (25 Sept. 1731) ... "I should not have despaired, that ...

this Irish patriot ... should have closed the scene under suspicions of having a violent pa.s.sion for Mrs. Barber, and Lady M---- [Montagu] or Mrs. Haywood have writ the progress of it." In reply Swift wrote (26 Oct. 1731) that he could not guess who was intended by Lady M---- and that he had heard Mrs. Haywood characterized in the terms quoted above.

[25]

Elwin and Courthope's _Pope_, III, 279.

CHAPTER V

THE HEROINE OF "THE DUNCIAD"

Mr. Pope's devious efforts to make the gratification of his personal animosities seem due to public-spirited indignation have been generally exposed. Beside the overwhelming desire to spite Theobald for his presumption in publishing "Shakespeare Restored" the aggrieved poet was actuated by numerous petty grudges against the inhabitants of Grub Street, all of which he masked behind a pretence of righteous zeal.

According to the official explanation "The Dunciad" was composed with the most laudable motive of damaging those writers of "abusive falsehoods and scurrilities" who "had aspersed almost all the great characters of the age; and this with impunity, their own persons and names being utterly secret and obscure." He intended to seize the "opportunity of doing some good, by detecting and dragging into light these common enemies of mankind; since to invalidate this universal slander, it sufficed to show what contemptible men were the authors of it. He was not without hopes, that by manifesting the dulness of those who had only malice to recommend them, either the booksellers would not find their account in employing them, or the men themselves, when discovered, would want courage to proceed in so unlawful an occupation.

This it was that gave birth to the 'Dunciad,' and he thought it a happiness, that by the late flood of slander on himself, he had acquired such a peculiar right over their names as was necessary to this design."[1] But gentlemanly reproof and delicate satire would be wasted on "libellers and common nuisances." They must be met upon their own ground and overwhelmed with filth. "Thus the politest men are obliged sometimes to swear when they have to do with porters and oyster-wenches." Moreover, those unexceptionable models, Homer, Virgil, and Dryden had all admitted certain nasty expressions, and in comparison with them "our author ... tosses about his dung with an air of majesty."[2] In the episode devoted to the "auth.o.r.ess of those most scandalous books called the Court of Carimania, and the new Utopia,"

remarks the annotator of "The Dunciad, Variorum," "is exposed, in the most contemptuous manner, the profligate licentiousness of those shameless scribblers (for the most part of that s.e.x, which ought least to be capable of such malice or impudence) who in libellous Memoirs and Novels, reveal the faults and misfortunes of both s.e.xes, to the ruin of public fame, or disturbance of private happiness. Our good poet (by the whole cast of his work being obliged not to take off the irony) where he could not show his indignation, hath shewn his contempt, as much as possible; having here drawn as vile a picture as could be represented in the colours of Epic poesy."[3] On these grounds Pope justified the coa.r.s.eness of his allusions to Mrs. Thomas (Corinna) and Eliza Haywood.

But a statement of high moral purpose from the author of "The Dunciad"

was almost inevitably the stalking-horse of an unworthy action. Mr.

Pope's reasons, real and professed, for giving Mrs. Haywood a particularly obnoxious place in his epic of dullness afford a curious ill.u.s.tration of his unmatched capacity ostensibly to chastise the vices of the age, while in fact hitting an opponent below the belt.

The scourge of dunces had, as we have seen, a legitimate cause to resent the licentious attack upon certain court ladies, especially his friend Mrs. Howard, in a scandalous fiction of which Eliza Haywood was the reputed author. Besides she had allied herself with Bond, Defoe, and other inelegant pretenders in the domain of letters, and was known to be the friend of Aaron Hill, Esq., who stood not high in Pope Alexander's good graces. And finally Pope may have honestly believed that she was responsible for a lampoon upon him in person. In "A List of Books, Papers, and Verses, in which our Author was Abused, Before the Publication of the Dunciad; with the True Names of the Authors,"

appended to "The Dunciad, Variorum" of 1729, Mrs. Haywood was credited with an anonymous "Memoirs of Lilliput, octavo, printed in 1727."[4] The full t.i.tle of the work in question reads, "Memoirs of the Court of Lilliput. Written by Captain Gulliver. Containing an Account of the Intrigues, and some other particular Transactions of that Nation, omitted in the two Volumes of his Travels. Published by Lucas Bennet, with a Preface, shewing how these Papers fell into his hands." The t.i.tle, indeed, is suggestive of such productions as "The Court of Carimania." In the Preface Mr. Lucas Bennet describes himself as a schoolfellow and friend of Captain Gulliver, which is reason enough to make us doubt his own actuality. But whether a real personage or a pseudonym for some other author, he was probably not Mrs. Haywood, for the style of the book is unlike that of her known works, and the historian of Lilliput indulges in some mild sarcasms at the expense of women who "set up for Writers, before they have well learned their Alphabet," Either before or after composing his lines on Eliza, however, Pope chose to attribute the volume to her. The pa.s.sage which doubtless provoked his n.o.ble rage against shameless scribblers was part of a debate between Lilliputian Court ladies who were anxious lest their having been seen by Gulliver in a delicate situation should reflect on their reputations. The speaker undertakes to rea.s.sure her companions.

"And besides, the inequality of our Stature rightly consider'd, ought to be for us as full a Security from Slander, as that between Mr.

P--pe, and those _great_ Ladies who do nothing without him; admit him to their Closets, their Bed-sides, consult him in the choice of their Servents, their Garments, and make no scruple of putting them on or off before him: Every body knows they are Women of strict Virtue, and he a Harmless Creature, who has neither the Will, nor Power of doing any farther Mischief than with his Pen, and that he seldom draws, but in defense of their Beauty; or to second their Revenge against some presuming Prude, who boasts a Superiority of Charms: or in privately transcribing and pa.s.sing for his own, the elaborate Studies of some more learned Genius."[5]

Such an attack upon the sensitive poet's person and pride did not go unnoticed. More than a year later he returned the slur with interest upon the head of the supposed author. The lines on Eliza, which still remain the coa.r.s.est in the satire, were in the original "Dunciad" even more brutal.[6] Nothing short of childish personal animus could account for the filthy malignity of Pope's revenge.

"See in the circle next, Eliza plac'd; Two babes of love close clinging to her waste; Fair as before her works she stands confess'd In flow'r'd brocade by bounteous _Kirkall_ dress'd, Pearls on her neck, and roses in her hair, And her fore-b.u.t.tocks to the navel bare."[7]

The G.o.ddess of Dullness offers "yon Juno of majestic size" as the chief prize in the booksellers' games. "Chetwood and Curll accept this glorious strife," the latter, as always, wins the obscene contest, "and the pleas'd dame soft-smiling leads away." Nearly all of this account is impudent slander, but Mr. Pope's imputations may have had enough truth in them to sting. His description of Eliza is a savage caricature of her portrait by Kirkall prefixed to the first edition of her collected novels, plays, and poems (1724).[8] Curll's "Key to the Dunciad," quoted with evident relish by Pope in the Variorum notes, recorded on the authority of contemporary scandal that the "two babes of love" were the offspring of a poet[9] and a bookseller. This bit of libel meant no more than that Mrs. Haywood's relations with Savage and other minor writers had been injudiciously unconventional. As for the booksellers, Curll had not been professionally connected with the auth.o.r.ess before the publication of "The Dunciad," and the part he played in the games may be regarded as due entirely to Pope's malice. W. R. Chetwood was indeed the first publisher of Eliza's effusions, but his name was even more strongly a.s.sociated with the prize which actually fell to his lot.[10]

In 1735 Chapman was subst.i.tuted for Chetwood, and in the last revision Thomas...o...b..rne, then the object of Pope's private antipathy, gained a permanent place as Curll's opponent. Taken all in all, the chief virulence of the abuse was directed more against the booksellers than against Mrs. Haywood.

The second mention of Eliza was also in connection with Corinna in a pa.s.sage now canceled.