Chapter II: Short Romances of Passion (1)

The little amatory tales which formed Mrs. Haywood's chief stock in trade when she first set up for a writer of fiction, inherited many of the characteristics of the long-winded French romances. Though some were told with as much directness as any of the intercalated narratives in "Clélie" or "Cléopâtre," others permitted the inclusion of numerous "little histories" only loosely connected with the main plot. Letters burning with love or jealousy were inserted upon the slightest provocation, and indeed remained an important component of Eliza Haywood's writing, whether the ostensible form was romance, essay, or novel. Scraps of poetry, too, were sometimes used to ornament her earliest effusions, but the other miscellaneous features of the romances--lists of maxims, oratory, moral discourses, and conversations --were discarded from the first. The language of these short romances, while generally more easy and often more colloquial than the absurd extravagances of the translators of heroic romances and their imitators, still smacked too frequently of shady groves and purling streams to be natural. Many conventional themes of love or jealousy, together with such stock types as the amorous Oriental potentate, the lover disguised as a slave, the female page, the heroine of excessive delicacy, the languishing beauty, the ravishing sea-captain, and the convenient pirate persisted in the pages of Mrs. Barker, Mrs. Haywood, and Mrs. Aubin. As in the interminable tomes of Scudéry, love and honor supplied the place of life and manners in the tales of her female successors, and though in some respects their stories were nearer the standard of real conduct, new novel on the whole was but old romance writ small.

In attempting to revitalize the materials and methods of the romances Mrs. Haywood was but following the lead of the French _romancières_, who had successfully invaded the field of prose fiction when the passing of the précieuse fashion and Boileau's influential ridicule[1] had discredited the romance in the eyes of writers with classical predilections. Mme de La Fayette far outshines her rivals, but a host of obscure women, headed by Hortense Desjardins, better known as Mme de Villedieu, hastened to supply the popular demand for romantic stories. In drawing their subjects from the histories of more modern courts than those of Rome, Greece, or Egypt they endeavored to make their "historical" romances of passion more lifelike than the heroic romances, and while they avoided the extravagances, they also shunned the voluminousness of the _romans à longue haleine_. So the stories related in "La Belle Assemblée" by Mme de Gomez, translated by Mrs. Haywood in 1725 and often reprinted, are nearer the model of Boccaccio's novelle than of the Scudéry romance, both in their directness and in being set in a framework, but the inclusion, in the framework, of long conversations on love, morals, politics, or wit, with copious examples from ancient and modern history, of elegant verses on despair and similar topics, and of such miscellaneous matter as the "General Instructions of a Mother to a Daughter for her Conduct in Life," showed that the influence of the salon was not yet exhausted. In the continuation called "L'Entretien des Beaux Esprits" (translated in 1734), however, the elaborate framework was so far reduced that fourteen short tales were crowded into two volumes as compared with eighteen in the four volumes of the previous work. Writers of fiction were evidently finding brief, unadorned narrative most acceptable to the popular taste.

That the "novels" inserted in these productions had not ceased to breathe the atmosphere of romance is sufficiently indicated by such titles as "Nature outdone by Love," "The Triumph of Virtue," "The Generous Corsair," "Love Victorious over Death," and "Heroick Love." French models of this kind supplied Mrs. Haywood with a mine of romantic plots and situations which she was not slow to utilize.[2] Furthermore, her natural interest in emotional fiction was quickened by these and other translations from the French. The "Letters from a Lady of Quality to a Chevalier" emphasized the teaching of the "Lettres Portugaises," while "The Lady's Philosopher's Stone; or, The Caprices of Love and Destiny" (1725),[3] although claiming to be an "historical novel" in virtue of being set "in the time, when Cromwell's Faction prevail'd in England," was almost entirely occupied with the matters indicated in the sub-title. And in "The Disguis'd Prince: or, the Beautiful Parisian" (1728) she translated the melting history of a prince who weds a merchant's daughter in spite of complicated difficulties.[4] Much reading in books of this sort filled Mrs. Haywood's mind with images of exalted virtue and tremendous vice, and like a Female Quixote, she saw and reported the life about her in terms borrowed from the romances. So, too, Mrs. Manley had written her autobiography in the character of Rivella.

This romantic turn of mind was not easily laid aside, but the women writers made some progress toward a more direct and natural representation of the passions. The advance was due partly, no doubt, to a perception of the heroic absurdities of French fiction, but also to the study of Italian _novelle_ and the "Exemplary Novels" of Cervantes. But even when imitating the compression of these short tales Mrs. Haywood did not always succeed in freeing herself from the "amour trop delicat" of the romantic conventions. In two short "novels" appended to "Cleomelia: or, the Generous Mistress" (1727) the robust animalism of the Italian tales comes in sharp contrast with the _délicatesse_ of the French tradition. "The Lucky Rape: or, Fate the best Disposer" illustrates the spirit of the _novelle_.

Emilia, rusticated to Andalusia to escape falling in love, gives her heart to Berinthus, whom she meets at a masquerade. On her way to a second entertainment to meet her lover, her terror of a drunken cavalier induces her to accept the protection of the amorous Alonzo and paves the way for her ruin. Berinthus turns out to be her brother Henriquez. Alonzo, his friend, marries the lady as soon as her identity is discovered, and all parties are perfectly content.

Though the scene of "The Capricious Lover: or, No Trifling with a Woman" is likewise laid in Spain, the atmosphere of the story is far different.

Montano, doubtful of Calista's affection for him, feigns to break with her, and she, though really loving him, returns an indifferent answer and marries Gaspero out of pique. The distracted lover thereupon falls upon his sword in the presence of the newly wedded couple, and the bride, touched by the spectacle of her lover's devotion, languishes and dies in a few months.

There is little naturalness in the extravagant passion of the second story, but until sensationalism cloyed the public palate, realism was an unnecessary labor. By placing the events in some romantic country like Spain, Portugal, Italy, or even France, any narrative of excessive love could be made to pass current. The Latin countries were vaguely imagined by romantic novelists as a sort of remote but actual _pays du Tendre_ where the most extraordinary actions might occur if only "love, soft love" were the motivating force.

A collection of select novels called "Love in its Variety," advertised in 1727 as "Written in Spanish by Signior Michel Ban Dello; made English by Mrs. Eliza Haywood," was apparently a translation from the _novelle_ of Matteo Bandello, probably from a French version.[5] The best examples of her brief, direct tales, however, are to be found in "The Fruitless Enquiry. Being a Collection of several Entertaining Histories and Occurrences, which Fell under the Observation of a Lady in her Search after Happiness" (1727). Although the scene is laid in Venice, the model of this framework story was probably not the "Decameron" but the Oriental tales, known in England through French translations and imitations of the "Arabian Nights." Intercalated stories were not uncommon in French romances, but they were almost invariably introduced as life histories of the various characters. A fantastic framework, with a hint of magic, fabricated expressly to give unity to a series of tales, half exemplary, half satirical, points directly to an ultimate connection with the narratives of Scheherezade and Sutlememé. No attempt to catch the spirit of the East is discernible, but the vogue of Oriental tales was evidently beginning to make an impression on French and English writers of fiction. Care for the moral welfare of her readers doubtless influenced Mrs. Haywood to assert in the dedication to Lady Elizabeth Germain that the following "Sheets ...contain the History of some real Facts," and that the author's chief design in publishing was to "persuade my Sex from seeking Happiness the wrong Way."

At any rate the moral of the stories suited the taste of the age.[6]

Miramillia, widow of a nobleman in Venice, loses her only son, and is informed by a soothsayer that she will hear nothing of him until she has a shirt made for him by a woman perfectly content. She, therefore, seeks among her acquaintance for the happy woman, but one after another reveals to her a secret disquiet.

Anziana, married against her will to the Count Caprera, encourages her former lover, Lorenzo, to continue his friendship for her. Her husband and father, believing that she is about to prove faithless to her marriage vows, secretly assassinate Lorenzo, and cause his skeleton to be set up in Anziana's closet for an object lesson. When she discovers it, she refuses to be reconciled to her husband, and vows to spend an hour a day weeping over Lorenzo's remains.

On the night of his marriage Montrano is torn from the arms of Iseria by his cruel uncle and shipped to Ceylon. Shipwrecked, he becomes the slave of a savage Incas, whose renegade Italian queen falls in love with him. But neither her blandishments nor the terrible effects of her displeasure can make him inconstant to Iseria. After suffering incredible hardships, he returns to see Iseria once more before entering a monastery, but she, loyal even to the semblance of the man, refuses to allow him to leave her.

Stenoclea's doting parents refuse to let her wed Armuthi, a gentleman beneath her in fortune, and he in hopes of removing the objection goes on his travels. Her parents die, her brother is assassinated on his way home to Venice, she becomes mistress of her fortune, and soon marries her lover. Completely happy, she begins to make a shirt for Miramillia's son, but before it is completed, a servant who had been wounded when her brother was killed, returns and identifies Armuthi as the slayer. Through Miramillia's influence the husband is pardoned, but Stenoclea retires to a convent.

An adventuress named Maria boasts to Miramillia that she has attained perfect felicity by entrapping the Marquis de Savilado into a marriage. She too undertakes the shirt, but in a few days Miramillia hears that the supposed Marquis has been exposed as an impostor and turned into the street with his wife.

Violathia endures for a long time the cruelties of her jealous husband, Count Berosi, but finally yields to the persistent kindness of her lover, Charmillo. Just as he has succeeded in alienating his wife's affections, Berosi experiences a change of heart. His conduct makes the divorce impossible, and she is forced to remain the wife of a man she loathes, and to dismiss Charmillo who has really gained her love.

Tellisinda, to avoid the reproach of barrenness, imposes an adopted boy on her husband, but shortly afterward gives birth to a child. She is forced to watch a spurious but amiable heir inherit the estate of her own ill-natured son. (Cf. footnote 2 at end of this chapter.)

Even unmarried ladies, Miramillia finds, are not without their discontents. Amalia is vexed over the failure of a ball gown. Clorilla is outranked by an acquaintance whose father has obtained preferment. Claribella pouts because a man has shot himself for love of her rival. Selinda mourns her lap-dog dead.

Just as Miramillia is ready to give over her search for a happy woman, Adario, her son, returns in company with a former lover of hers whose daughter he has saved from a villain at the expense of a wound from which he has but then recovered. Naturally the girl rewards him with her hand, and all ends well.[7]

Of the stories in this diversified collection that of Anziana approaches in kind, though not in degree, the tragic pathos of Isabella and the Pot of Basil ("Decameron," IV, 5). The second narrative has all the glamor of adventure in the barbaric East, and the romantic interest that attaches to lovers separated but eternally constant. The histories of Stenoclea and of Tellisinda contain situations of dramatic intensity. But perhaps the story of Violathia is the most worthy of attention on account both of its defects and of its merits. The weakest part of the plot is the husband, who is jealous without cause, and equally without reason suddenly reforms. But the character of Violathia is admirably drawn. Unlike the usual heroine of Haywoodian fiction she is superior to circumstance and does not yield her love to the most complacent adjacent male. As a dutiful wife she resists for a long time the insinuations of Charmillo, but when she decides to fly to her lover, her husband's tardy change of heart cannot alter her feelings. Her character is individual, firm, and palpable. If the story was original with Mrs. Haywood, it shows that her powers of characterization were not slight when she wished to exert them. The influence of the _novella_ and of the Oriental tale produced nothing better.

From other literary forms the makers of fiction freely derived sensational materials and technical hints. Without insisting too closely upon the connection between novel and play, we may well remember that nearly all the early novelists, Defoe excepted, were intimately associated with the theatre. Mrs. Behn, Mrs. Manley, Mrs. Haywood, and later Fielding and Mrs. Lennox were successful in both fields. The women writers especially were familiar with dramatic technique both as actors and playwrights, and turned their stage training to account when they wrote prose fiction. Mrs. Haywood's first novel, "Love in Excess" (1720), showed evidences of her apprenticeship to the theatre. Its three parts may be compared to the three acts of a play; the principal climax falls properly at the end of the second part, and the whole ends in stereotyped theatrical fashion with the marriage of all the surviving couples. The handling of incident, too, is in the fashion of the stage. Mrs. Haywood had sufficient skill to build up a dramatic situation, but she invariably solves it, or rather fails to solve it, by an interruption at the critical moment, so that the reader's interest is continually titillated. Of a situation having in itself the germs of a solution, she apparently had not the remotest conception. When a love scene has been carried far enough, the coming of a servant, the sound of a duel near by, or a seasonable outbreak of fire interrupts it. Such devices were the common stock in trade of minor writers for the theatre. Dramatic hacks who turned to prose fiction found it only a more commodious vehicle for incidents and scenes already familiar to them on the stage. In their hands the novel became simply a looser and more extended series of sensational adventures. Accident, though tempered in various degrees by jealousy, hatred, envy, or love, was the supreme motivating force.

The characters of Mrs. Haywood's "Love in Excess" also inherited many traits from the debased but glittering Sir Fopling Flutters, Mirabells, Millamants, and Lady Wishforts of the Restoration stage. Of character drawing, indeed, there is practically none in the entire piece; the personages are distinguished only by the degree of their willingness to yield to the tender passion. The story in all its intricacies may best be described as the _vie amoureuse_ of Count D'Elmont, a hero with none of the wit, but with all the gallantry of the rakes of late Restoration comedy. Two parts of the novel relate the aristocratic intrigues of D'Elmont and his friends; the third shows him, like Mrs. Centlivre's gallants in the fifth act, reformed and a model of constancy. It would be useless to detail the sensational extravagances of the plot in all its ramifications, but the hero's adventures before and after marriage may serve as a fair sample of the whole.

D'Elmont, returning to Paris from the French wars, becomes the admiration of both sexes, but especially in the eyes of the rich and noble Alovisa appears a conquest worthy of her powers. To an incoherent expression of her passion sent to him in an anonymous letter he pays no attention, having for diversion commenced an intrigue with the lovely Amena. Though Alovisa in a second billet bids him aim at a higher mark, "he had said too many fine things to be lost," and continues his pursuit until Amena's father takes alarm and locks her up. Through her maid she arranges for a secret meeting, and though touched by her father's reproofs, she is unable to withstand the pleas of the captivating count. Their tete-a-tete in the Tuilleries, however, is interrupted by Alovisa's spies, who alarm the house with cries of fire, so that the lovers find themselves locked out. Half senseless with dismay, Amena finds shelter in the house of Alovisa, who, though inwardly triumphant, receives her rival civilly and promises to reconcile her to her father. D'Elmont is so patently glad to be relieved of his fair charge that she demands back her letter, but he by mistake gives her one of Alovisa's, whose handwriting she immediately recognizes. When the polite Count returns to enquire after her health, she accuses her lover and friend of duplicity, faints, and letting fall Alovisa's letter from her bosom, brings about an _éclaircissement_ between D'Elmont and that lady. Before Amena's recovery the Count hastens away to welcome his brother, and when the imprudent girl has been safely lodged in a convent, D'Elmont, moved more by ambition than by love, weds the languishing Alovisa.

After his marriage the Count soon quarrels with his wife and consoles himself by falling in love with his ward, the matchless Melliora, but the progress of his amour is interrupted by numerous unforeseen accidents. The mere suspicion of his inconstancy raises his wife's jealousy to a fever heat. To expose her rival she pretends to yield to the persuasions of her wooer, the Baron D'Espernay, but as a result of a very intricate intrigue both Alovisa and the Baron perish accidentally on the swords of D'Elmont and his brother.

Melliora retires to a convent, and her lover goes to travel in Italy, where his charms cause one lady to take poison for love of him, and another to follow him disguised as the little foot-page Fidelio. In helping Melliora's brother to elope with a beautiful Italian girl, the Count again encounters his beloved Melliora, now pursued by the Marquis de Sanguillier. In a dramatic _dénouement_ she deserts the Marquis at the altar and throws herself upon the protection of her guardian. The disappointed bridegroom is consoled by the discovery of an old flame who has long been serving him secretly in the capacity of chambermaid. Fidelio reveals her identity and dies of hopeless love, pitied by all. The three surviving couples marry at once, and this time the husbands "continue, with their fair Wives, great and lovely Examples of conjugal Affection."

Such, with the omission of all secondary narratives, is the main plot of Eliza Haywood's first novel.

"Love in Excess" best illustrates the similarity of sensational fiction to clap-trap drama, but others of her early works bear traces of the author's familiarity with the theatre. The escape of the pair of lovers from an Oriental court, already the theme of countless plays including Mrs. Haywood 's own "Pair Captive," was re-vamped to supply an episode in "Idalia" (1723), and parts of the same novel are written in concealed blank verse that echoes the heroic Orientalism of some of Dryden's tragedies. In the character of Grubguard, the amorous alderman of "The City Jilt" (1726), Mrs. Haywood apparently had in mind not Alderman Barber, whom the character little resembles, but rather Antonio in Otway's "Venice Preserved." And the plot of "The Distressed Orphan, or Love in a Mad-House" (c. 1726), where young Colonel Marathon feigns himself mad in order to get access to his beloved Annilia, may perhaps owe its inspiration to the coarser mad-house scenes of Middleton's "Changeling."[8] On the whole, however, the drama but poorly repaid its debt to prose fiction.

An indication of the multifarious origins of the short tales of love is to be found in the nominal diversity of the setting. The scene, though often laid in some such passion-ridden land as Spain or Italy, rarely affects the nature of the story. But as in such novels as "Philidore and Placentia" and "The Agreeable Caledonian" the characters wander widely over the face of Europe and even come in contact with strange Eastern climes, so the writers of romantic tales ransacked the remotest corners of literature and history for sensational matter. The much elaborated chronicle of the Moors was made to eke out substance for "The Arragonian Queen" (1724), a story of "Europe in the Eighth Century," while "Cleomelia: or, the Generous Mistress" was advertised as the "Secret History of a Lady Lately Arriv'd from Bengall." The tendency to exploit the romantic features of outlandish localities was carried to the ultimate degree by Mrs. Penelope Aubin, whose characters range over Africa, Turkey, Persia, the East and West Indies, and the North American continent, often with peculiar geographical results. But neither Mrs. Aubin nor Mrs. Haywood was able to use the gorgeous local color that distinguished Mrs. Behn's "Oroonoko," and still less did they command the realistic imagination that could make the travels of a Captain Singleton lifelike.

Even when, as in "The Mercenary Lover," the setting is transferred to "the Metropolis of one of the finest Islands in the World," and the action takes place "in the neighborhood of a celebrated Church, in the Sound of whose Bells the Inhabitants of that populous City think it an Honour to be born,"[9] the change is unaccompanied by any attempt at circumstantial realism. We are told that Belinda of "The British Recluse" is a young lady of Warwickshire, that Fantomina follows her lover to Bath in the guise of a chambermaid, or that "The Fair Hebrew" relates the "true, but secret history of two Jewish ladies who lately resided in London," but without the labels the settings could not be distinguished from the vague and unidentified _mise en scène_ of such a romance as "The Unequal Conflict." Placentia in England raves of her passion for Philidore exactly as Alovisa in Paris, Emanuella in Madrid,[10] or Cleomelia in Bengal expose the raptures and agonies of their passions. The hero of "The Double Marriage" (1726) rescues a distressed damsel in the woods outside of Plymouth exactly as one of Ariosto's or Spenser's knights-errant might have done in the fairy country of old romance. In the sordid tale of "Irish Artifice," printed in Curll's "Female Dunciad" (1728), no reader could distinguish in the romantic names Aglaura and Merovius the nationality or the meanness of a villainous Irish housekeeper and her son. And though the tale is the very reverse of romantic, it contains no hint of actual circumstance. The characters in Mrs. Haywood's early fiction move in an imaginary world, sometimes, it is true, marked with the names of real places, but no more truly realistic than the setting of "Arcadia" or "Parthenissa."

Nor are the figures that people the eighteenth century paradise of romance more definitely pictured than the landscape. They are generally unindividualized, lay figures swayed by the passions of the moment, or at best mere "humour" characters representing love's epitome, extravagant jealousy, or eternal constancy. Pope could make a portrait specific by the vigorous use of epigrams, but Mrs. Haywood's comments on her heroes and heroines are but feeble. The description of Lasselia, for instance, contains no trait that is particular, no characteristic definitely individual. The girl is simply the type of all that is conventionally charming in her sex, "splendidly null, dead perfection."

"But if the grave Part of the World were charm'd with her Wit and
Discretion, the Young and Gay were infinitely more so with her Beauty;
which tho' it was not of that dazzling kind which strikes the Eye at
first looking on it with Desire and Wonder, yet it was such as seldom
fail'd of captivating Hearts most averse to Love. Her features were
perfectly regular, her Eyes had an uncommon Vivacity in them, mix'd
with a Sweetness, which spoke the Temper of her Soul; her Mien was
gracefully easy, and her Shape the most exquisite that could be; in
fine, her Charms encreas'd by being often seen, every View discover'd
something new to be admir'd; and tho' they were of that sort which
more properly may be said to persuade than to command Adoration, yet
they persuaded it in such a manner, that no Mortal was able to resist
their Force." (p. 2.)

Mrs. Haywood's heroes are merely the masculine counterparts of her women. Bellcour, the type of many more, "had as much Learning as was necessary to a Gentleman who depended not on that alone to raise his Fortune: He had also admirable Skill in Fencing, and became a Horse as well as any Man in the World."[11] Victor over a thousand hearts, the Haywoodian male ranges through his glittering sphere, ever ready to fall in or out of love as the occasion demands. D'Elmont of "Love in Excess" possesses a soul large enough to contain both love and fury at almost the same moment. A "brulée" with his spouse merely increases his tenderness for his ward.

"You have done well, Madam, (said D'Elmont, looking on her with Eyes
sparkling with Indignation) you have done well, by your impertinent
Curiosity and Imprudence, to rouze me from my Dream of Happiness, and
remind me that I am that wretched thing a Husband! 'Tis well indeed,
answer'd Alovisa, (who saw now that there was no need of farther
Dissimulation) that any thing can make you remember, both what you
are, and what I am. You, resum'd he, hastily interrupting her, have
taken an effectual Method to prove your self a Wife!--a very Wife!--
Insolent--Jealous--and Censorious!--But Madam, continued he frowning,
since you are pleased to assert your Privilege, be assur'd, I too
shall take my turn, and will exert the--Husband! In saying this, he
flung out of the Room in spite of her Endeavours to hinder him, and
going hastily through a Gallery which had a large Window that look'd
into the Garden, he perceiv'd Melliora lying on a green Bank, in a
melancholy but a charming Posture, directly opposite to the place
where he was; her Beauties appear'd, if possible more to advantage
than ever he had seen them, or at least he had more opportunity thus
unseen by her, to gaze upon them: he in a moment lost all the Rage of
Temper he had been in, and his whole Soul was taken up with
Softness.... Ambition, Envy, Hate, Fear, or Anger, every other Passion
that finds entrance in the Soul, Art and Discretion may disguise; but
Love, tho' it may be feign'd, can never be conceal'd, not only the
Eyes (those true and most perfect Intelligencers of the Heart) but
every Feature, every Faculty betrays it! It fills the whole Air of the
Person possess'd of it; it wanders round the Mouth! plays in the
Voice! trembles in the Accent! and shows itself a thousand different
ways! even Melliora's care to hide it, made it more apparent; and the
transported D'Elmont, not considering where he was, or who might be a
witness of his Rapture, could not forbear catching her in his Arms,
and grasping her with an extasy, which plainly told her what his
thoughts were, tho' at that time he had not power to put 'em into
words; and indeed there is no greater Proof of a vast and elegant
Passion, than the being uncapable of expressing it." (p. 79.)

Oddly enough the early experimenters in fiction never perceived that to seem real a passion must be felt by a real person. They attempted again and again to heighten the picture of envy, fear, ambition, rage, or love by all manner of extraordinary circumstances, but they rarely succeeded in attaching the emotion to a lifelike character. It was indeed passion, but passion painted on the void, impalpable. Consequently they almost never succeeded in maintaining complete verisimilitude, nor was their character drawing any less shadowy than in the sentimental romances of Sidney and Lodge. Compare, for example, the first expression of Rosalynde's love with the internal debate of Mrs. Haywood's Placentia.[12] Both are cast in soliloquy form, and except that the eighteenth century romancer makes no attempt to decorate the style with fantastic conceits, the two descriptions are not essentially different.

"[Placentia] was no sooner at liberty to reflect, than she grew amazed at herself for having expresd, and still feeling so uncommon a Concern for the Service she had received from Jacobin [Philidore]; he did no more, said she, than was his Duty, nay, any Man would have done as much for a Woman to whom he had not the least obligation, if distressed and assaulted in the manner she had been--why then, continued she, does the action appear so charming, so meritorious from him?--'Tis certainly the surprize to find so much gallantry and courage in a Man of his mean birth, that has caused this disorder in my Soul--were he my Equal I should think it was Love had seized me, but Oh! far be it from me to debase myself so far--Yet, again would she retort, what can I wish in Man that is not to be found in this too lovely Slave?... Besides, who knows but that his Descent may be otherwise than he pretends--I have heard of Princes who have wandered in strange disguises--he may be in reality as far above me as he seems beneath.... The thought that there was a possibility for such a thing to be, had no sooner entered into her head than she indulged it with an infinity of rapture, she painted him in Imagination the most desperate dying Lover that ever was, represented the transports she shou'd be in when the blest discovery shou'd be made, held long discourses with him, and formed answers such as she supposed he wou'd make on such an occasion. Thus, for some hours did she beguile her Cares, but Love, who takes delight sometimes to torment his Votarys wou'd not long permit her to enjoy this satisfaction.... Reason, with stern remonstrances checked the Romantick turn of her late thoughts, and showed her the improbability of the hope she had entertained: Were he, cryed she, with an agony proportioned to her former transports, of any degree which you'd encourage his pretensions to my Love, he cou'd not for so long a Time have endured the servile Offices to which he has been put--Some way his ingenious passion wou'd have found out to have revealed itself--No, no, he is neither a Lover nor a Gentleman, and I but raise Chimera's to distract myself ...but Ill [_sic_] retrieve all yet, Ill discharge him from my house and service--he is an Enchanter, and has bewitched me from my Reason, and never, never more shall he behold my face."

The normal character in Eliza Haywood's tales almost invariably conformed to some conventional type borrowed from the romance or the stage. The author's purpose was not to paint a living portrait, but to create a vehicle for the expression of vivid emotion, and in her design she was undoubtedly successful until the reading public was educated to demand better things.

On [Transcriber's note: sic] exception, however, to the customary conventionality of Mrs. Haywood's heroines ought to be noted. Ordinarily the novelist accepted the usual conception of man the pursuer and woman the victim, but sometimes instead of letting lovely woman reap the consequences of her folly after the fashion of Goldsmith's celebrated lyric, she violated romantic tradition by making her disappointed heroines retire into self-sufficient solitude, defying society. In real life the author of these stories was even more uncompromising. Far from pining in obscurity after her elopement from her husband, she continued to exist in the broad light of day, gaining an independent living by the almost unheard of occupation (as far as women were concerned) of writing. If she was blighted, she gave no indication of the fact. Something of the same defiant spirit actuated the unfortunate Belinda and Cleomira of "The British Recluse" (1722).

Belinda, a young lady of fortune in Warwickshire, comes to London on business and meets at her lodging-house a mysterious fair recluse. Imagining that their lots may be somewhat akin, she induces the retired beauty to relate the history of her misfortunes.

Cleomira upon her father's death is removed from the court to the country by a prudent mother. She does not take kindly to housewifery, and languishes until friends persuade her mother to let her attend a ball. There she meets the glorious Lysander, and in spite of her mother's care, runs away to join him in London. Her ruin and desertion inevitably follow. The sight of a rival in her place makes her frantically resolve to die by poison, but the apothecary gives her only a harmless opiate. Thinking herself dying, she sends a last letter to her faithless lover. When she awakes and hears how indifferently he has received the report of her death, she at length overcomes her unhappy passion, and retires from the world.

Belinda then relates how her marriage with the deserving Worthly was postponed by her father's death. In the interim the captivating Sir Thomas Courtal has occasion to render her a slight service at the overturn of her coach, and fires her with a passion which her mild esteem for Worthly is too weak to overcome. Courtal perceives and encourages her fondness, though he poses as Worthly's friend. She gives him an assignation in a wood, where she is saved from becoming a victim to his lust only by the timely arrival of her true admirer. In the duel that ensues Worthly falls, Courtal flees, and a little later Belinda goes to London in hopes of seeing him. At the playhouse she is only too successful in beholding him in a box accompanied by his wife and mistress. From the gossip of her friends she learns that his real name is Lord----, and from one of the ladies she hears such stories of his villainy that she can no longer doubt him to be a monster.

Worthly, meanwhile, has recovered from his wound and weds Belinda's sister. Lysander and Courtal prove to be in reality the same bland villain, the inconstant Bellamy. His two victims, sympathizing in their common misfortune, agree to retire together to a remote spot where they can avoid all intercourse with the race of men. "And where a solitary Life is the effect of Choice, it certainly yields more solid Comfort, than all the publick Diversions which those who are the greatest Pursuers of them can find."

The same admirable sentiment was shared by the surviving heroine of "The Double Marriage: or, the Fatal Release" (1726), who after witnessing a signal demonstration of the perfidy of man, resolves to shun for ever the false sex.

Dazzled by the numerous accomplishments of Bellcour, the charming Alathia weds him in secret. When he finds that his father has designed to bestow his hand upon the heiress of an India merchant, he dares not confess his fault, but lets himself be carried to Plymouth to meet his intended bride. There he determines to escape from his father during a hunting party, but while passing a wood, he hears cries and rescues a fair maiden from violation. The beautiful stranger allows him to conduct her back to Plymouth, and turns out to be Mirtamene, the woman he is to marry. Though very much in love with this new beauty, Bellcour cannot relinquish the thought of Alathia without a struggle. But in fatal hesitation the time slips by, and he is finally compelled to wed a second bride. Meanwhile the deserted Alathia hears disquieting reports of her husband's conduct. In disguise as a boy she travels to Plymouth to see for herself, confronts her guilty partner, and after hearing his confession, stabs herself. Overcome by remorse and love, Bellcour imitates her, while Mirtamene "warn'd by the example of Bellcour, that Interest, Absence, or a new Passion, can make the most seeming constant Lover false, took a Resolution ever to contemn and hate that betraying Sex to which she owed her Misfortune and the Sight of such a Disaster as she had beheld in Alathia."

Not content to retire in disgust from the world, Glicera, the victim of fickle man in "The City Jilt" (1726) determines to retaliate upon the lover who has ruined and abandoned her when the death of her father left her without a fortune or a protector. To secure her revenge she encourages the advances of a senile alderman, Grubguard by name, whom she takes infinite delight in deceiving by the help of an ingenious confidant. Meanwhile an unfortunate lawsuit and the extravagances of his wife have ruined the false Melladore, who is obliged to mortgage his estate to Grubguard. Glicera obtains the deeds from the amorous alderman, and then sends him packing. Melladore is forced to beg of her sufficient funds to purchase a commission and later dies in battle. With the fortune she has won from her various lovers Glicera retires from the world and henceforth shuns the society of men.

In these three tales Mrs. Haywood followed the guidance of her own experience when it ran counter to the traditions of romance. The betrayed heroine ought to have died, or at least to have been immured in a convent to suffer a living death, but instead of acquiescing in their fate, Belinda and Cleomira, Mirtamene, and Glicera defy the world, and in the last case prove that the worm may turn.

Among the works of her first decade of authorship a few effusions in which Mrs. Haywood has succeeded to a degree in motivating, characterizing, or analyzing the passions of her characters, must be exempted from the general charge of commonplaceness. The first of these is "Idalia: or, the Unfortunate Mistress" (1724), the story of a young Venetian beauty--like Lasselia, her charms can only be imagined not described--whose varied amorous adventures carry her over most of Italy.

She is sought by countless suitors, among them the base Florez, whom her father promptly forbids the house. Idalia's vanity is piqued at the loss of a single adorer, and more from perverseness than from love she continues to correspond with him. He makes no further use of her condescension than to boast of her favors, until at the command of his patron, Don Ferdinand, he induces Idalia to make an assignation with him. Ferdinand meets her and not without difficulty at length effects her ruin. Her lover's friend, Henriquez, in conducting her to a place of safety in Padua, becomes himself the victim of her charms, quarrels with Ferdinand, and slays him and is slain. Henriquez' brother, Myrtano, next succeeds as Idalia's adorer, but learning that he is about to make an advantageous marriage, she secretly decamps. In her flight the very guide turns out to be a noble lover in disguise. When she escapes from him in a ship bound for Naples, the sea-captain pays her crude court, but just in time to save her from his embraces the ship is captured by Barbary corsairs--commanded by a young married couple. Though the heroine is in peasant dress, she is treated with distinction by her captors. Her history moves them to tears, and they in turn are in the midst of relating to her the involved story of their courtship, when the vessel is wrecked by a gale. Borne ashore on a plank, Idalia is succored by cottagers, and continues her journey in man's clothes. She is loved by a lady, and by the lady's husband, who turns out to be her dear Myrtano. Their felicity is interrupted by the jealousy of Myrtano's wife, who appeals to the Pope and forces the lovers to separate by his order. Idalia leads a miserable life, persecuted by all the young gallants of Rome. One day she sees Florez, the first cause of all her misfortunes, pass the window, and with thoughts bent on revenge sends him a billet, which he carries to his master. Myrtano keeps the appointment, muffled in a cloak, and Idalia stabs him by mistake. Overcome by remorse, she dies by the same knife.

The motivation of the heroine at the beginning of the story, as Miss Morgan has pointed out,[13]is more elaborate than usual in Haywoodian romance. To show a young girl's vanity teasing her into an intrigue required a more delicate appreciation of the passions than the stock situations in love stories afforded. Obliged to draw upon her own resources, Mrs. Haywood handled the incidents with a niceness that could hardly have been expected from the author of "Love in Excess." Her sense for _vraisemblance_ protected her from many absurdities, though not from all. For instance, when Idalia to preserve herself from the importunities of Ferdinand employs the same threat of stabbing herself that Clarissa Harlowe in similar circumstances holds over Lovelace, the Italian heroine very naturally tries first to stab her seducer. But realism vanishes when Idalia begins her romantic flight from place to place and from lover to lover. The incidents of romance crowd fast around her. When in man's clothes she is loved by a woman who takes her for what she seems, and by the woman's husband who knows her for what she is, the reader cannot help recalling a similar Gordian love-knot in Sidney's "Arcadia." Perhaps the only convincing detail in the latter part of the book is the heroine's miserable end. But although the sentiments of the characters are reported in concealed blank verse that smacks of theatrical rant, though the absurd Oriental digressions, the disguises, the frequent poisonings, and fortunate accidents all detract from the naturalness and plausibility of the tale, yet one cannot deny the piece occasional merits, which if smothered in extravagances, are hopeful signs of a coming change. The very excess of strained and unnatural incidents indicates that the popular palate was becoming cloyed; for a time the writers of fiction attempted to stimulate it by spicing the dish, but when the limit of mordancy was reached, a new diet became imperative.

Though in no sense a soothing draught for the overstrained sensibilities of romance readers, "The Fatal Secret: or, Constancy in Distress" (1724) nevertheless represents a valuable part of Mrs. Haywood's contribution to the technique of the novel. Few of her works indicate more clearly her power to display the operations of passion dominating a young and innocent heart.

When the story opens, Anadea is a heart-free maid of sixteen, better educated than most young girls, and chiefly interested in her studies. Fearing to leave her unprovided for, her father urges her to marry, and she, though inclined to a single life, returns a dutiful answer, begging him to direct her choice. He fixes upon the worthy Chevalier de Semar, and bids her prepare for the wedding.

"The Time which the necessary Preparations took up, Anadea pass'd in
modelling her Soul, as much as possible, to be pleas'd with the State
for which she was intended.--The Chevalier had many good Qualities,
and she endeavoured to add to them in Imagination a thousand more.
Never did any Woman take greater Pains to resist the Dictates of
Desire, than she did to create them ...yet she had it not in her
Power to feel any of those soft Emotions, those Impatiencies for his
Absence, those tender Thrillings in his Presence, nor any of those
agreeable Perplexities which are the unfailing Consequences of Love
...and she began, at length, to lay the Blame on her own want of
Sensibility, and to imagine she had not a Heart fram'd like those of
other Women."

At the house of a friend Anadea meets the Count de Blessure and feels the starts of hitherto unsuspected passion. Beside this new lover the Chevalier appears as nought. Her mind is racked by an alternation of hope and despair.

"In Anxieties, such as hopeless Lovers feel, did the discontented
Anadea pass the Night:--She could not avoid wishing, though there was
not the least Room for her to imagine a Possibility of what she
wish'd:--She could not help praying, yet thought those Prayers a Sin.
--Her once calm and peaceful Bosom was now all Hurry and Confusion:--
The Esteem which she had been long labouring to feel for the
Chevalier, was now turn'd to Aversion and Disdain; and the
Indifference she had for all Mankind, now converted into the most
violent Passion for one ...she thought she could be contended to
live a single Life, and knew so little of the encroaching Nature of
the Passion she had entertained, that she believed she should never
languish for any greater Joy, than that she might, without a Crime,
indulge Contemplation with the Idea of his Perfections; and to destroy
that pleasing Theory by marrying with another ...was more terrible to
her than the worst of Deaths.--Confounded what to do, or rather wild
that there was nothing she could do that might be of Service to her in
an Exigence like this, her Mind grew all a Chaos, and the
unintermitting Inquietudes of her Soul not permitting any Repose, she
...had a very good Pretence to keep her Chamber, and receive no
Visits."

She passes the day in tormenting perplexities, sometimes relieved by intervals of unsubstantial joy, when she fancies that her affianced may break off the match for some reason, that his sickness, an accident, or death may leave her free to wed Blessure. In imagination she pictures to herself happy meetings with her lover, and even repeats their conversation. Then recollecting her true situation, she lapses into real woe and bitterness of heart. The Count, however, has been deeply affected by her charms, and though he learns that she is engaged to De Semar, he sends her an appealing letter to discover whether the match is the result of choice or duty. Upon the receipt of this billet the soul of Anadea is distracted between the impulses of love and the dictates of prudence. Finally she writes a discreet, but not too severe reply, intimating that her choice is due more to duty than to inclination. Naturally the Count protests vehemently against her sacrificing herself to a man for whom she cares nothing, vows that the day of her wedding with De Semar shall be his last upon earth, and entreats a meeting.

"What now became of the enamour'd Anadea? How was it possible for a
Heart so prepossessed as hers, to hold out in a Reserve which was very
near breaking the Strings which held it--... Yet still the
Consequences that might attend this Meeting, for a Time repelled the
Dictates of her Passion.--But it was no more than a faint Struggle;
Love! all-conquering, all-o'er-powering Love! triumphed over every
other Consideration! and she consented to his and her own impatient
Wishes."

Under the pretence of a change of air she goes to a friend's house at Versailles, where Blessure secretly weds her. After a short period of felicity, they are betrayed by an officious maid. Blessure kills the Chevalier, but is himself wounded and cast into prison. His father secures a pardon by promising the king's mistress that the Count shall marry her daughter, but Blessure remains constant to Anadea, though keeping his marriage a secret for fear of infuriating his father. He is sent away by his displeased parent to learn the virtue of obedience, while Anadea retires to St. Cloud to await her husband's return. There the story ends in an unexpected tragedy of incest and blood.

The back-stairs intrigues and the sensational horrors which to the majority of Mrs. Haywood's readers doubtless seemed the chief attraction of the story are not different from the melodramatic features of countless other amatory tales, French and English. But when for a dozen pages the author seeks to discover and explain the motives of her characters both by impersonal comment and by the self-revelation of letters, she is making a noteworthy step--even if an unconscious one-- toward the Richardsonian method of laying bare the inner natures of ordinary people. She has here pursued the analysis of character as an end in itself, for in "The Fatal Secret" there is no hint of disguised scandal, nor any appeal to the pruriency of degenerate readers. Sensational in the extreme the story is, but nevertheless the progress of the narrative is delayed while the sentiments of the heroine are examined in the minutest detail. While better known romancers exploited chiefly the strange and surprising adventures (other than amorous) of their characters, or used the _voyage imaginaire_ for the purposes of satire, Eliza Haywood and her female colleagues stimulated the popular taste for romances of the heart. In trying to depict the working of intense human passions they rendered a distinct service to the development of English fiction.

The story of "The Mercenary Lover" (1726) involved, besides the ability to body forth emotion, considerable power to show a gradual degradation in the character of one of the heroines.

The avaricious Clitander gains the moiety of a fortune by marrying the young, gay Miranda, but cannot rest without securing to himself the portion of the elder sister as well. Althea's thoughtful and less volatile nature has hitherto resisted the assaults of love, but her insidious brother-in-law undermines her virtue by giving her wanton books and tempting her with soft speeches until she yields to his wishes. When he attempts to make her sign a deed of gift instead of a will to provide for their child, she discovers his treachery and flees to the country. By playing upon her tenderness he coaxes her back and poisons her. Miranda is fully informed of her husband's villainy, but contents herself with removing from the house. Thus Clitander loses not only his sister-in-law's, but his wife's fortune as well, and is completely unmanned by remorse and apprehension.

The contrast between the characters of the gay and thoughtless wife and the pensive, pure-minded girl is skilfully managed, and the various steps in the downward course of Althea's nature are exhibited in detail. Like Anadea in "The Fatal Secret" she retires to her chamber not to sleep, but to indulge in the freedom of her thoughts, which are poured forth at length to let the reader into the secrets of her passion-ridden bosom. To reveal character in action was beyond the limit of Eliza Haywood's technique; and once the story is well under way, Althea becomes as colorless as only a heroine of romance can be. But the author's effort to differentiate the female characters before the action begins, and to make a portion of the plot turn upon a psychological change in one of them shows that even sensation-loving readers were demanding a stricter veracity of treatment than had hitherto been necessary.

But perhaps the most careful interlocking of character and event to be found among these embryo novels is contained in "The Life of Madam De Villesache. Written by a Lady, who was an Eye-witness of the greatest part of her Adventures, and faithfully Translated from her French Manuscript. By Mrs. Eliza Haywood" (1727). Since no original source for this story has come to light, we may probably assume that the French manuscript was a complete fabrication on the part of the English author. At any rate, the tale was one of passion and intrigue such as she delighted to compose.

Henrietta, daughter of a certain Duke, grows up in obscure circumstances to be a miracle of beauty. When her father comes to carry her to court, her rustic lover, Clermont, pleads so effectually that she consents to a secret union with him. In the glare of the court she half forgets her country husband until too fatally reminded of him by being sought in marriage by the Marquis of Ab----lle. Her attempts at evasion are vain, and rather than face her father's anger, she permits herself to be married a second time. She has not long enjoyed her new rank when Clermont, whom she has informed of her step, appears to reproach her and to claim his rights. Still irresolute, she persuades him by tears and prayers not to expose her perfidy, and secretly admits him to a husband's privileges. In due time the pair are caught by the Marquis, and to avoid his rage confess their prior marriage. Clermont is thrown into prison, where he dies not without suspicion of poison. Henrietta retires to convent, but the Duke, her father, in order to gain the Marquis's estate for her unborn infant, manages to stifle the evidence of her first marriage. Enraged that he cannot obtain a divorce, the Marquis resolves to be revenged upon his perjured wife. He intercepts her coach in a wood outside of Paris and brutally murders her. The Duke orders her magnificently buried. Although nothing against the Marquis can be proved, he is not allowed to escape the vengeance of heaven, but goes mad and in a lucid interval just before death confesses his crimes.