Chapter VI: Part II: The youthful stranger, concealing his name and family, relates

the sad effects of his love for the favorite wife of the Bashaw of Liperto, and how by her aid he was enabled to escape from slavery, only to be pursued and about to be retaken by janizaries when rescued by Philidore.

Our hero is kindly received by his uncle in Persia, who soon dies and leaves him sole heir of an enormous fortune. He is now Placentia's equal in wealth as well as rank, and immediately embarks for England. Driven into Baravat by contrary winds, he is moved to ransom a female captive on hearing of her grief at her hard fate, but what is his surprise when the fair slave proves to be Placentia. "Kisses, embraces, and all the fond endearments of rewarded passion made up for their want of speech-- in their expressive looks, and eager graspings, the violence of their mutual flame was more plainly demonstrated, than it could have been by the greatest elegance of language--those of the Persians that stood by, who understood not English, easily perceived, not only that they were lovers, but also that they were so to the most unbounded height of tender passion."

Placentia relates how she had eluded her brother and set sail to rejoin her lover, how she had been saved from the arms of the brutal ship's captain by a timely attack of pirates, and how, sold to a Moslem merchant and still annoyed by the attentions of the captain, she had abandoned all thoughts of life till redeemed by Philidore's generosity.

With Placentia, her maid, and young Tradewell, the maid's lover, ransomed, Philidore sails blissfully to England. But upon landing Placentia becomes suddenly cold to him. He forces his way into her house, and finds that her brother is the young stranger whose life he had saved in Persia. Meanwhile Placentia, whose fortune is now no match for Philidore's, flees to parts unknown, leaving a letter conjuring him to forget her. After a long search the brother and lover find her place of concealment, and the former removes her scruples by settling a large estate upon her. "Nothing could be more splendid than the celebration of their nuptials; and of their future bliss, the reader may better judge by their almost unexampled love, their constancy, their generosity and nobleness of soul, than by any description I am able to give of it."

"Philidore and Placentia" is one of the few novels by Mrs. Haywood that do not pretend to a moral purpose. Realism needed some justification, for realism at the time almost invariably meant a picture of vice and folly, and an author could not expose objectionable things except in the hope that they would lessen in fact as they increased in fiction. But in spite of the disapproval sometimes expressed for fables on the ground of their inherent untruth, idealistic romances were generally justified as mirrors of all desirable virtues. Pious Mrs. Penelope Aubin wrote no other kind of fiction, though she sometimes admitted a deep-dyed villain for the sake of showing his condign punishment at the hands of providence. It was perhaps due to the sale of this lady's novels, largely advertised toward the end of 1727 and apparently very successful, that Mrs. Haywood was encouraged to desert her favorite field of exemplary novels showing the dangerous effects of passion for an excursion into pure romance. That she found the attempt neither congenial nor profitable may be inferred from the fact that it was not repeated.

If the highly imaginary romances suffered from an excess of delicacy, certain other tales by Mrs. Haywood overleaped decency as far on the other side. The tendency of fiction before Richardson was not toward refinement. The models, French and Spanish, which writers in England found profit in imitating, racked sensationalism to the utmost degree by stories of horrible and perverted lust. All the excitement that could be obtained from incest, threatened, narrowly averted, or actually committed, was offered to eager readers. Usually, as in Defoe's "Moll Flanders" or Fielding's "Tom Jones," ignorance of birth was an essential element in the plot. A story of this type in which the catastrophe is prevented by a timely discovery of the hero's parentage, is "The Force of Nature: or, the Lucky Disappointment" (1725).

Felisinda, daughter of Don Alvario of Valladolid, falls in love with a dependent of her father's named Fernando, who returns her passion, but when by a dropped letter she reveals their mutual tenderness, her father becomes exceedingly disordered and threatens to marry her out of hand to Don Carlos, who had long solicited the match. That generous lover, however, refuses to marry her against her will. The disappointment proves mortal to Don Alvario, who leaves his estate to Felisinda and Fernando equally, provided they do not marry each other. Felisinda is committed to the care of an abbess named Berinthia, but by the aid of a probationer, Alantha, the lovers manage to correspond. They agree that Fernando shall convert his moiety to ready money, convey it to Brussels, and there await Felisinda, whose escape he entrusts to a friend, Cleomas. Alantha, meantime, has fallen in love with Fernando, and substitutes herself for Felisinda. Cleomas in conducting the supposed mistress of his friend to the nearest port falls under the influence of her beauty and attempts to betray her, but is prevented and slain by a chance passenger, who turns out to be Carlos. He brings Alantha to a better mind, and conducts her in search of Fernando, but they discover in Brussels that he has set out again for Spain. When Fernando reaches Valladolid to inquire what has become of Cleomas and his lady, he is arrested on the charge of abducting Alantha. At the trial he is accused of having made away with her, and is sentenced to death, whereupon Berinthia, the abbess, faints, and being revived, owns him for her son by Alvario, and "in tears and blessings pours out all the mother on him." At the proper moment Carlos comes in with Alantha to prove Fernando's innocence. Felisinda rewards the constancy of Carlos, and Fernando can do no less than marry Alantha.

Incest is almost the only crime not to be found in the extraordinary series of barefaced and infamous intrigues crowded into the pages of "The Injur'd Husband: or, the Mistaken Resentment" (1723). The author naively remarks in the dedication that "The Subject of the Trifle I presume to offer, is, The Worst of Women," and she has indeed out-villained the blackest of her male villains in the character of the wicked Baroness.

The doting Baron de Tortillee marries the lascivious and extravagant Mademoiselle La Motte, who promotes the villainous Du Lache to be the instrument of her vile pleasures. After enjoying several lovers of his procuring, she fixes her affections upon the worthy Beauclair. Du Lache despairs of ensnaring him, because he is about to marry the lovely Montamour, but by a series of base expedients he manages to blacken the character of that lady in her lover's eyes, and to put the charms of the Baroness in such a light that Beauclair is at length drawn in to pay his court to her. For some time she thus successfully deludes her husband, but when the despicable La Branche openly boasts of her favors and allows some of her letters to fall into the hands of one of her numerous lovers, her perfidy is soon completely exposed. To add to her confusion she hears that the Baron, whom she had drugged into idiocy and sent into the country, has been cured by a skilful physician and is about to return. Du Lache despatches two assassins to murder him on the road, but the Baron by a lucky chance escapes the murderers, forces them to confess, and sets out to punish his guilty wife. Meanwhile Beauclair suspects that he has wronged his innocent lady and endeavors to see her, but she at first refuses to see him, and when by a ruse he gains access to her presence, will not listen to him or give him any grounds for hope. In despair he returns to Paris and meets the young Vrayment. He discovers the infamous Du Lache hiding in a convent. To save his life the wretch offers to reveal the frauds he had put in practice against Montamour, but while he is doing so, the Baron meets them, and concluding that Beauclair is in collusion with the villain, attacks them both. Beauclair disarms his antagonist and is about to return him his weapon, when Du Lache stabs the Baron in the back. Vrayment has witnessed the quarrel and summoned assistance. Beauclair and Du Lache are haled before a magistrate and are about to be condemned equally for the crime, when Vrayment reveals herself as Montamour disguised as a man, and persuades the judge that Beauclair is innocent. Du Lache and his accomplices are broken on the wheel, the Baroness takes poison, and Beauclair is united to his faithful Montamour.

In the conduct of the story the writer shows no deficiency in expressing the passions, but rather a want of measure, for thrill follows thrill so fast that the reader can hardly realize what is happening. And as if the lusts and crimes of the Baroness did not furnish enough sensational incidents, the tender romance of Beauclair and Montamour is superadded. The hero is a common romantic type, easily inconstant, but rewarded above his merits by a faithful mistress. A woman disguised as a man was a favorite device with Mrs. Haywood as well as with other writers of love stories, but one need read only the brazen Mrs. Charke's memoirs or Defoe's realistic "Moll Flanders" to discover that it was a device not unheard of in real life. The actual occurrence of such disguises, however, made no difference to the female writers of fiction. Anything soul-stirring, whether from romances or from plays, was equally grist to their mills.

In seeking for the most dramatic _dénouements_ sensational romancers were not long in perceiving the suspense that could be produced by involving the chief characters in a trial for their lives. Mrs. Behn had by that means considerably protracted the interest in "The Fair Jilt: or, the Amours of Prince Tarquin and Miranda" (1688), and Mrs. Haywood, following her example, succeeded in giving a last stimulus to the jaded nerves of the readers of "The Force of Nature" and "The Injur'd Husband." And finally the title-page of an anonymous work attributed to her indicates that the struggling authoress was not insensible to the popular demand for romances of roguery. A prospective buyer might have imagined that he was securing a criminal biography in "Memoirs of the Baron de Brosse, Who was Broke on the Wheel in the Reign of Lewis XIV. Containing, An Account of his Amours. With Several Particulars relating to the Wars in those Times," but the promise of the title was unfulfilled, for Mrs. Haywood was no journalist to make capital out of a malefactor's exit from the world. The whole book is a chronicle of the Baron's unsuccessful pursuit of a hard-hearted beauty named Larissa, mingled with little histories of the Baron's rivals, of a languishing Madam de Monbray, and of Larissa's mother. The fair charmer finally marries a count, and her lover, plunged into adequate despair, can barely exert himself to answer a false accusation trumped up by the revengeful Monbray. With the verdict in his favor the story ends abruptly, and the promised continuation was apparently never written. We read nothing of the wars, nor of the Baron's execution on the wheel.

Tortures, tragedies of blood, and heinous crimes added piquancy to Mrs. Haywood's love stories, but were not the normal material of her romances. Her talent was chiefly for "soft things." She preferred the novel of intrigue and passion in which the characters could be run through a breathless maze of amatory adventures, with a pause now and again to relate a digressive episode for variety's sake. Typical of this sort, the best adapted to the romancer's genius, is "The Agreeable Caledonian: or, Memoirs of Signiora di Morella, a Roman Lady, Who made her Escape from a Monastery at Viterbo, for the Love of a Scots Nobleman. Intermix'd with many other Entertaining little Histories and Adventures which presented themselves to her in the Course of her Travels." No moralizing, no romantic idealism disturbs the rapid current of events. It is a pure "cloak and sword" novel, definitely located in Italy, with all the machinery of secret assignations, escapes from convents, adventures on the road and at inns, sudden assaults, duels, seductions, and revenge characteristic of Spanish fiction.

Don Jaques di Morella determines to marry his daughter, Clementina, to a certain Cardinal, who has offered to renounce the scarlet hat for love of her. When she piques her lover by her evident unwillingness to wed, Don Jaques packs her off to a convent at Viterbo. By picking up a copy of verses Clementina becomes acquainted with Signiora Miramene, who relates the history of her correspondence with the Baron Glencairn.

Clementina becomes the instrument of the lovers, but no sooner sees the lovely North Briton than she herself is captivated. In response to her proffered affection, Glencairn manages by an extraordinary device to convey her out of the convent. In spite of the rage of Dan Jaques they escape to Sienna. The further surprising turns in their affairs to be later communicated to the public.