of her Duncan Campbell pamphlets. Many of the short romances discussed in the second chapter were described on the

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

ion 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

le enough to have obliged me to deny it. But as I have only related a Story, which a particular Friend of mine assures me is Matter of Fact, and happen'd at the Tim

"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

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

redence of her readers, and after that time she wrote, in name at least, no more secret histories. The fictions so denominated in "S

etters, 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

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 vil

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 assurances that the work is compiled from original documents and is therefore more veracious than "the many Fictions which ha

ctors 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 classical 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

n; never yet Published in any Collection" (1725) is distinguishable from her true fiction only by the larger proportion of events between set scenes of burning passion which formed the chief constituent of Eliza's romances. As history it is worthless, and its significance as fiction lies merely in its attempt to incorporat

ncy of any publisher. "A Letter from H-G-g, Esq. One of the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber to the Young Chevalier, and the only Person of his own Retinue that attended him from Avignon, in his late Journey through Germany, and elsewhere; Containing Many r

of exalted rank; in rescuing a young woman from a fire, caring for her in distress, and refusing to take advantage of her passion for him, he gives evidence of a morality not accorded him by history and proves "how fit he is to govern others, who knows so well how to govern himself"; and when assaulted by hired assassins, he manifests courage and coolness, killing one of the bravos with his own hand. It is unnecessary to review the various stages in the Pretender's travels, which are related with a great air of mystery, but amount to n

t scrupulously refrained from mingling fiction and politics. Previously, however, she had at least once attempted to write a political satire elaborately disguised as a romance. In July, 1736, according to the list of books in the "Gentleman's Magazine," numerous duodecimo volumes emanated from the shop of S. Baker and were sold under the title of "Adventures of Eovaai, Princess of Ijaveo. A P

script of the book came into existence, the tale commences like a moral allegory, but soon lapses into mere extravagant adventure. Capable a

Genius, who enables her to discern the true deformity of her betrayer and to escape to the castle of the good Alhahuza, and ultimately into the kingdom of Oozoff, where Ochihatou's magic has no power over her. During her stay there she listens to much political theorizing of a republican trend. Ochihatou succeeds in kidnapping her, and she is only saved from his loathed embraces by discovering one of his former mistresses in the form of a monkey whom she manages to change back into human shape and substitutes in her stead. While the statesman is employed as a lover, the populace led by Alhahuza storm the palace. Ochihatou discovers the trick that has been played upon him, hastily transforms his unlucky mistress into a rat, and conveys himself and Eovaai through the air into a kingdom near at hand, where he hopes to

o those who could read between the lines well enough to discern particular personages in the char

impossible to find one who has been more systematically abused and more unjustly treated than Sir Robert Walpole.... He is the 'Father of Parliamentary Corruption,' the 'foe to English liberty,' the 'man who maintained his power by the basest and most venal tactics'.... Whenever his administration is alluded to in Parliament a shudder runs through the House ... at the very thought that one so sordid, so interested, so schemingly selfish, should have attained to the position of Prime Minister, and have commanded a following. If we read the pamphlet literature of the eighteenth century, we see Walpole represented as the meanest and most corrupt of mankind."[7] Lord Chesterfield says of him: "His prevailing weakness was to be thought to hav

, that not even his own Parents cou'd look on him with Satisfaction.... As he was extremely amorous, and had so little in him to inspire the tender Passion, the first Pro

dation he had obtained what he enjoy'd, and with some of whom he was now on more than an Equality, wish'd rather to see an Augmentation, than Diminution of a Power he so well knew to use; and so successful was his Hypocrisy, that the most Discerning saw not into his Designs, till he found means to accomplish them, to the almost total Ruin of both King and People."[10] Ochihatou worms his way into the favor of the king, and after gaining complete ascendancy over his royal master, uses the power for his own ends. He fills the positions at court with wretches subservient to his own interests. "He next proceeded to seize the publick Treasure into his own Hands, which he converted not to Works of Justice or Charity, or any Uses for the Honour of the Kingdom, but in building stately Palaces for himself, his Wives, and Concubines, and enriching his mean Family, and oth

satire. Perhaps the government saw fit to buy off the troublesome author by a small appointment, but such indulgent measures were not usually applied to similar cases. More prob

ness of every Virtue," etc., etc., may perhaps have recalled how her shining character had been blackened some twelve years before in a licentious volume called "Memoirs of a Certain Island adjacent to the Kingdom of Utopia."[11] Had her Grace been aware that the reputed author of that comprehensive lampoon was none other than the woman who now outdid herself in praise, Eliza Haywood would probably have profited little by her panegyric. For though the "Memoirs of a Certain Island" like the "Adventures of Eovaai" made a pretence of being translat

wo volumes. In this respect, as in the general scheme of her work, Mrs. Haywood was following the model set by the celebrated Mrs. Manley in her "New Atalantis." She in turn had derived her method from the French romans à clef or romances in which contemporary scandal was reported in a fictitious disguise. The imitation written by Mrs. Haywood became only less n

on of some wonderful event. From amid the throng the God of Love selects certain persons as examples of perverted love. The stories he relates about them range from mere anecdotes to elaborate histories containing several love-letters. In substance these tales consist of the grossest scandal that could be collected from the gossip of profligate society. Aft

ld by Aaron Hill in the "Plain Dealer" for 24 June, 1724. But in addition she prefaced the account with a highly colored narrative of the amours of Masonia and Riverius.[13] However much the author of "The Bastard" may have desired to prove his noble origin, he might easily have resented a too open flaunting of his mother's disgrace. Moreover, Mrs. Haywood hinted that h

sily deceiv'd Riverius [Savage] has obliged her in spreading those Reports, coin'd in the hellish Mint of her own Brain, I am sorry to say.... It cannot be doubted but that he has lost many Friends on her account, in particular one there was who bore him a singular Respect, tho' no otherways capacitated to serve him than by good Wishes.-This Person receiv'd a more

Savage's well-wisher, the writer of the little satire, "To the Ingenious Riverius, on his writing in the Praise of Friendship," was none other than Eliza herself.[14] Exactly what injury she had sustained from

ase make a Rhyme, and to count ten Syllables on her Fingers.-This is the Stock with which she sets up for a Wit, and among some ignorant Wretches passes for such; but with People of true Understanding, nothing affords more subject of ridicule, than that incoherent Stuff which she calls Verses.-She bribed, with all the Favours she is capable of conferring, a Bookseller [Curll] (

poets, the Mira of Thomson, the Clio of Dyer and Hill, the famous Martha Fowke, who at the time happened to have fixed the scandal of her affections upon the Volunteer Laureate.[16] That the poet's opinion of her

ding Angels s

Lays, and breath

s rise, obedient

dances in the

rits, lead th

oveliness, tho

rival, Savage cast a slur upon Mrs. Haywood's

iew what noxious

loiter on Pr

rtial active

ecret Histr'y,

ews, and wild

arkens each r

use-deaths by poison, the inevitably dropped letter, and intrigues of passion a

e, who of Intri

in Romance-A Pr

cess, for Stage-

wells, and pens

r for Alderman Barber, but she had written no plays since "Lucius" in 1717. Mrs. Haywood, however, equally a cast-off dame and a

only by heaping coals of fire upon the poet's bays, and though she even heightens the pathos of his story by relating how he had refused the moiety of a small pension from his mother upon hearing that she had suffered l

hown by young Lady Mary Pierrepont's defence of Mrs. Manley's "New Atalantis."[18] In the history of the novel, however, the roman à clef deserves perhaps more recognition than has hitherto been accorded it. Specific delineation was necessary to make effective the satire, and though the presence of the "key" made broad caricature possible, since each picture was labeled, yet the writers of scandal novels usually drew their portraits with an amount of detail

he nature of the work. Like the "Memoirs of a Certain Island" these letters consist of mere jottings of scandal. Most probably both productions were from the same pen, though "Bath-Intrigues" has been attributed to Mrs. Manley.[20] Opposite the title-page Roberts, the pub

ust in Man, n

ishing his Nei

the fact that the composer of the four letters, who signs herself J.B., refers en passant to Belinda's inconstancy to Sir Thomas Worthly, an allusion to the story of the second part of "The British Recluse." This reference would indicate either that there was some basis of actuality

only as they add an atom of evidence to the popularity of pseudo-Oriental material. Eliza Haywood was anxious to give the public what it wanted. She had found a ready market for scandal, and knew that the piquancy of slander was enhanced and the writer protected from disagreeable consequences if her stories were cast in some sort of a disguise. She had already used the obvious ruse of an allegory in the "Memoirs of a Certain Island" and had just completed a feigned history in the "Court of Carimania." The well known "Turkish Spy" and its imitations, or perhaps the recent but untranslated "Lettres Persanes," may have suggested to her the possibility of combining bits of gossip in letters purporting to be translated from the Arabic and written by some supermundane being. The latter part of the device had already been used by Defoe in "The Consolidator." Mrs

ealousies and their reproaches, and finally to extricate himself from affairs of gallantry grown tedious. Nearly all the changes are rung on the theme of amorous adventure in describing the progress of the royal rake and his associates. The "key"[23] at the end identifies the characters with various noble personages at the court of George II when Prince of Wales. The melting Lutetia, for instance, represented "Mrs. Baladin" or more accurately Mary Bellenden, maid of honor to the Princess, to whose charms Prince George was in fact not

t, and the admired of Lord Peterborough, Mrs. Haywood made herself offensive in the nostrils of the literary trio. The King's mistress, later the Countess of Suffolk, conducted herself with such propriety that her friends affected to believe that her relations with her royal lover were purely platonic, and they naturally failed to welcome the chronicle of her amours and the revelation of the slights which Geo

nthly Review, I,

s de la cour d'Auguste. Mme Durand-Bedacier, Les belles Grecq

M. Cat

English Literature (1912

rtunate Princess, or, the

6

s Political Purpose i

5. March, 1913. See al

Curaca Robilda's Char

you that there were Evi

. and The Statesman's

n, and Fall of Houly Ch

Emperor of

Sir Robert Wal

d, Sir Robert

s Memoirs, Londo

rtunate Princ

er Imperfections:-She is of a Disposition so perverse and peevish, so designing, mercenary, proud, cruel, and revengeful, that it has been a matter

1

necdotes, III, 649, re

ublisher of Mrs.

1

ady Macclesfield, and

aimed as

s. See her poem, "To Mr. Walter Bowman ... Occasion'd by his obje

Certain Island,

eum, II, 78, 1859. And Miss Dorothy Brewster, Aaron Hill, 188. Her unsavory biography entitled Clio,

versal Passion. For J. Roberts, 1725. A number of lines from this poem app

ady Mary Wortley Montag

st 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

s, The Perplex'd Duchess; or, Treachery Rewarded: Being some Memoirs of the Court of Malfy. In a Letter from a Sicilian Nobleman, who had his Residence th

f her additional Works, 1727. The B.M. copy, catalogu

2

Oriental Tale in Eng

(1908)

in Bohn's Lowndes. Most of the personages mentioned are described in the not

ot have despaired, that ... this Irish patriot ... should have closed the scene under suspicions of having a violent passion for Mrs. Barber, and Lady M-- [Montagu] or Mrs. Haywood have w

Courthope's P