From fifteen or sixteen French biographies of the romantic Mary[3] Mrs.
Haywood drew materials for an English work of two hundred and forty pages. "Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots: Being the Secret History of her Life, and the Real Causes of all Her Misfortunes. Containing a Relation of many particular Transactions in her Reign; 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 pa.s.sion which formed the chief const.i.tuent of Eliza"s romances. As history it is worthless, and its significance as fiction lies merely in its attempt to incorporate imaginative love scenes with historical fact. It was apparently compiled hastily to compete with a rival volume, "The History of the Life and Reign of Mary Stuart," published a week earlier, and it enjoyed but a languid sale. Early in 1726 it pa.s.sed into a second edition, which continued to be advertised as late as 1743.
"Mary Stuart" is the only one of Mrs. Haywood"s romances that strictly deserves the name of secret history. But late in 1749 a little romance that satisfied nearly all the conditions of the type insinuated itself into the pamphlet shops without the agency 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 remarkable and affecting Occurrences which happened to the P---- during the course of his mysterious Progress" has been a.s.signed to Mrs.
Haywood by the late Mr. Andrew Lang,[4] perhaps on the authority of the notice in the "Monthly Review" already quoted.
The pretended author of the letter was a certain Henry Goring, a gentleman known to be in attendance upon the last of the Stuarts. The preface gives a commonplace explanation of how the letter fell into the hands of the editor through a similarity of names. Apparently the pamphlet was thought seditious because it eulogized the Young Chevalier, hinting how advantageous it would be to have him on the throne. As the secret journey progresses, the Prince has a chance to expose his admirable political tenets in conversation with a n.o.bleman of exalted rank; in rescuing a young woman from a fire, caring for her in distress, and refusing to take advantage of her pa.s.sion 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 a.s.saulted by hired a.s.sa.s.sins, 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 nothing. The upshot is that the Prince has not renounced all thoughts of filling the throne of his ancestors, but has ends in view which the world knows nothing of and which will surprise them all some day. Had the Prince shown himself more susceptible to the charms of the merchants" daughters who fell in his way, this bit of romancing might claim the doubtful distinction of being Mrs. Haywood"s only original secret history, but as it stands, no part of the story has the necessary motivation by pa.s.sion. The intrigue is entirely political.
There would seem to be little dangerous stuff in this performance even five years after the insurrection of 1745, but if as the "Monthly Review" ill-naturedly hints, Eliza Haywood really suffered for her supposed connection with it, the lesson was at any rate effectual, for the small references to the P---- occasionally noticeable in her previous works suddenly ceased, and thereafter the novelist 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 t.i.tle of "Adventures of Eovaai, Princess of Ijaveo. A Pre-Adamitical History. Interspersed with a great Number of remarkable Occurrences, which happened, and may again happen, to several Empires, Kingdoms, Republicks, and particular Great Men ...
Written originally in the Language of Nature, (of later Years but little understood.) First translated into Chinese ... and now retranslated into English, by the Son of a Mandarin, residing in London."[5]
After the introduction has given a fantastic account of the Pre-Adamitical world, and explained with elaborate unconvincingness how the ma.n.u.script of the book came into existence, the tale commences like a moral allegory, but soon lapses into mere extravagant adventure.
Capable at all times of using a _deus ex machina_ as the readiest way of solving a situation, Mrs. Haywood here makes immoderate use of magic elements.
Eojaeu, King of Ijaveo, leaves to his daughter, Eovaai, a precious jewel, upon the keeping of which her happiness depends. One day as she is gazing at it in the garden, it slips from its setting and is carried away by a little bird. Immediately the princess is forsaken by her quarreling subjects and abandoned by her suitors, save only the wicked Ochihatou, prime minister of the neighboring kingdom of Hypotofa, who has gained ascendancy over his sovereign by black magic, caused the promising young prince to be banished, and used his power to promote his ambitions and l.u.s.ts. By infernal agencies he conveys Eovaai to the Hypotofan court, where he corrupts her mind and is about to triumph in her charms when he is summoned to quell a political disturbance. The princess, left languishing in a bower, is saved by her good 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 subst.i.tutes 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 make head against the rebels.
His pretensions are encouraged, but learning by his magic that the Hypotofan monarch has been freed from the power of his spells, he persuades the princess to return to Ijaveo with him in hopes of regaining her kingdom. He transforms her into a dove, himself into a vulture, and flies with her to a wood near the Ijavean court. There he restores their natural shapes and makes a base attack upon her honor. In the struggle she manages to break his wand, and he in a fury hangs her up by the hair and is about to scourge her to death, when she is rescued by a glorious young stranger. The wicked Ochihatou dashes his brains out against an oak. Her deliverer turns out to be the banished prince of Hypotofa, who restores to her the lost jewel, weds her, and prosperously governs their united realms.
The fantastic story, however, was probably little calculated to sell the book. It was addressed to those who could read between the lines well enough to discern particular personages in the characters of the fiction, and especially a certain great man in the figure of the evil prime minister.
In 1736 when Eliza"s novel first appeared, Walpole"s defeated Excise Bill of 1733-4 and his policy of non-interference on the Continent had made him cordially disliked by the people, and by 1741 his unpopular ministry, like Lady Mary Montagu"s stairs, was "in a declining way." Sir Robert had never shown himself a friend to letters, and there were not a few writers, among them one so ill.u.s.trious as Henry Fielding, who were ready to seize upon any pretext for attacking him.[6] There can be no doubt that in the character of the villainous, corrupt, greedy, vain, lascivious, but plausible Ochihatou Mrs. Haywood intended her readers to recognize a semblance of the English minister. "Of all the statesmen who have held high office, it would be 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 have a polite and happy turn to gallantry, of which he had undoubtedly less than any man living; it was his favorite and frequent subject of conversation, which proved, to those who had any penetration, that it was his prevailing weakness, and they applied to it with success."[8] And Lord Hervey reports that the Queen remarked of Walpole"s mistress, "dear Molly Skerritt": "She must be a clever gentlewoman to have made him believe she cares for him on any other score [but his money]; and to show you what fools we all are in some point or other, she has certainly told him some fine story or other of her love and her pa.s.sion, and that poor man--_avec ce gros corps, ces jambes enflees, et ce vilain ventre_--believes her. Ah! what is human nature!"[9]
With this sketch of Walpole compare the account of Ochihatou, Prime Minister of Hypotofa. "This great Man was born of a mean Extraction, and so deformed in his own Person, 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 Pa.s.sion, the first Proof he gave of his Art, was to ... cast such a Delusion before the Eyes of all who saw him, that he appeared to them such as he wished to be, a most comely and graceful Man.
"With this Advantage, join"d to the most soothing and insinuating Behaviour, he came to Court, and, by his Artifices, so wound himself into the Favour of some great Officers, that he was not long without being put into a considerable Post. This he discharged so well, that he was soon promoted to a better, and at length to those of the highest Trust and Honour in the Kingdom. But that which was most remarkable in him, and very much contributed to endear him to all Sorts of People, was that his Elevation did not seem to have made the least Change in his Sentiments. His natural Pride, his l.u.s.t, his exorbitant Ambition, were disguised under the Appearance of Sweetness of Disposition, Chast.i.ty, and even more Condescension, than was consistent with the Rank he then possest. By this Behaviour, he render"d himself so far from exciting Envy, that those, by whose Recommendation 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 others who adhered to him, and a.s.sisted in his Enterprizes." Lest this reference should not be plain enough in its application to Walpole"s extravagances at Houghton, Mrs. Haywood adds in a footnote, "Our Author might have saved himself the Trouble of particularizing in what manner Ochihatou apply"d the Nation"s Money; since he had said enough in saying, he was a _Prime Minister_, to make the Reader acquainted with his Conduct in that Point." Further allusions to a standing army of mercenaries and to an odious tribe of tax-collectors--two of the most popular grievances against Walpole--give additional force to the satire.
There is a suspicion that in the character of the young prince banished by Ochihatou readers of a right turn of mind were intended to perceive a cautious allusion to the Pretender.
[Transcriber"s note: Quotes in paragraph in original, not block quote.]
That Walpole not only perceived, but actively resented the affront, we may infer, though evidence is lacking, from the six years of silence that followed the publication of the 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 probably Eliza found it wise to seek in France or some neighboring country the safety from the malignant power of the Prime Minister that her heroine sought in the kingdom of Oozoff.
The "Adventures of Eovaai" contains almost the last of the dedications written in a servile tone to a patron whose favor Mrs. Haywood hoped to curry. Henceforward she was to be more truly a woman of letters in that her books appealed ostensibly at least only to the reading public. The victim of her final eulogy was the redoubtable Sarah, d.u.c.h.ess Dowager of Marlborough, who, when finding herself addressed as "O most ill.u.s.trious Wife, and Parent of the Greatest, Best, and Loveliest! it was not sufficient for you to adorn Posterity with the Amiableness 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 translated into English from the work of a celebrated Utopian author, the British public found no difficulty in attributing it by popular acclaim to Mrs. Haywood, and she reaped immense notoriety from it. In prefaces to some of her subsequent works she complained of the readiness of the world to pick meanings in whatever was published by a struggling woman, or protested that she had no persons or families in view in writing her stories, but she never disclaimed the authorship of this production. Undoubtedly the world was right in "smoking" the writer.[12]
If before she had retailed secret histories of late amours singly, Mrs.
Haywood dealt in them now by the wholesale, and any reader curious to know the ident.i.ty of the personages hidden under such fict.i.tious names as Roma.n.u.s, Beaujune, Orainos, Davilla, Flirtillaria, or Saloida could obtain the information by consulting a convenient "key" affixed to each of the two 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 a clef_ or romances in which contemporary scandal was reported in a fict.i.tious disguise. The imitation written by Mrs. Haywood became only less notorious than her original, and was still well enough known in 1760 to be included in the convenient list of novels prefixed to the elder Colman"s "Polly Honeycombe." It consists of a tissue of anecdotes which, if retold, would (in Fuller"s words) "stain through the cleanest language I can wrap them in," all set in an allegorical framework of a commonplace kind.
A n.o.ble youth arrives upon the sh.o.r.es of a happy island [England], where he encounters the G.o.d of Love, who conveys him to a s.p.a.cious court in the midst of the city. There Pecunia and Fortuna, served by their high priest Lucitario [J. Craggs, the elder] preside over an Enchanted Well [South Sea Company] while all degrees of humanity stand about in expectation of some wonderful event. From amid the throng the G.o.d 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. After hearing more than a satiety of these ill.u.s.trations, the youth beholds the Genius of the Isle, supported by Astrea and Reason, exposing the fraud of the Enchanted Well to the dismay of the greedy rabble. The young stranger then sinks to rest in a perfumed bower, while the G.o.d of Love and the Genius of the Isle set about a much needed reformation of manners.
None of the skimmings of contemporary gossip poured out in the two volumes deserves the least consideration, save such as reveal the fair writer"s relations with other authors. In return for Savage"s eulogy of her "Love in Excess" and "Rash Resolve" the scribbling dame included in her scandal novel the story of his n.o.ble parentage substantially as it had already been told 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d" may have desired to prove his n.o.ble origin, he might easily have resented a too open flaunting of his mother"s disgrace. Moreover, Mrs. Haywood hinted that his unfeeling mother was not the only woman whom the poet had to fear. By the insinuations of a female fury, a pretender to the art of poetry, for whom Eliza has no words too black--in fact some of her epithets are too shady to be quoted--he has been led into actions, mean, unjust, and wicked. The vile woman, it seems, has been guilty of defaming the reputations of others.
"The Monster whose Soul is wholly compos"d of Hipocrisy, Envy, and l.u.s.t, can ill endure another Woman should be esteem"d Mistress of those Virtues she has acted with too barefaced an Impudence to pretend to, and is never so happy as when by some horrid Stratagem she finds the means to traduce and blast the Character of the Worthy.... With how much readiness the easily deceiv"d Riverius [Savage] has obliged her in spreading those Reports, coin"d in the h.e.l.lish 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 than common Injury from him, thro" the Instigations of that female Fury; but yet continuing to acknowledge his good Qualities, and pitying his falling into the contrary, took no other Revenge than writing a little Satire, which his having publish"d some admirable fine things in the praise of Friendship and Honour, gave a handsome opportunity for." (Vol. I, p. 184.)
From the exceptional animus displayed by Eliza Haywood in describing her colleague in the school for scandal, one may suspect that the lightning had struck fairly near home. One is almost forced to believe that 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 him and his Siren is not known, but although he still stood high in her esteem, she was implacable against that "worse than Lais" whom in a long and pungent description she satirized under the name of Gloat.i.tia.
"Behold another ... in every thing as ridiculous, in some more vile-- that big-bone"d, buxom, brown Woman.... Of all the G.o.ds there is none she acknowledges but Phoebus, him she frequently implores for a.s.sistance, to charm her Lovers with the Spirit of Poetry.... She pretends, however, to have an intimate acquaintance with the Muses-- has judgment enough to know that _ease_ and _please_ 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 pa.s.ses 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] (famous for publishing soft things) to print some of her Works, ["The Amours of Clio and Strephon," 1719]
on which she is not a little vain: tho" she might very well have spared herself the trouble. Few Men, of any rank whatsoever, but have been honour"d with the receipt of some of her Letters both in Prose and Measure--few Coffee-Houses but have been the Repository of them."[15]
The student of contemporary secret history does not need to refer to the "key" to discover that the woman whose power to charm Savage was so destructive to Eliza"s peace of mind was that universal mistress of minor 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 remained unchanged by Mrs. Haywood"s vituperation may be inferred from some lines in her praise in a satire called "The Authors of the Town," printed soon after the publication of "Memoirs of a Certain Island."[17]
"Clio, descending Angels sweep thy Lyre, Prompt thy soft Lays, and breathe Seraphic Fire.
Tears fall, Sighs rise, obedient to thy Strains, And the Blood dances in the mazy Veins!....
In social Spirits, lead thy Hours along, Thou Life of Loveliness, thou Soul of Song!"
But not content with singing the praises of her rival, Savage cast a slur upon Mrs. Haywood"s works and even upon the unfortunate dame herself.
"First, let me view what noxious Nonsense reigns, While yet I loiter on Prosaic Plains; If Pens impartial active Annals trace, Others, with secret Histr"y, Truth deface: Views and Reviews, and wild Memoirs appear, And Slander darkens each recorded year."
After relating at some length the typical absurdities of the _chronique scandaleuse_--deaths by poison, the inevitably dropped letter, and intrigues of pa.s.sion and jealousy--he became more specific in describing various authors. Among others
"A cast-off Dame, who of Intrigues can judge, Writes Scandal in Romance--A Printer"s Drudge!
Flush"d with Success, for Stage-Renown she pants, And melts, and swells, and pens luxurious Rants."
The first two lines might apply to the notorious Mrs. Manley, lately deceased, who had for some time been living as a hack writer for Alderman Barber, but she had written no plays since "Lucius" in 1717.
Mrs. Haywood, however, equally a cast-off dame and a printer"s drudge, had recently produced her "Fair Captive," a most luxurious rant. The pa.s.sage, then, may probably refer to her.
If, as is possible, the poem was circulated in ma.n.u.script before its publication, this intended insult may be the injury complained of by Mrs. Haywood in "Memoirs of a Certain Island." Though she was content to retaliate 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 losses in the collapse of the South Sea scheme, Savage remained henceforth her implacable enemy. Perhaps her abuse of the divine Clio, the suspected instigator of his attacks upon her, may have been an unforgivable offense.
No need to particularize further. We need not vex the shade of Addison by repeating what Eliza records of his wild kinsman, Eustace Budgell (Bellario). No other person of literary note save Aaron Hill, favorably mentioned as Laura.n.u.s, appears in all the dreary two volumes. The vogue of the book was not due to its merits as fiction, which are slight, but to the spiciness of personal allusions. That such reading was appreciated even in the highest circles is shown by young Lady Mary Pierrepont"s defence of Mrs. Manley"s "New Atalantis."[18] In the history of the novel, however, the _roman a clef_ deserves perhaps more recognition than has. .h.i.therto 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 foreign to the method of the romancers.[19] While the tale of pa.s.sion developed the novelist"s power to make the emotions seem convincing, the _chronique scandaleuse_ emphasized the necessity of accurate observation of real men and women. But satire and libel, though necessitating detailed description, did not, like burlesque or parody, lead to the creation of character. In that respect the "Memoirs of a Certain Island" and all its tribe are notably deficient.
A less comprehensive survey of current t.i.ttle-tattle, perhaps modeled on Mrs. Manley"s "Court Intrigues" (1711), stole forth anonymously on 16 October, 1724, under the caption, "Bath-Intrigues: in four Letters to a Friend in London," a t.i.tle which sufficiently indicates the 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 t.i.tle-page Roberts, the publisher, advertised "The Masqueraders," "The Fatal Secret," and "The Surprise" as by the same author. One of Mrs. Haywood"s favorite quotations, used by her later as a motto for the third volume of "The Female Spectator," stands with nave appropriateness on the t.i.tle-page:
"There is a l.u.s.t in Man, no Awe can tame, Of loudly publishing his Neighbor"s Shame."
The writer of "Bath-Intrigues," moreover, did not hesitate to recommend Eliza"s earlier novels to the good graces of scandal-loving readers, for she describes a certain letter as "amorous as Mrs. O--- F---d"s Eyes, or the Writings of the Author of Love in Excess." Most curious of all is the fact that the composer of the four letters, who signs herself J.B., refers _en pa.s.sant_ 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 in the earlier fiction, or that Mrs. Haywood was using imaginary scandal to pad her collection. However that may be, this second _chronique scandaleuse_ was apparently no less successful, though less renowned, than the first, for a third edition was imprinted during the following March.
The scribbling dame again used the feigned letter as a vehicle for mildly infamous gossip in "Letters from the Palace of Fame. Written by a First Minister in the Regions of Air, to an Inhabitant of this World.
Translated from an Arabian Ma.n.u.script."[21] Its pretended source and the sham Oriental disguise make the work an unworthy member of that group of feigned Oriental letters begun by G.P. Marana with "L"Espion turc" in 1684, continued by Dufresny and his imitator, T. Brown, raised to a philosophic level by Addison and Steele, and finally culminant in Montesquieu"s "Lettres Persanes" (1721) and Goldsmith"s "Citizen of the World" (1760).[22] The fourth letter is a well-told Eastern adventure, dealing with the revenge of Forzio who seduces the wife of his enemy, Ben-hamar, through the agency of a Christian slave, but in general the "Letters" are valuable 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. Haywood merely added the suggestion of a mysterious Oriental source. She makes no attempt to satirize contemporary society, but is content to retail vague bits of town talk to customers who might be deluded into imagining them of importance. "The new created Vizier," the airy correspondent reports, "might have succeeded better in another Post, than in this, which with so much earnestness he has sollicited. For, notwithstanding the Plaudits he has received from our Princess, and the natural Propensity to State-Affairs, given him by his Saturnine Genius; his Significator Mars promis"d him greater Honours in the Field, than he can possibly attain to in the Cabinet." And so on. Both "Bath-Intrigues" and "Letters from the Palace of Fame" may be cla.s.sed as _romans a clef_ although no "key"
for either has yet been found. In all other respects they conform to type.
The only one of Mrs. Haywood"s scandal novels that rivaled the fame of her "Memoirs of a Certain Island" was the notorious "Secret History of the Present Intrigues of the Court of Carimania" (1727), a feigned history on a more coherent plan than the allegorical hodge-podge of the former compilation. The incidents in this book are all loosely connected with the amours of Theodore, Prince of Carimania, with various beauties of this court. The chronicle minutely records the means he employed to overcome their scruples, to stifle their jealousies 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 a.s.sociates. The "key"[23] at the end identifies the characters with various n.o.ble personages at the court of George II when Prince of Wales.
The melting Lutetia, for instance, represented "Mrs. Baladin" or more accurately Mary b.e.l.l.e.n.den, maid of honor to the Princess, to whose charms Prince George was in fact not insensible. Barsina and Arilla were also maids of honor: the former became the second wife of John, Duke of Argyle (Aridanor), while the latter was that sister of Sir Sidney Meadows celebrated by Pope for her prudence. Although the "key"
discreetly refrained from identifying the amorous Theodore, no great penetration was necessary to see in his character a picture of the royal George himself. A tradition not well authenticated but extremely probable states that printer and publisher were taken up in consequence of this daring scandal.
But more important in its effect upon the author"s fortunes than any action of the outraged government was the resentment which her defamation of certain ill.u.s.trious persons awakened in the breast of the dictator of letters. In chosing [Transcriber"s note: sic] to expose in the character of her chief heroine, Ismonda, the foibles of Mrs.
Henrietta Howard, the neighbor of Pope, the friend of Swift and Arbuthnot, 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 George II delighted to inflict upon her. Swift described the writer of the scandal as a "stupid, infamous, scribbling woman";[24]
Peterborough writing to Lady Mary Montagu in behalf of his friend, the English Homer, sneered at the "four remarkable poetesses and scribblers, Mrs. Centlivre, Mrs. Haywood, Mrs. Manley, and Mrs. Ben [_sic_]";[25]
and Pope himself pilloried the offender to all time in his greatest satire.
FOOTNOTES [1]
_Monthly Review_, I, 238. July, 1749.
[2]
Mme de Villedieu, _Annales galantes de Grece_ and _Les exiles de la cour d"Auguste_. Mme Durand-Bedacier, _Les belles Grecques, ou l"histoire des plus fameuses courtisanes de la Grece._
[3]
B.M. Catalogue.