Читать книгу The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood - George Frisbie Whicher - Страница 10

[1] E. Bernbaum, Mrs. Behn's Biography a Fiction, PMLA, XXVIII, 432.

[2] David Erskine Baker, Companion to the Play House, 1764.

[4] He was the author of An Examination of Dr. Clarke's Scripture-Doctrine of the Trinity, with a Confutation of it (1719). The work is a paragraph by paragraph refutation from the authority of scripture of the Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity (1712) by the metaphysical Dr. Samuel Clarke, whose unorthodox views prevented Queen Caroline from making him Archbishop of Canterbury. The Reverend Mr. Haywood was upon safe ground in attacking a book already condemned in Convocation.

[5] "Whereas Elizabeth Haywood, Wife of the Reverend Mr. Valentine Haywood, eloped from him her Husband on Saturday the 26th of November last past, and went away without his Knowledge and Consent: This is to give Notice to all Persons in general, That if any one shall trust her either with Money or Goods, or if she shall contract Debts of any kind whatsoever, the said Mr. Haywood will not pay the same."

[6] Tatler, No. 6 and No. 40.

[7] W.R. Chetwood, A General History of the Stage, 56.

[8] Genest, III, 59.

[9] Genest, III, 73.

[10]

John Rich opened the New Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields during

December, 1714.

[11] Genest, III, 113.

[12] Genest, III, 241.

[13] Biographia Dramatica. The production is mentioned by Genest, III, 281.

[14] W.R. Chetwood, A General History of the Stage, 57.

[15] Genest, III, 408.

[16] In Kane O'Hara's later and more popular transformation of Tom Thumb into a light opera, the song put into the mouth of the dying Grizzle by the first adapters was retained with minor changes.

"My body's like a bankrupt's shop,

My creditor is cruel death,

Who puts to trade of life a stop,

And will be paid with this last breath; Oh!"

Apparently O'Hara made no further use of his predecessors.

[17] S.P. Dom. George I, Bundle 22, No. 97.

[18] In spite of the fact that "Translated from the French" appeared on the title-page, Mrs. Haywood has hitherto been accredited with the full authorship of these letters. They were really a loose translation of Lettres Nouvelles. … Avec Treize Lettres Amoureuses d'une Dame à un Cavalier (Second Edition, Paris, 1699) by Edme Boursault, and were so advertised in the public prints.

[19] Probably a misprint. When the novels appeared, Idalia was the Unfortunate Mistress, Lasselia the Self-abandon'd. Perhaps because the work outgrew its original proportions, or because short novels found a readier sale, the five were never published under the inclusive cautionary caption.

[20]

E. Gosse, Gossip in a Library, 161, "What Ann Lang Read." Only one of Mrs. Haywood's novels, The City Jilt, was ever issued in cheap form. T. Bailey, the printer, evidently combined his printing business with the selling of patent medicines.

[21] The latter may be read in Savage's Poems, Cooke's edition, II, 162. The complimentary verses first printed before the original issue.

[22] His poem To Mrs. Eliza Haywood on her Writings was hastily inserted in the fourth volume of Secret Histories, Novels, and Poems when that collection had reached its third edition (1732). In the fourth edition of ten years later it stands, with the verses already described, at the beginning of Volume I.

[23] In the Preface to Lasselia (1723), for instance, she feels obliged to defend herself from "that Aspersion which some of my own Sex have been unkind enough to throw upon me, that I seem to endeavour to divert more than to improve the Minds of my Readers. Now, as I take it, the Aim of every Person, who pretends to write (tho' in the most insignificant and ludicrous way) ought to tend at least to a good Moral Use; I shou'd be sorry to have my Intentions judg'd to be the very reverse of what they are in reality. How far I have been able to succeed in my Desires of infusing those Cautions, too necessary to a Number, I will not pretend to determine; but where I have had the Misfortune to fail, must impute it either to the Obstinacy of those I wou'd persuade, or to my own Deficiency in that very Thing which they are pleased to say I too much abound in—a true description of Nature."

[24] An eight page verse satire entitled The Female Dunces. Inscribed to Mr. Pope (1733) after criticizing the conduct of certain well known ladies, concludes with praise of a nymph who we may believe was intended to represent Eliza Haywood:

"Eliza good Examples shews in vain,

Despis'd, and laugh'd at by the vicious Train; So bright she shines, she might adorn a Throne Not with a borrow'd Lustre, but her Own."

[25] A single exception was The Surprise (1724), dedicated to Steele in the following words: "The little History I presume to offer, being composed of Characters full of Honour and Generosity, I thought I had a fit Opportunity, by presenting it to one who has made it so much his Study to infuse those Principles, and whose every Action is a shining Example of them, to express my Zeal in declaring myself with all imaginable Regard," etc., etc.

[26] See the Dedication to The Fatal Secret (1724). "But as I am a Woman, and consequently depriv'd of those Advantages of Education which the other Sex enjoy, I cannot so far flatter my Desires, as to imagine it in my Power to soar to any Subject higher than that which Nature is not negligent to teach us. "Love is a Topick which I believe few are ignorant of; there requires no Aids of Learning, no general Conversation, no Application; a shady Grove and purling Stream are all Things that's necessary to give us an Idea of the tender Passion. This is a Theme, therefore, which, while I make choice to write of, frees me from the Imputation of vain or self-sufficient:—None can tax me with having too great an Opinion of my own Genius, when I aim at nothing but what the meanest may perform. "I have nothing to value myself on, but a tolerable Share of Discernment."

[27] See the Preface to The Injur'd Husband quoted in Chap. IV.

[28] Preface to The Memoirs of the Baron de Brosse (1725). A similar complaint had appeared in the Dedication of The Fair Captive (1721). "For my own part … I suffer'd all that Apprehension could inflict, and found I wanted many more Arguments than the little Philosophy I am Mistress of could furnish me with, to enable me to stem that Tide of Raillery, which all of my Sex, unless they are very excellent indeed, must expect, when once they exchange the Needle for the Quill."

[29] See a poem by Aaron Hill, To Eliza upon her design'd Voyage into Spain (undated), Hill's Works, III, 363. Also The Husband, 59. "On a trip I was once taking to France, an accident happen'd to detain me for some days at Dover," etc. Mrs. Haywood's relations with Hill have been excellently discussed by Miss Dorothy Brewster, Aaron Hill (1913), 186.

[30] The first of these was a translation of the Chevalier de Mouhy's best known work, La Mouche, ou les Aventures et espiègleries facétieuses de Bigand, (1730), and may have been done by Mrs. Haywood herself. The second title certainly savors of a typical Haywoodian production, but I have been unable to find a copy of these alleged publications. Neither of them was originally published at the Sign of Fame, and they could hardly have been pirated, since Cogan, who issued the volume wherein the advertisement appeared, was also the original publisher of The Busy-Body. The Anti-Pamela had already been advertised for Huggonson in June, 1741, and had played a small part in the series of pamphlets, novels, plays, and poems excited by Richardson's fashionable history. If Mrs. Haywood wrote it, she was biting the hand that fed her, for The Virtuous Villager probably owed its second translation and what little sale it may have enjoyed to the similarity between the victorious virgin and the popular Pamela.

[31] B.M. (MSS. Sloane. 4059. ff. 144), undated.

[32] Monthly Review, II, 167, Jan. 1750.

[33] The Biographia Dramatica gives this date. Clara Reeve, Progress of Romance, I, 121, however, gives 1758, while Mrs. Griffith, Collection of Novels (1777), II, 159, prefers 1759. The two novels were Clementina (1768), a revision of The Agreeable Caledonian, and The History of Leonora Meadowson (1788).