Читать книгу The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood - George Frisbie Whicher - Страница 9

August ye 5th 1720

Enclosed with the letter were "Proposals For Printing by Subscription A Translation from the French of the Famous Monsieur Bursault Containing Ten Letters from a Lady of Quality to a Chevalier."[18] The work thus heralded was published in the latter part of 1720 by subscription—"three shillings each Book in Quires, or five Shillings bound in Calf, Gilt Back"—a method never again employed by Mrs. Haywood, though in this case it must have succeeded fairly well. Three hundred and nine names appeared on her list of subscribers, of which one hundred and twenty-three were women's. Few subscribers of either sex were distinguished. There were, however, that universal patron of minor authors, George Bubb, Esq., later the Doddington to whom Thomson dedicated his "Summer"; Mrs. Barker, the novelist; Aaron Hill; a Mr. Osborne, possibly the bookseller whose name was afterward infamously connected with Eliza's in "The Dunciad"; Charles de La Faye, the under-secretary of state with whom Defoe corresponded; and a sprinkling of aristocratic titles.

The publisher of the letters was William Rufus Chetwood, later the prompter at Drury Lane Theatre, but then just commencing bookseller at the sign of Cato's Head, Covent Garden. He had already brought out for Mrs. Haywood the first effort of her genius, a romantic tale entitled "Love in Excess: or, the Fatal Enquiry." We have the author's testimony that the three parts "mett a Better Reception then they Deservd," and indeed the piece was extraordinarily successful, running through no less than six separate editions before its inclusion in her collected "Secret Histories, Novels and Poems" in 1725. On the last page of "Letters from a Lady of Quality to a Chevalier" Chetwood had also advertised for speedy publication "a Book entitled, The Danger of giving way to Passion, in Five Exemplary Novels: First, The British Recluse, or the Secret History of Cleomira, supposed dead. Second, The Injur'd Husband, or the Mistaken Resentment. Third, Lasselia, or the Unfortunate Mistress. Fourth, The Rash Resolve, or the Untimely Discovery. Fifth, Idalia, or the Self-abandon'd.[19] Written by Mrs. Eliza Haywood." During the next three years the five novels were issued singly by Chetwood with the help of other booksellers, usually Daniel Browne, Jr., and Samuel Chapman. This pair, or James Roberts, Chetwood's successor, published most of Mrs. Haywood's early writings. The staple of her output during the first decade of authorship was the short amatory romance like "Love in Excess" and the "exemplary novels" just mentioned. These exercises in fiction were evidently composed currente calamo, with little thought and less revision, for an eager and undiscriminating public. Possibly, as Mr. Gosse conjectures,[20] they were read chiefly by milliners and other women on the verge of literacy. But though persons of solid education avoided reading novels and eastern tales as they might the drinking of drams, it is certain that no one of scanty means could have afforded Mrs. Haywood's slender octavos at the price of one to three shillings. The Lady's Library ("Spectator" No. 37) containing beside numerous romances "A Book of Novels" and "The New Atalantis, with a Key to it," which last Lady Mary Montagu also enjoyed, and the dissolute country-gentleman's daughters ("Spectator" No. 128) who "read Volumes of Love-Letters and Romances to their Mother," a ci-devant coquette, give us perhaps a more accurate idea of the woman novelist's public. Doubtless Mrs. Haywood's wares were known to the more frothy minds of the polite world and to the daughters of middle-class trading families, such as the sisters described in Defoe's "Religious Courtship," whose taste for fashionable plays and novels was soon to call the circulating library into being.

Beside the proceeds arising from the sale of her works, Mrs. Haywood evidently expected and sometimes received the present of a guinea or so in return for a dedication. Though patrons were not lacking for her numerous works, it does not appear that her use of their names was always authorized. In putting "The Arragonian Queen" under the protection of Lady Frances Lumley, in fact, the author confessed that she had not the happiness of being known to the object of her praise, but wished to be the first to felicitate her publicly upon her nuptials. We may be sure that the offering of "Frederick, Duke of Brunswick- Lunenburgh" to the hero's namesake, Frederick, Prince of Wales, was both unsanctioned and unacknowledged. Sometimes, however, the writer's language implies that she had already experienced the bounty of her patron, while in the case of the novel dedicated to Sir Richard Steele at a time when his health and credit were fast giving way, Eliza can hardly be accused of interested motives. Apparently sincere, too, though addressed to a wealthy widow, was the tribute to Lady Elizabeth Germain prefixed to "The Fruitless Enquiry"; and at least one other of Mrs. Haywood's productions is known to have been in Lady Betty's library. But these instances are decidedly exceptional. Usually the needy novelist's dedications were made up of servile adulation and barefaced begging. With considerable skill in choosing a favorable moment she directed a stream of panegyric upon William Yonge (later Sir) within two months after his appointment as one of the commissioners of the treasury in Great Britain. Soon after Sir Thomas Lombe was made a knight, the wife of that rich silk weaver had the pleasure of seeing her virtues and her new title in print. And most remarkable of all, Lady Elizabeth Henley, who eloped with a rake early in 1728, received Mrs. Haywood's congratulations upon the event in the dedication of "The Agreeable Caledonian," published in June, though if we may trust Mrs. Delany's account of the matter, the bride must already have had time for repentance. Even grief, the specialist in the study of the passions knew, might loosen the purse strings, and accordingly she took the liberty to condole with Col. Stanley upon the loss of his wife while entreating his favor for "The Masqueraders." But of all her dedications those addressed to her own sex were the most melting, and from their frequency were evidently the most fruitful.

The income derived from patronage, however, was at best uncertain and necessitated many applications. To the public, moreover, a novel meant nothing if not something new. Eliza Haywood's productiveness, therefore, was enormous. When she had settled to her work, the authoress could produce little pieces, ranging from sixty to nearly two hundred pages in length, with extraordinary rapidity. In 1724, for instance, a year of tremendous activity, she rushed into print no less than ten original romances, beside translating half of a lengthy French work, "La Belle Assemblée" by Mme. de Gomez. At this time, too, her celebrity had become so great that "The Prude, a Novel, written by a Young Lady" was dedicated to her, just as Mrs. Hearne at the beginning of her career had put a romance, "The Lover's Week," under the protection of the famous Mrs. Manley. Between 1720 and 1730 Mrs. Haywood wrote, beside plays and translations, thirty-eight works of her own composing, one in two stout volumes and several in two or more parts. If we may judge by the number and frequency of editions, most of the indefatigable scribbler's tales found a ready sale, while the best of them, such as "Idalia" (1723), "The Fatal Secret" (1724), "The Mercenary Lover" (1726), "The Fruitless Enquiry" and "Philidore and Placentia" (1727), gained for her not a little applause.

Nor was the young adventuress in letters unhailed by literary men. Aaron Hill immediately befriended her by writing an epilogue for her first play and another of Hill's circle, the irresponsible Richard Savage, attempted to "paint the Wonders of Eliza's Praise" in verses prefixed to "Love in Excess" and "The Rash Resolve" (1724).[21]

Along with Savage's first complimentary poem were two other effusions, in one of which an "Atheist to Love's Power" acknowledged his conversion through the force of Eliza's revelation of the tender passion, while the other expressed with less rapture the same idea. But it remained for James Sterling, the friend of Concanen, to state most vigorously the contemporary estimate of Mrs. Haywood and her early writings.[22] "Great Arbitress of Passion!" he exclaims,

"Persuasion waits on all your bright Designs,

And where you point the varying Soul inclines:

See! Love and Friendship, the fair Theme inspires

We glow with Zeal, we melt in soft Desires!

Thro' the dire Labyrinth of Ills we share

The kindred Sorrows of the gen'rous Pair;

Till, pleas'd, rewarded Vertue we behold,

Shine from the Furnace pure as tortur'd Gold:"

"Thy Prose in sweeter Harmony refines,

Than Numbers flowing thro' the Muse's Lines;

What Beauty ne'er could melt, thy Touches fire,

And raise a Musick that can Love inspire;

Soul-thrilling Accents all our Senses wound,

And strike with Softness, whilst they charm with Sound!

When thy Count pleads, what Fair his Suit can fly?

Or when thy Nymph laments, what Eyes are dry?

Ev'n Nature's self in Sympathy appears,

Yields Sigh for Sigh, and melts in equal Tears;

For such Descriptions thus at once can prove

The Force of Language, and the Sweets of Love.

You sit like Heav'n's bright Minister on High,

Command the throbbing Breast, and watry Eye,

And, as our captive Spirits ebb and flow,

Smile at the Tempests you have rais'd below:

The Face of Guilt a Flush of Vertue wears,

And sudden burst the involuntary Tears:

Honour's sworn Foe, the Libertine with Shame,

Descends to curse the sordid lawless Flame;

The tender Maid here learns Man's various Wiles,

Rash Youth, hence dread the Wanton's venal Smiles—

Sure 'twas by brutal Force of envious Man,

First Learning's base Monopoly began;

He knew your Genius, and refus'd his Books,

Nor thought your Wit less fatal than your Looks.

Read, proud Usurper, read with conscious Shame,

Pathetic Behn, or Mauley's greater Name; Forget their Sex, and own when Haywood writ, She clos'd the fair Triumvirate of Wit; Born to delight as to reform the Age, She paints Example thro' the shining Page; Satiric Precept warms the moral Tale, And Causticks burn where the mild Balsam fails; [sic] A Task reserv'd for her, to whom 'tis given, To stand the Proxy of vindictive Heav'n!"

Amid the conventional extravagance of this panegyric exist some useful grains of criticism. One of the most clearly expressed and continually reiterated aims of prose fiction, as of other species of writing from time immemorial, was that of conveying to the reader a moral through the agreeable channel of example. This exemplary purpose, inherited by eighteenth century novelists from Cervantes and from the French romances, was asserted again and again in Mrs. Haywood's prefaces,[23] while the last paragraphs of nearly all her tales were used to convey an admonition or to proclaim the value of the story as a "warning to the youth of both sexes." To modern readers these pieces seem less successful illustrations of fiction made didactic, than of didacticism dissolved and quite forgot in fiction, but Sterling and other eulogists strenuously supported the novelist's claim to moral usefulness.[24] The pill of improvement supposed to be swallowed along with the sweets of diversion hardly ever consisted of good precepts and praiseworthy actions, but usually of a warning or a horrible example of what to avoid.[25] As a necessary corollary, the more striking and sensational the picture of guilt, the more efficacious it was likely to prove in the cause of virtue. So in the Preface to "Lasselia" (1723), published to "remind the unthinking Part of the World, how dangerous it is to give way to Passion," the writer hopes that her unexceptionable intent "will excuse the too great Warmth, which may perhaps appear in some particular Pages; for without the Expression being invigorated in some measure proportionate to the Subject, 'twou'd be impossible for a Reader to be sensible how far it touches him, or how probable it is that he is falling into those Inadvertencies which the Examples I relate wou'd caution him to avoid." As a woman, too, Mrs. Haywood was excluded from "Learning's base Monopoly," but not from an intuitive knowledge of the passions, in which respect the sex were, and are, thought the superiors of insensible man.[26] Consequently her chief excellence in the opinion of her readers lay in that power to "command the throbbing Breast and watry Eye" previously recognized by the Volunteer Laureate and her other admirers. She could tell a story in clear and lively, if not always correct and elegant English, and she could describe the ecstasies and agonies of passion in a way that seemed natural and convincing to an audience nurtured on French romans à longue haleine and heroic plays. Unworthy as they may seem when placed beside the subsequent triumphs of the novel, her short romances nevertheless kept alive the spirit of idealistic fiction and stimulated an interest in the emotions during an age when even poetry had become the handmaid of reason.

But although Eliza had few rivals as an "arbitress of the passions," she did not enjoy an equal success as the "proxy of vindictive heaven." When she attempted to apply the caustic of satire instead of the mild balsam of moral tales, she speedily made herself enemies. From the very first indeed she had been persecuted by those who had an inveterate habit of detecting particular persons aimed at in the characters of her fictions,[27] and even without their aspersions her path was sufficiently hard.

"It would be impossible to recount the numerous Difficulties a Woman has to struggle through in her Approach to Fame: If her Writings are considerable enough to make any Figure in the World, Envy pursues her with unweary'd Diligence; and if, on the contrary, she only writes what is forgot, as soon as read, Contempt is all the Reward, her Wish to please, excites; and the cold Breath of Scorn chills the little Genius she has, and which, perhaps, cherished by Encouragement, might, in Time, grow to a Praise-worthy Height."[28]

Unfortunately the cold breath of scorn, though it may have stunted her genius, could not prevent it from bearing unseasonable fruit. Her contributions to the Duncan Campbell literature, "A Spy upon the Conjurer" (1724) and "The Dumb Projector" (1725), in which the romancer added a breath of intrigue to the atmosphere of mystery surrounding the wizard, opened the way for more notorious appeals to the popular taste for personal scandal. In the once well known "Memoirs of a Certain Island adjacent to the Kingdom of Utopia" (1725–6) and the no less infamous "Secret History of the Present Intrigues of the Court of Carimania" (1727) Mrs. Haywood found a fit repertory for daringly licentious gossip of the sort made fashionable reading by Mrs. Manley's "Atalantis." But though the romans à clef of Mrs. Haywood, like the juvenile compositions of Mr. Stepney, might well have "made grey authors blush," her chief claim to celebrity undoubtedly depends upon her inclusion in the immortal ranks of Grubstreet. Her scandal novels did not fail to arouse the wrath of persons in high station, and Alexander Pope made of the writer's known, though never acknowledged connection with pieces of the sort a pretext for showing his righteous zeal in the cause of public morality and his resentment of a fancied personal insult. The torrent of filthy abuse poured upon Eliza in "The Dunciad" seems to have seriously damaged her literary reputation. During the next decade she wrote almost nothing, and after her curious allegorical political satire in the form of a romance, the "Adventures of Eovaai" (1736), the authoress dropped entirely out of sight. For six years no new work came from her pen. What she was doing during this time remains a puzzle. She could hardly have been supported by the rewards of her previous labors, for the gains of the most successful novelists at this period were small. If she became a journalist or turned her energies toward other means of making a livelihood, no evidence of the fact has yet been discovered. It is possible that (to use the current euphemism) 'the necessity of her affairs may have obliged her to leave London and even England until creditors became less insistent. There can be little doubt that Mrs. Haywood visited the Continent at least once, but the time of her going is uncertain.[29]

When she renewed her literary activity in 1742 with a translation of "La Paysanne Parvenue" by the Chevalier de Mouhy, Mrs. Haywood did not depend entirely upon her pen for support. A notice at the end of the first volume of "The Virtuous Villager, or Virgin's Victory," as her work was called, advertised "new books sold by Eliza Haywood, Publisher, at the Sign of Fame in Covent Garden." Her list of publications was not extensive, containing, in fact, only two items: I. "The Busy-Body; or Successful Spy; being the entertaining History of Mons. Bigand … The whole containing great Variety of Adventures, equally instructive and diverting," and II. "Anti-Pamela, or Feign'd Innocence detected, in a Series of Syrena's Adventures: A Narrative which has really its Foundation in Truth and Nature … Publish'd as a necessary Caution to all young Gentlemen. The Second Edition."[30] Mrs. Haywood's venture as a publisher was transitory, for we hear no more of it. But taken together with a letter from her to Sir Hans Sloane,[31] recommending certain volumes of poems that no gentleman's library ought to be without, the bookselling enterprise shows that the novelist had more strings than one to her bow.

By one expedient or another Mrs. Haywood managed to exist fourteen years longer and during that time wrote the best remembered of her works. Copy from her pen supplied her publisher, Thomas Gardner, with a succession of novels modeled on the French fiction of Marivaux and De Mouhy, with periodical essays reminiscent of Addison, with moral letters, and with conduct books of a nondescript but popular sort. The hard-worked authoress even achieved a new reputation on the success of her "Fortunate Foundlings" (1744), "Female Spectator" (1744–6), and her most ambitious novel, "The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless" (1751). The productions known to be hers do not certainly represent the entire output of her industry during this period, for since "The Dunciad" her writing had been almost invariably anonymous. One or two equivocal bits of secret history and scandal-mongering may probably be attributed to her at the very time when in "Epistles for the Ladies" (1749–50) she was advocating sobriety, religion, and morality. These suspected lapses into her old habits should serve as seasoning to the statement of the "Biographia Dramatica" that Eliza Haywood was "in mature age, remarkable for the most rigid and scrupulous decorum, delicacy, and prudence, both with respect to her conduct and conversation." If she was not too old a dog to learn new tricks, she at least did not forget her old ones. Of her circumstances during her last years little can be discovered. "The Female Spectator," in emulation of its famous model, commences with a pen-portrait of the writer, which though not intended as an accurate picture, certainly contains no flattering lines. It shows the essayist both conscious of the faults of her youth and willing to make capital out of them.

"As a Proof of my Sincerity, I shall, in the first place, assure him [the reader], that for my own Part I never was a Beauty, and am now very far from being young; (a Confession he will find few of my Sex ready to make): I shall also acknowledge that I have run through as many Scenes of Vanity and Folly as the greatest Coquet of them all.— Dress, Equipage, and Flattery were the Idols of my Heart.—I should have thought that Day lost, which did not present me with some new Opportunity of shewing myself.—My Life, for some Years, was a continued Round of what I then called Pleasure, and my whole Time engross'd by a Hurry of promiscuous Diversions.—But whatever Inconveniences such a manner of Conduct has brought upon myself, I have this Consolation, to think that the Publick may reap some Benefit from it:—The Company I kept was not, indeed, always so well chosen as it ought to have been, for the sake of my own Interest or Reputation; but then it was general, and by Consequence furnished me, not only with the Knowledge of many Occurrences, which otherwise I had been ignorant of, but also enabled me … to see into the most secret Springs which gave rise to the Actions I had either heard, or been Witness of—to judge of the various Passions of the Human Mind, and distinguish those imperceptible Degrees by which they become Masters of the Heart, and attain the Dominion over Reason. …

"With this Experience, added to a Genius tolerably extensive, and an

Education more liberal than is ordinarily allowed to Persons of my

Sex, I flatter'd myself that it might be in my Power to be in some

measure both useful and entertaining to the Publick."

A less favorable glimpse of the authoress and her activities is afforded

by a notice of a questionable publication called "A Letter from H—

G— g, Esq." (1750), and dealing with the movements of the Young

Chevalier. It was promptly laid to her door by the "Monthly Review."[32]

"The noted Mrs. H— d, author of four volumes of novels well known, and other romantic performances, is the reputed author of this pretended letter; which was privately conveyed to the shops, no publisher caring to appear in it: but the government, less scrupulous, took care to make the piece taken notice of, by arresting the female veteran we have named; who has been some weeks in custody of a messenger, who also took up several pamphlet-sellers, and about 800 copies of the book; which last will now probably be rescued from a fate they might otherwise have undergone, that of being turned into waste-paper, … by the famous fiery nostrum formerly practised by the physicians of the soul in Smithfield, and elsewhere; and now as successfully used in treasonable, as then in heretical cases."

This unceremonious handling of the "female veteran," in marked contrast to the courteous, though not always favorable treatment of Mrs. Haywood's legitimate novels, suggests the possibility that even the reviewers were ignorant of the authorship of "The History of Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy" (1753) and "The Invisible Spy" (1755). Twenty years later, in fact, a writer in the "Critical Review" used the masculine pronoun to refer to the author of "Betsy Thoughtless." It is quite certain that Mrs. Haywood spent the closing years of her life in great obscurity, for no notice of her death appeared in any one of the usual magazines. She continued to publish until the end, and with two novels ready for the press, died on 25 February, 1756.[33]

"In literature," writes M. Paul Morillot, "even if quality is wanting, quantity has some significance," and though we may share Scott's abhorrence for the whole "Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy tribe" of novels, we cannot deny the authoress the distinction accorded her by the "Biographia Dramatica" of being—for her time, at least—"the most voluminous female writer this kingdom ever produced." Moreover, it is not Richardson, the meticulous inventor of the epistolary novel, but the past-mistress of sensational romance who is credited with originating the English domestic novel. Compared with the delicate perceptions and gentle humor of Fanny Burney and Jane Austen, Mrs. Haywood's best volumes are doubtless dreary enough, but even if they only crudely foreshadow the work of incomparably greater genius, they represent an advance by no means slight. From "Love in Excess" to "Betsy Thoughtless" was a step far more difficult than from the latter novel to "Evelina." As pioneers, then, the author of "Betsy Thoughtless" and her obscurer contemporaries did much to prepare the way for the notable women novelists who succeeded them. No modern reader is likely to turn to the "Ouida" of a bygone day—as Mr. Gosse calls her—for amusement or for admonition, but the student of the period may find that Eliza Haywood's seventy or more books throw an interesting sidelight upon public taste and the state of prose fiction at a time when the half created novel was still "pawing to get free his hinder parts."