The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood

by George Frisbie Whicher

CHAPTER III

THE DUNCAN CAMPBELL PAMPHLETS

Only once did Eliza Haywood compete with Defoe upon the same ground. Both novelists were alive to the value of sensational matter, but as we have seen, appealed to the reader's emotional nature from different sides. Defoe with his strong interest in practical life looked for stirring incidents, for strange and surprising adventures on land and sea, for unusual or uncanny occurrences; whereas Mrs. Haywood, less a journalist than a romancer, rested her claim to public favor upon the secure basis of the tender passions. In the books exploiting the deaf and dumb prophet Duncan Campbell, whose fame, once illustrated by notices in the "Tatler" and "Spectator,"[1] was becoming a little dimmed by 1720, each writer chose the kind of material that the natural propensity and previous experience of each had trained him or her to use with the greatest success.

Accordingly the "History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell, a gentleman who, though deaf and dumb, writes down any stranger's name at first sight, with their future contingencies of fortune: Now living in Exeter Court, over against the Savoy in the Strand," published by Curll on 30 April, 1720, and written largely by Defoe, devoted only four chapters directly to the narrative of the conjuror's life, while four chapters and the Appendix were given over to disquisitions upon the method of teaching deaf and dumb persons to read and write; upon the perception of demons, genii, or familiar spirits; upon the second sight; upon magic in all its branches; and upon the laws against false diviners and soothsayers. Beside showing the keenness of his interest in the supernatural, the author deliberately avoided any occasion for talking gossip or for indulging "persons of airy tempers" with sentimental love-tales. "Instead of making them a bill of fare out of patchwork romances and polluting scandal," reads the preface signed by Duncan Campbell, "the good old gentleman who wrote the adventures of my life has made it his business to treat them with a great variety of entertaining passages which always terminate in morals that tend to the edification of all readers, of whatsoever sex, age, or profession." Those who came to consult the seer on affairs of the heart, therefore, received only the scantiest mention from his biographer, and never were the languishing and sighing of Mr. Campbell's devotees described with any romantic glamor. On the contrary, Defoe portrayed in terse and homely phrases the follies and affectations of the dumb man's fair clients. The young blooming beauty who found little Duncan "wallowing in the dust" and bribed him with a sugarplum to reveal the name of her future husband; the "sempstress with an itching desire for a parson"; housekeepers in search of stolen goods; the "widow who bounced" from one end of the room to the other and finally "scuttled too airily downstairs for a woman in her clothes"; and the chambermaid disguised as a fine lady, who by "the toss of her head, the jut of the bum, the sidelong leer of the eye" proclaimed her real condition—these types are treated by Defoe in a blunt realistic manner entirely foreign to Eliza Haywood's vein. Some passages,[2] perhaps, by a sentiment too exalted or by a description in romantic style suggest the hand of another writer, possibly Mrs. Haywood, but more probably William Bond, in whose name the reprint of 1728 was issued.[3] But in the main, the book reflected Defoe's strong tendency to speculate upon unusual and supernatural phenomena, and utterly failed to "divulge the secret intrigues and amours of one part of the sex, to give the other part room to make favorite scandal the subject of their discourse."[4]

That Defoe had refrained from treating one important aspect of Duncan Campbell's activities he was well aware. "If I was to tell his adventures with regard, for instance, to women that came to consult him, I might, perhaps, have not only written the stories of eleven thousand virgins that died maids, but have had the relations to give of as many married women and widows, and the work would have been endless."[5] In his biography of the Scotch prophet he does not propose to clog the reader with any adventures save the most remarkable and those in various ways mysterious.

The "method of swelling distorted and commented trifles into volumes" he is content to leave to the writers of fable and romance. It was not long before the press-agents of the dumb presager found a romancer willing to undertake the task that Defoe neglected. Mrs. Haywood in her association with Aaron Hill and his circle could hardly have escaped knowing William Bond, who in 1724 was playing Steele to Hill's Addison in producing the numbers of the "Plain Dealer." Instigated perhaps by him, the rising young novelist contributed on 19 March, 1724, the second considerable work on the fortune-teller, under the caption: "A Spy upon the Conjurer: or, a Collection of Surprising Stories, with Names, Places, and particular Circumstances relating to Mr. Duncan Campbell, commonly known by the Name of the Deaf and Dumb Man; and the astonishing Penetration and Event of his Predictions. Written to my Lord—— by a Lady, who for more than Twenty Years past; has made it her Business to observe all Transactions in the Life and Conversation of Mr. Campbell."[5a]

"As long as Atalantis shall be read," some readers were sure to find little to their taste in the curious information contained in the first biography of Campbell, but Mrs. Haywood was not reluctant to gratify an appetite for scandal when she could profitably cater to it. Developing the clue afforded her by the announcement in Defoe's "Life and Adventures" of a forthcoming little pocket volume of original letters that passed between Mr. Campbell and his correspondents,[6] she composed a number of epistles as coming from all sorts of applicants to the prophet. These missives, however, were preceded by a long letter addressed to an anonymous lord and signed "Justicia," which was chiefly concocted of anecdotes illustrative of the dumb man's powers. Unlike the incidents in Defoe's work, the greater number of the stories relate to love affairs in the course of which one party or the other invoked the seer's assistance. Although the author was thoroughly acquainted with the previous history of Mr. Campbell,[7] she was evidently more interested in the phenomena of passion than in the theory of divination, A brief discussion of astrology, witchcraft, and dreams easily led her to a narrative of "Mr. Campbell's sincerity exemplify'd, in the story of a lady injured in the tenderest part by a pretended friend." A glance through the table of contents reveals the preponderance of such headings as "A strange story of a young lady, who came to ask the name of her husband"; "A whimsical story of an old lady who wanted a husband"; "Reflections on the inconstancy of men. A proof of it in a ruin'd girl, that came to ask Mr. Campbell's advice"; "A story of my Lady Love-Puppy"; "A merry story of a lady's chamber-maid, cook-maid, and coach-man," and so on. Evidences of an attempt to suggest, if not actual references to, contemporary scandal, are to be found in such items as "A strange instance of vanity and jealousy in the behaviour of Mrs. F—- "; "The particulars of the fate of Mrs. J—— L—— "; and "A story of the Duke of—— 's mistress." It is not surprising that "Memoirs of a Certain Island" appeared within six months of "A Spy upon the Conjurer."

When "Justicia" refers to her personal relations with the lord to whom her letter is addressed, her comments are still more in keeping with the acknowledged forte of the lady novelist. They are permeated with the tenderest emotions. The author of "Moll Flanders" and "The Fortunate Mistress" might moralize upon the unhappy consequences of love, but he was inclined to regard passion with an equal mind. He stated facts simply. Love, in his opinion, was not a strong motive when uncombined with interest. But Eliza Haywood held the romantic watchword of all for love, and her books are a continual illustration of Amor vincit omnia. In the present case her words seem to indicate that the passions of love and jealousy so often experienced by her characters were not unfamiliar to her own breast. Even Duncan Campbell's predictions were unable to alter her destiny.

"But tho' I was far enough from disbelieving what he said, yet Youth, Passion, and Inadvertency render'd his Cautions ineffectual. It was in his Hand-Writing I first beheld the dear fatal Name, which has since been the utter Destruction of my Peace: It was from him I knew I should be undone by Love and the Perfidy of Mankind, before I had the least Notion of the one, or had seen any of the other charming enough to give me either Pain or Pleasure…. Yet besotted as I was, I had neither the Power of defending myself from the Assaults of Love, nor Thought sufficient to enable me to make those Preparations which were necessary for my future Support, while I had yet the means" …(p. 13).

"Yet so it is with our inconsiderate Sex!—To vent a present Passion, —for the short liv'd Ease of railing at the Baseness of an ungrateful Lover,—to gain a little Pity,—we proclaim our Folly, and become the Jest of all who know us.—A forsaken Woman immediately grows the Object of Derision,—rallied by the Men, and pointed at by every little Flirt, who fancies herself secure in her own Charms of never being so, and thinks 'tis want of Merit only makes a Wretch.