The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood

by George Frisbie Whicher

"For my dear Lord, I am sensible, tho' our Wounds have been a long time heal'd, there yet remains a Tenderness, which, if touch'd, will smart afresh.—The Darts of Passion, such as we have felt, make too indeliable an Impression ever to be quite eraz'd;—they are not content with the eternal Sear they leave on the Reputation …" (p.76).

These passages are in substance and style after Eliza Haywood's manner, while the experiences therein hinted at do not differ essentially from the circumstances of her own life.

The various aspects of love and jealousy are also the theme of the second and third parts of "A Spy upon the Conjurer."[8] The two packets of letters were merely imaginary, unless the pseudonymous signatures of some of the missives may have aided contemporary readers to "smoke" allusions to current gossip. At any rate the references are now happily beyond our power to fathom.

Apparently the taste for Duncan Campbell anecdotes was stimulated by the piquant sauce of scandal, for beside the several issues of "A Spy upon the Conjurer" a second and smaller volume of the same sort was published on 10 May, 1725. This sixpenny pamphlet of forty pages, entitled "The Dumb Projector: Being a Surprizing Account of a Trip to Holland made by Mr. Duncan Campbell. With the Manner of his Reception and Behaviour there. As also the various and diverting Occurrences that happened on his Departure," was, like the former work, couched in the form of a letter to a nobleman and signed "Justicia." Both from internal evidence[9] and from the style it can be assigned with confidence to the author of "A Spy upon the Conjurer." The story, relating how Mr. Campbell was induced to go into Holland in the hope of making his fortune, how he was disappointed, the extraordinary instances of his power, and his adventures amatory and otherwise, is of little importance as a narrative. The account differs widely from that of Campbell's trip to the Netherlands in the "Life and Adventures" of 1720.

Soon after the publication of "The Dumb Projector" Defoe also made a second contribution to the now considerable Duncan Campbell literature under the title of "The Friendly Daemon: or, the Generous Apparition. Being a True Narrative of a Miraculous Cure newly performed upon … Dr. Duncan Campbell, by a familiar Spirit, that appeared to him in a white surplice, like a Cathedral Singing Boy." The quotation of the story from Glanvil already used by the prophet's original biographer, and the keen interest in questions of the supernatural displayed by the writer, make the attribution of this piece to Defoe a practical certainty. Evidently, then, Eliza Haywood was not the only one to profit by keeping alive the celebrity of the fortune-teller.

The year 1728 was marked by the reissue of the "Life and Adventures" as "The Supernatural Philosopher … by William Bond," whose probable connection with the work has already been discussed, and by the publication in the "Craftsman"[10] of a letter, signed "Fidelia," describing a visit to Duncan Campbell. The writer, who professes an intense admiration for Mr. Caleb D'Anvers and all his works, relates how the dumb oracle, after writing down her name, had prophesied that the Craftsman would certainly gain his point in 1729. She concludes with praise of Mr. Campbell, and an offer to conduct Caleb to visit him on the ensuing Saturday. That the communication was not to be regarded as a companion-piece to the letter from Dulcibela Thankley in the "Spectator" (No. 474), was the purport of the editorial statement which introduced it: "I shall make no other Apology for the Vanity, which I may seem guilty of in publishing the following Letter, than assuring the Reader it is genuine, and that I do it in Complyance with the repeated Importunity of a fair Correspondent." The style of the letter does not strongly suggest that of "A Spy upon the Conjurer," though the concluding sentence, "Love shall be there too, who waits forever upon Wit," is a sentiment after Eliza's heart. And moreover, though "Fidelia" and "Justicia" may be one and the same persons, Mr. D'Anvers' assurances that the letter is genuine are not to be relied upon with too much confidence, for had he wished to praise himself, he would naturally have resorted to some such device.

The last volume relating to the Scotch wizard did not appear until 1732, two years after Campbell's death. "Secret Memoirs of the late Mr. Duncan Campbel, The famous Deaf and Dumb Gentleman. Written by Himself, who ordered they should be publish'd after his Decease," consisted of 164 pages devoted to miscellaneous anecdotes of the prophet, a reprint of Defoe's "Friendly Daemon" (p. 166), "Original Letters sent to Mr. Campbel by his Consulters" (p. 196), and "An Appendix, By Way of Vindication of Mr. Duncan Campbel, Against That groundless Aspersion cast upon him, That he but pretended to be Deaf and Dumb. By a Friend of the Deceased" (p. 225). The authorship of this book has received but slight attention from students of Defoe, and still remains something of a puzzle. No external evidence on the point has yet come to light, but some probable conclusions may be reached through an examination of the substance and style.

In the first place, there is no probability—the statement on the title-page notwithstanding—that Mr. Campbell himself had anything to do with the composition of the "Memoirs." Since the magician had taken no part in the literary exploitation of his fame during his lifetime, it is fair to infer that he did not begin to do so two years after his death. Moreover, each of the three writers, Bond, Defoe, and Eliza Haywood, already identified with the Campbell pamphlets was perfectly capable of passing off fiction as feigned biography. Both the author of "Memoirs of a Cavalier" and the scribbler of secret histories had repeatedly used the device. There is no evidence, however, that William Bond had any connection with the present work, but a large share of it was almost certainly done by Defoe and Mrs. Haywood.

The former had died full of years on 26 April, 1731, about a year before the "Secret Memoirs" was published. It is possible, however, that he may have assembled most of the material for the book and composed a number of pages. The inclusion of his "Friendly Daemon" makes this suspicion not unlikely. And furthermore, certain anecdotes told in the first section, particularly in the first eighty pages, are such stories as would have appealed to Defoe's penchant for the uncanny, and might well have been selected by him. The style is not different from that of pieces known to be his.

But that the author of "Robinson Crusoe" would have told the "little History" of the young woman without a fortune who obtains the husband she desires by means of a magic cake (p. 86) is scarcely probable, for the story is a sentimental tale that would have appealed to love-sick Lydia Languishes. As far as we know, Defoe remained hard-headed to the last. But Mrs. Haywood when she was not a scandal-monger, was a sentimentalist. The story would have suited her temperament and the tastes of her readers. It is told so much in her manner that one could swear that the originator of the anecdote was aut Eliza, aut diabola. A few pages further on (p. 104) appears the incident of a swaggerer who enters the royal vault of Westminster Abbey at dead of night on a wager, and having the tail of his coat twitched by the knife he has stuck in the ground, is frightened into a faint—a story which Mrs. Haywood later retold in different words in her "Female Spectator."[11] The "Secret Memoirs" further informs us by a casual remark of Mr. Campbell's that Eliza Haywood was well acquainted with the seer.