A less comprehensive survey of current tittle-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 title 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 title-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 naïve appropriateness on the title-page:
"There is a Lust 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 passant 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 Manuscript."[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 classed as romans à 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 associates. The "key"[23] at the end identifies the characters with various noble personages at the court of George II when Prince of Wales. The melting Lutetia, for instance, represented "Mrs. Baladin" or more accurately Mary Bellenden, 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 illustrious 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.
[4] A. Lang, History of English Literature (1912), 458. See ante, p. 25.