The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood Part 3

This romantic turn of mind was not easily laid aside, but the women writers made some progress toward a more direct and natural representation of the pa.s.sions. The advance was due partly, no doubt, to a perception of the heroic absurdities of French fiction, but also to the study of Italian _novelle_ and the "Exemplary Novels" of Cervantes.

But even when imitating the compression of these short tales Mrs.

Haywood did not always succeed in freeing herself from the "amour trop delicat" of the romantic conventions. In two short "novels" appended to "Cleomelia: or, the Generous Mistress" (1727) the robust animalism of the Italian tales comes in sharp contrast with the _delicatesse_ of the French tradition. "The Lucky Rape: or, Fate the best Disposer"

ill.u.s.trates the spirit of the _novelle_.

Emilia, rusticated to Andalusia to escape falling in love, gives her heart to Berinthus, whom she meets at a masquerade. On her way to a second entertainment to meet her lover, her terror of a drunken cavalier induces her to accept the protection of the amorous Alonzo and paves the way for her ruin. Berinthus turns out to be her brother Henriquez.

Alonzo, his friend, marries the lady as soon as her ident.i.ty is discovered, and all parties are perfectly content.

Though the scene of "The Capricious Lover: or, No Trifling with a Woman"

is likewise laid in Spain, the atmosphere of the story is far different.

Montano, doubtful of Calista's affection for him, feigns to break with her, and she, though really loving him, returns an indifferent answer and marries Gaspero out of pique. The distracted lover thereupon falls upon his sword in the presence of the newly wedded couple, and the bride, touched by the spectacle of her lover's devotion, languishes and dies in a few months.

There is little naturalness in the extravagant pa.s.sion of the second story, but until sensationalism cloyed the public palate, realism was an unnecessary labor. By placing the events in some romantic country like Spain, Portugal, Italy, or even France, any narrative of excessive love could be made to pa.s.s current. The Latin countries were vaguely imagined by romantic novelists as a sort of remote but actual _pays du Tendre_ where the most extraordinary actions might occur if only "love, soft love" were the motivating force.

A collection of select novels called "Love in its Variety," advertised in 1727 as "Written in Spanish by Signior Michel Ban Dello; made English by Mrs. Eliza Haywood," was apparently a translation from the _novelle_ of Matteo Bandello, probably from a French version.[5] The best examples of her brief, direct tales, however, are to be found in "The Fruitless Enquiry. Being a Collection of several Entertaining Histories and Occurrences, which Fell under the Observation of a Lady in her Search after Happiness" (1727). Although the scene is laid in Venice, the model of this framework story was probably not the "Decameron" but the Oriental tales, known in England through French translations and imitations of the "Arabian Nights." Intercalated stories were not uncommon in French romances, but they were almost invariably introduced as life histories of the various characters. A fantastic framework, with a hint of magic, fabricated expressly to give unity to a series of tales, half exemplary, half satirical, points directly to an ultimate connection with the narratives of Scheherezade and Sutlememe. No attempt to catch the spirit of the East is discernible, but the vogue of Oriental tales was evidently beginning to make an impression on French and English writers of fiction. Care for the moral welfare of her readers doubtless influenced Mrs. Haywood to a.s.sert in the dedication to Lady Elizabeth Germain that the following "Sheets ...contain the History of some real Facts," and that the author's chief design in publis.h.i.+ng was to "persuade my s.e.x from seeking Happiness the wrong Way."

At any rate the moral of the stories suited the taste of the age.[6]

Miramillia, widow of a n.o.bleman in Venice, loses her only son, and is informed by a soothsayer that she will hear nothing of him until she has a s.h.i.+rt made for him by a woman perfectly content. She, therefore, seeks among her acquaintance for the happy woman, but one after another reveals to her a secret disquiet.

Anziana, married against her will to the Count Caprera, encourages her former lover, Lorenzo, to continue his friends.h.i.+p for her. Her husband and father, believing that she is about to prove faithless to her marriage vows, secretly a.s.sa.s.sinate Lorenzo, and cause his skeleton to be set up in Anziana's closet for an object lesson. When she discovers it, she refuses to be reconciled to her husband, and vows to spend an hour a day weeping over Lorenzo's remains.

On the night of his marriage Montrano is torn from the arms of Iseria by his cruel uncle and s.h.i.+pped to Ceylon. s.h.i.+pwrecked, he becomes the slave of a savage Incas, whose renegade Italian queen falls in love with him.

But neither her blandishments nor the terrible effects of her displeasure can make him inconstant to Iseria. After suffering incredible hards.h.i.+ps, he returns to see Iseria once more before entering a monastery, but she, loyal even to the semblance of the man, refuses to allow him to leave her.

Stenoclea's doting parents refuse to let her wed Armuthi, a gentleman beneath her in fortune, and he in hopes of removing the objection goes on his travels. Her parents die, her brother is a.s.sa.s.sinated on his way home to Venice, she becomes mistress of her fortune, and soon marries her lover. Completely happy, she begins to make a s.h.i.+rt for Miramillia's son, but before it is completed, a servant who had been wounded when her brother was killed, returns and identifies Armuthi as the slayer.

Through Miramillia's influence the husband is pardoned, but Stenoclea retires to a convent.

An adventuress named Maria boasts to Miramillia that she has attained perfect felicity by entrapping the Marquis de Savilado into a marriage.

She too undertakes the s.h.i.+rt, but in a few days Miramillia hears that the supposed Marquis has been exposed as an impostor and turned into the street with his wife.

Violathia endures for a long time the cruelties of her jealous husband, Count Berosi, but finally yields to the persistent kindness of her lover, Charmillo. Just as he has succeeded in alienating his wife's affections, Berosi experiences a change of heart. His conduct makes the divorce impossible, and she is forced to remain the wife of a man she loathes, and to dismiss Charmillo who has really gained her love.

Tellisinda, to avoid the reproach of barrenness, imposes an adopted boy on her husband, but shortly afterward gives birth to a child. She is forced to watch a spurious but amiable heir inherit the estate of her own ill-natured son. (Cf. footnote 2 at end of this chapter.)

Even unmarried ladies, Miramillia finds, are not without their discontents. Amalia is vexed over the failure of a ball gown. Clorilla is outranked by an acquaintance whose father has obtained preferment.

Claribella pouts because a man has shot himself for love of her rival.

Selinda mourns her lap-dog dead.

Just as Miramillia is ready to give over her search for a happy woman, Adario, her son, returns in company with a former lover of hers whose daughter he has saved from a villain at the expense of a wound from which he has but then recovered. Naturally the girl rewards him with her hand, and all ends well.[7]

Of the stories in this diversified collection that of Anziana approaches in kind, though not in degree, the tragic pathos of Isabella and the Pot of Basil ("Decameron," IV, 5). The second narrative has all the glamor of adventure in the barbaric East, and the romantic interest that attaches to lovers separated but eternally constant. The histories of Stenoclea and of Tellisinda contain situations of dramatic intensity.

But perhaps the story of Violathia is the most worthy of attention on account both of its defects and of its merits. The weakest part of the plot is the husband, who is jealous without cause, and equally without reason suddenly reforms. But the character of Violathia is admirably drawn. Unlike the usual heroine of Haywoodian fiction she is superior to circ.u.mstance and does not yield her love to the most complacent adjacent male. As a dutiful wife she resists for a long time the insinuations of Charmillo, but when she decides to fly to her lover, her husband's tardy change of heart cannot alter her feelings. Her character is individual, firm, and palpable. If the story was original with Mrs. Haywood, it shows that her powers of characterization were not slight when she wished to exert them. The influence of the _novella_ and of the Oriental tale produced nothing better.

From other literary forms the makers of fiction freely derived sensational materials and technical hints. Without insisting too closely upon the connection between novel and play, we may well remember that nearly all the early novelists, Defoe excepted, were intimately a.s.sociated with the theatre. Mrs. Behn, Mrs. Manley, Mrs. Haywood, and later Fielding and Mrs. Lennox were successful in both fields. The women writers especially were familiar with dramatic technique both as actors and playwrights, and turned their stage training to account when they wrote prose fiction. Mrs. Haywood's first novel, "Love in Excess"

(1720), showed evidences of her apprentices.h.i.+p to the theatre. Its three parts may be compared to the three acts of a play; the princ.i.p.al climax falls properly at the end of the second part, and the whole ends in stereotyped theatrical fas.h.i.+on with the marriage of all the surviving couples. The handling of incident, too, is in the fas.h.i.+on of the stage.

Mrs. Haywood had sufficient skill to build up a dramatic situation, but she invariably solves it, or rather fails to solve it, by an interruption at the critical moment, so that the reader's interest is continually t.i.tillated. Of a situation having in itself the germs of a solution, she apparently had not the remotest conception. When a love scene has been carried far enough, the coming of a servant, the sound of a duel near by, or a seasonable outbreak of fire interrupts it. Such devices were the common stock in trade of minor writers for the theatre.

Dramatic hacks who turned to prose fiction found it only a more commodious vehicle for incidents and scenes already familiar to them on the stage. In their hands the novel became simply a looser and more extended series of sensational adventures. Accident, though tempered in various degrees by jealousy, hatred, envy, or love, was the supreme motivating force.

The characters of Mrs. Haywood's "Love in Excess" also inherited many traits from the debased but glittering Sir Fopling Flutters, Mirabells, Millamants, and Lady Wishforts of the Restoration stage. Of character drawing, indeed, there is practically none in the entire piece; the personages are distinguished only by the degree of their willingness to yield to the tender pa.s.sion. The story in all its intricacies may best be described as the _vie amoureuse_ of Count D'Elmont, a hero with none of the wit, but with all the gallantry of the rakes of late Restoration comedy. Two parts of the novel relate the aristocratic intrigues of D'Elmont and his friends; the third shows him, like Mrs. Centlivre's gallants in the fifth act, reformed and a model of constancy. It would be useless to detail the sensational extravagances of the plot in all its ramifications, but the hero's adventures before and after marriage may serve as a fair sample of the whole.

D'Elmont, returning to Paris from the French wars, becomes the admiration of both s.e.xes, but especially in the eyes of the rich and n.o.ble Alovisa appears a conquest worthy of her powers. To an incoherent expression of her pa.s.sion sent to him in an anonymous letter he pays no attention, having for diversion commenced an intrigue with the lovely Amena. Though Alovisa in a second billet bids him aim at a higher mark, "he had said too many fine things to be lost," and continues his pursuit until Amena's father takes alarm and locks her up. Through her maid she arranges for a secret meeting, and though touched by her father's reproofs, she is unable to withstand the pleas of the captivating count.

Their tete-a-tete in the Tuilleries, however, is interrupted by Alovisa's spies, who alarm the house with cries of fire, so that the lovers find themselves locked out. Half senseless with dismay, Amena finds shelter in the house of Alovisa, who, though inwardly triumphant, receives her rival civilly and promises to reconcile her to her father.

D'Elmont is so patently glad to be relieved of his fair charge that she demands back her letter, but he by mistake gives her one of Alovisa's, whose handwriting she immediately recognizes. When the polite Count returns to enquire after her health, she accuses her lover and friend of duplicity, faints, and letting fall Alovisa's letter from her bosom, brings about an _eclairciss.e.m.e.nt_ between D'Elmont and that lady. Before Amena's recovery the Count hastens away to welcome his brother, and when the imprudent girl has been safely lodged in a convent, D'Elmont, moved more by ambition than by love, weds the languis.h.i.+ng Alovisa.

After his marriage the Count soon quarrels with his wife and consoles himself by falling in love with his ward, the matchless Melliora, but the progress of his amour is interrupted by numerous unforeseen accidents. The mere suspicion of his inconstancy raises his wife's jealousy to a fever heat. To expose her rival she pretends to yield to the persuasions of her wooer, the Baron D'Espernay, but as a result of a very intricate intrigue both Alovisa and the Baron perish accidentally on the swords of D'Elmont and his brother.

Melliora retires to a convent, and her lover goes to travel in Italy, where his charms cause one lady to take poison for love of him, and another to follow him disguised as the little foot-page Fidelio. In helping Melliora's brother to elope with a beautiful Italian girl, the Count again encounters his beloved Melliora, now pursued by the Marquis de Sanguillier. In a dramatic _denouement_ she deserts the Marquis at the altar and throws herself upon the protection of her guardian. The disappointed bridegroom is consoled by the discovery of an old flame who has long been serving him secretly in the capacity of chambermaid.

Fidelio reveals her ident.i.ty and dies of hopeless love, pitied by all.

The three surviving couples marry at once, and this time the husbands "continue, with their fair Wives, great and lovely Examples of conjugal Affection."

Such, with the omission of all secondary narratives, is the main plot of Eliza Haywood's first novel.

"Love in Excess" best ill.u.s.trates the similarity of sensational fiction to clap-trap drama, but others of her early works bear traces of the author's familiarity with the theatre. The escape of the pair of lovers from an Oriental court, already the theme of countless plays including Mrs. Haywood 's own "Pair Captive," was re-vamped to supply an episode in "Idalia" (1723), and parts of the same novel are written in concealed blank verse that echoes the heroic Orientalism of some of Dryden's tragedies. In the character of Grubguard, the amorous alderman of "The City Jilt" (1726), Mrs. Haywood apparently had in mind not Alderman Barber, whom the character little resembles, but rather Antonio in Otway's "Venice Preserved." And the plot of "The Distressed Orphan, or Love in a Mad-House" (c. 1726), where young Colonel Marathon feigns himself mad in order to get access to his beloved Annilia, may perhaps owe its inspiration to the coa.r.s.er mad-house scenes of Middleton's "Changeling."[8] On the whole, however, the drama but poorly repaid its debt to prose fiction.

An indication of the multifarious origins of the short tales of love is to be found in the nominal diversity of the setting. The scene, though often laid in some such pa.s.sion-ridden land as Spain or Italy, rarely affects the nature of the story. But as in such novels as "Philidore and Placentia" and "The Agreeable Caledonian" the characters wander widely over the face of Europe and even come in contact with strange Eastern climes, so the writers of romantic tales ransacked the remotest corners of literature and history for sensational matter. The much elaborated chronicle of the Moors was made to eke out substance for "The Arragonian Queen" (1724), a story of "Europe in the Eighth Century," while "Cleomelia: or, the Generous Mistress" was advertised as the "Secret History of a Lady Lately Arriv'd from Bengall." The tendency to exploit the romantic features of outlandish localities was carried to the ultimate degree by Mrs. Penelope Aubin, whose characters range over Africa, Turkey, Persia, the East and West Indies, and the North American continent, often with peculiar geographical results. But neither Mrs.

Aubin nor Mrs. Haywood was able to use the gorgeous local color that distinguished Mrs. Behn's "Oroonoko," and still less did they command the realistic imagination that could make the travels of a Captain Singleton lifelike.

Even when, as in "The Mercenary Lover," the setting is transferred to "the Metropolis of one of the finest Islands in the World," and the action takes place "in the neighborhood of a celebrated Church, in the Sound of whose Bells the Inhabitants of that populous City think it an Honour to be born,"[9] the change is unaccompanied by any attempt at circ.u.mstantial realism. We are told that Belinda of "The British Recluse" is a young lady of Warwicks.h.i.+re, that Fantomina follows her lover to Bath in the guise of a chambermaid, or that "The Fair Hebrew"

relates the "true, but secret history of two Jewish ladies who lately resided in London," but without the labels the settings could not be distinguished from the vague and unidentified _mise en scene_ of such a romance as "The Unequal Conflict." Placentia in England raves of her pa.s.sion for Philidore exactly as Alovisa in Paris, Emanuella in Madrid,[10] or Cleomelia in Bengal expose the raptures and agonies of their pa.s.sions. The hero of "The Double Marriage" (1726) rescues a distressed damsel in the woods outside of Plymouth exactly as one of Ariosto's or Spenser's knights-errant might have done in the fairy country of old romance. In the sordid tale of "Irish Artifice," printed in Curll's "Female Dunciad" (1728), no reader could distinguish in the romantic names Aglaura and Merovius the nationality or the meanness of a villainous Irish housekeeper and her son. And though the tale is the very reverse of romantic, it contains no hint of actual circ.u.mstance.

The characters in Mrs. Haywood's early fiction move in an imaginary world, sometimes, it is true, marked with the names of real places, but no more truly realistic than the setting of "Arcadia" or "Parthenissa."

Nor are the figures that people the eighteenth century paradise of romance more definitely pictured than the landscape. They are generally unindividualized, lay figures swayed by the pa.s.sions of the moment, or at best mere "humour" characters representing love's epitome, extravagant jealousy, or eternal constancy. Pope could make a portrait specific by the vigorous use of epigrams, but Mrs. Haywood's comments on her heroes and heroines are but feeble. The description of La.s.selia, for instance, contains no trait that is particular, no characteristic definitely individual. The girl is simply the type of all that is conventionally charming in her s.e.x, "splendidly null, dead perfection."

"But if the grave Part of the World were charm'd with her Wit and Discretion, the Young and Gay were infinitely more so with her Beauty; which tho' it was not of that dazzling kind which strikes the Eye at first looking on it with Desire and Wonder, yet it was such as seldom fail'd of captivating Hearts most averse to Love. Her features were perfectly regular, her Eyes had an uncommon Vivacity in them, mix'd with a Sweetness, which spoke the Temper of her Soul; her Mien was gracefully easy, and her Shape the most exquisite that could be; in fine, her Charms encreas'd by being often seen, every View discover'd something new to be admir'd; and tho' they were of that sort which more properly may be said to persuade than to command Adoration, yet they persuaded it in such a manner, that no Mortal was able to resist their Force." (p. 2.)

Mrs. Haywood's heroes are merely the masculine counterparts of her women. Bellcour, the type of many more, "had as much Learning as was necessary to a Gentleman who depended not on that alone to raise his Fortune: He had also admirable Skill in Fencing, and became a Horse as well as any Man in the World."[11] Victor over a thousand hearts, the Haywoodian male ranges through his glittering sphere, ever ready to fall in or out of love as the occasion demands. D'Elmont of "Love in Excess"

possesses a soul large enough to contain both love and fury at almost the same moment. A "brulee" with his spouse merely increases his tenderness for his ward.

"You have done well, Madam, (said D'Elmont, looking on her with Eyes sparkling with Indignation) you have done well, by your impertinent Curiosity and Imprudence, to rouze me from my Dream of Happiness, and remind me that I am that wretched thing a Husband! 'Tis well indeed, answer'd Alovisa, (who saw now that there was no need of farther Dissimulation) that any thing can make you remember, both what you are, and what I am. You, resum'd he, hastily interrupting her, have taken an effectual Method to prove your self a Wife!--a very Wife!-- Insolent--Jealous--and Censorious!--But Madam, continued he frowning, since you are pleased to a.s.sert your Privilege, be a.s.sur'd, I too shall take my turn, and will exert the--Husband! In saying this, he flung out of the Room in spite of her Endeavours to hinder him, and going hastily through a Gallery which had a large Window that look'd into the Garden, he perceiv'd Melliora lying on a green Bank, in a melancholy but a charming Posture, directly opposite to the place where he was; her Beauties appear'd, if possible more to advantage than ever he had seen them, or at least he had more opportunity thus unseen by her, to gaze upon them: he in a moment lost all the Rage of Temper he had been in, and his whole Soul was taken up with Softness.... Ambition, Envy, Hate, Fear, or Anger, every other Pa.s.sion that finds entrance in the Soul, Art and Discretion may disguise; but Love, tho' it may be feign'd, can never be conceal'd, not only the Eyes (those true and most perfect Intelligencers of the Heart) but every Feature, every Faculty betrays it! It fills the whole Air of the Person possess'd of it; it wanders round the Mouth! plays in the Voice! trembles in the Accent! and shows itself a thousand different ways! even Melliora's care to hide it, made it more apparent; and the transported D'Elmont, not considering where he was, or who might be a witness of his Rapture, could not forbear catching her in his Arms, and grasping her with an extasy, which plainly told her what his thoughts were, tho' at that time he had not power to put 'em into words; and indeed there is no greater Proof of a vast and elegant Pa.s.sion, than the being uncapable of expressing it." (p. 79.)

Oddly enough the early experimenters in fiction never perceived that to seem real a pa.s.sion must be felt by a real person. They attempted again and again to heighten the picture of envy, fear, ambition, rage, or love by all manner of extraordinary circ.u.mstances, but they rarely succeeded in attaching the emotion to a lifelike character. It was indeed pa.s.sion, but pa.s.sion painted on the void, impalpable. Consequently they almost never succeeded in maintaining complete verisimilitude, nor was their character drawing any less shadowy than in the sentimental romances of Sidney and Lodge. Compare, for example, the first expression of Rosalynde's love with the internal debate of Mrs. Haywood's Placentia.[12] Both are cast in soliloquy form, and except that the eighteenth century romancer makes no attempt to decorate the style with fantastic conceits, the two descriptions are not essentially different.

"[Placentia] was no sooner at liberty to reflect, than she grew amazed at herself for having expresd, and still feeling so uncommon a Concern for the Service she had received from Jacobin [Philidore]; he did no more, said she, than was his Duty, nay, any Man would have done as much for a Woman to whom he had not the least obligation, if distressed and a.s.saulted in the manner she had been--why then, continued she, does the action appear so charming, so meritorious from him?--'Tis certainly the surprize to find so much gallantry and courage in a Man of his mean birth, that has caused this disorder in my Soul--were he my Equal I should think it was Love had seized me, but Oh! far be it from me to debase myself so far--Yet, again would she retort, what can I wish in Man that is not to be found in this too lovely Slave?... Besides, who knows but that his Descent may be otherwise than he pretends--I have heard of Princes who have wandered in strange disguises--he may be in reality as far above me as he seems beneath.... The thought that there was a possibility for such a thing to be, had no sooner entered into her head than she indulged it with an infinity of rapture, she painted him in Imagination the most desperate dying Lover that ever was, represented the transports she shou'd be in when the blest discovery shou'd be made, held long discourses with him, and formed answers such as she supposed he wou'd make on such an occasion. Thus, for some hours did she beguile her Cares, but Love, who takes delight sometimes to torment his Votarys wou'd not long permit her to enjoy this satisfaction.... Reason, with stern remonstrances checked the Romantick turn of her late thoughts, and showed her the improbability of the hope she had entertained: Were he, cryed she, with an agony proportioned to her former transports, of any degree which you'd encourage his pretensions to my Love, he cou'd not for so long a Time have endured the servile Offices to which he has been put--Some way his ingenious pa.s.sion wou'd have found out to have revealed itself--No, no, he is neither a Lover nor a Gentleman, and I but raise Chimera's to distract myself ...but Ill [_sic_] retrieve all yet, Ill discharge him from my house and service--he is an Enchanter, and has bewitched me from my Reason, and never, never more shall he behold my face."

The normal character in Eliza Haywood's tales almost invariably conformed to some conventional type borrowed from the romance or the stage. The author's purpose was not to paint a living portrait, but to create a vehicle for the expression of vivid emotion, and in her design she was undoubtedly successful until the reading public was educated to demand better things.

On [Transcriber's note: sic] exception, however, to the customary conventionality of Mrs. Haywood's heroines ought to be noted. Ordinarily the novelist accepted the usual conception of man the pursuer and woman the victim, but sometimes instead of letting lovely woman reap the consequences of her folly after the fas.h.i.+on of Goldsmith's celebrated lyric, she violated romantic tradition by making her disappointed heroines retire into self-sufficient solitude, defying society. In real life the author of these stories was even more uncompromising. Far from pining in obscurity after her elopement from her husband, she continued to exist in the broad light of day, gaining an independent living by the almost unheard of occupation (as far as women were concerned) of writing. If she was blighted, she gave no indication of the fact.

Something of the same defiant spirit actuated the unfortunate Belinda and Cleomira of "The British Recluse" (1722).

Belinda, a young lady of fortune in Warwicks.h.i.+re, comes to London on business and meets at her lodging-house a mysterious fair recluse.

Imagining that their lots may be somewhat akin, she induces the retired beauty to relate the history of her misfortunes.

Cleomira upon her father's death is removed from the court to the country by a prudent mother. She does not take kindly to housewifery, and languishes until friends persuade her mother to let her attend a ball. There she meets the glorious Lysander, and in spite of her mother's care, runs away to join him in London. Her ruin and desertion inevitably follow. The sight of a rival in her place makes her frantically resolve to die by poison, but the apothecary gives her only a harmless opiate. Thinking herself dying, she sends a last letter to her faithless lover. When she awakes and hears how indifferently he has received the report of her death, she at length overcomes her unhappy pa.s.sion, and retires from the world.

Belinda then relates how her marriage with the deserving Worthly was postponed by her father's death. In the interim the captivating Sir Thomas Courtal has occasion to render her a slight service at the overturn of her coach, and fires her with a pa.s.sion which her mild esteem for Worthly is too weak to overcome. Courtal perceives and encourages her fondness, though he poses as Worthly's friend. She gives him an a.s.signation in a wood, where she is saved from becoming a victim to his l.u.s.t only by the timely arrival of her true admirer. In the duel that ensues Worthly falls, Courtal flees, and a little later Belinda goes to London in hopes of seeing him. At the playhouse she is only too successful in beholding him in a box accompanied by his wife and mistress. From the gossip of her friends she learns that his real name is Lord----, and from one of the ladies she hears such stories of his villainy that she can no longer doubt him to be a monster.

Worthly, meanwhile, has recovered from his wound and weds Belinda's sister. Lysander and Courtal prove to be in reality the same bland villain, the inconstant Bellamy. His two victims, sympathizing in their common misfortune, agree to retire together to a remote spot where they can avoid all intercourse with the race of men. "And where a solitary Life is the effect of Choice, it certainly yields more solid Comfort, than all the publick Diversions which those who are the greatest Pursuers of them can find."