The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza HaywoodWhicher, George Frisbie
General
The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood
Whicher, George Frisbie
Haywood, Eliza Fowler, 1693?-1756
If, then, a number of anecdotes in the "Secret Memoirs" are suggestive
of Mrs. Haywood's known writings, and if one of them remained in her
memory thirteen years later; if the pamphlet carefully alludes to Eliza
Haywood as one of the dumb seer's particular friends, and if it repeats
in slightly different form her peculiar account of the dumb projector's
journey into Holland; and if, finally, the book contains a series of
letters to Campbell from fictitious correspondents fashioned on the last
already used by her, we may conclude that in all likelihood the
authoress whose name had previously been associated with Duncan Campbell
literature was again concerned in writing or revising this latest work.
At least a cautious critic can say that there is no inherent
improbability in the theory that Defoe with journalistic instinct,
thinking that Campbell's death in 1730 might stimulate public interest
in the wizard, had drafted in the rough the manuscript of a new
biography, but was prevented by the troubles of his last days from
completing it; that after his death the manuscript fell into the hands
of Mrs. Haywood, or perhaps was given to her by the publishers Millan
and Chrichley to finish; that she revised the material already written,
supplemented it with new and old matter of her own, composed a packet of
Original Letters, and sent the volume to press. The origin of the
"Appendix, by Way of Vindication of Mr. Duncan Campbel" remains unknown,
and any theory about the authorship of the "Secret Memoirs" must be
regarded in last analysis as largely conjectural.[11a]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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