nally "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 Conversa