n Campbell_. What connection, if
any, this book had with the fortune-teller or with any of the persons
connected with his biography appears not to have been determined.

[12]
G.A. Aitken, Introduction to _The Fortunate Mistress_, viii.

[13]
_The Fortunate Mistress; or, a History of the Life and Vast Variety of
Fortunes of Mademoiselle de Beleau_.... London: Printed for E. Applebee.
1740. p. 359. Pp. 300-59 are taken from _The British Recluse_.

CHAPTER IV

SECRET HISTORIES AND SCANDAL NOVELS

Some tentative experiments in the way of scandal-mongering may be found
in Mrs. Haywood's work even before the first of her Duncan Campbell
pamphlets. Many of the short romances discussed in the second chapter
were described on the title-page as secret histories, while others
apparently indistinguishable from them in kind were denominated novels.
"Love in Excess" and "The Unequal Conflict," for instance, were given
the latter title, but a tale like "Fantomina," evidently imaginary,
purported to be the "Secret History of an Amour between two Persons of
Condition." "The British Recluse" was in sub-title the "Secret History
of Cleomira," and "Cleomelia: or, the Generous Mistress" claimed to be
the "Secret History of a Lady Lately arriv'd from Bengall." The writer
attached no particular significance to her use of the term, but employed
it as a means of stimulating a meretricious interest in her stories. In
fact she goes out of her way in the Preface to "The Injur'd Husband" to
defend herself and at the same time to suggest the possibility that her
novel might contain references to English contemporaries. The defence is
carefully worded so that it does not constitute an absolute denial, but
rather whets the curiosity.

"It is not, therefore, to excuse my Want of Judgment in the Conduct,
or my Deficiency of Expressing the Passions I have endeavour'd to
represent, but to clear myself of an Accusation, which, I am inform'd,
is already contrived and prepared to thunder out against me, as soon
as this is publish'd, that I take this Pains. A Gentleman, who
applies the little Ingenuity he is Master of to no other Study than
that of sowing Dissention among those who are so unhappy, and indeed
unwise, as to entertain him, either imagines, or pretends to do so,
that tho' I have laid the Scene in Paris, I mean that the Adventure
shou'd be thought to have happen'd in London; and that in the
Character of a Fr