r in Flanders, has encountered fewer amorous and more military
adventures than usually fell to the lot of Haywoodian heroes. His
promising career under Marlborough is terminated when he is taken
captive by the French, but he is subsequently released to enter the
service of the Chevalier. He then becomes enamored of the beautiful
Charlotta de Palfoy, and in the hope of making his fortune equal to
hers, resolves to cast his lot with the Swedish monarch. In the Saxon
campaign he wins a commission as colonel of horse and a comfortable
share of the spoils, but later is taken prisoner by the Russians and
condemned to languish in a dungeon at St. Petersburg. After many
hardships he makes his way to Paris to be welcomed as a son by Dorilaus
and as a husband by his adored Charlotta.

In describing Horatio's martial exploits Mrs. Haywood may well have
learned some lessons from the "Memoirs of a Cavalier." The narrative is
direct and rapid, and diversified by the mingling of private escapades
with history. Too much is made, of course, of the hero's personal
relations with Charles XII, but that is a fault which few historical
novelists have known how to avoid. The geographical background, as well
as the historical setting, is laid out with a precision unusual in her
fiction. The whole map of Europe is the scene of action, and the author
speaks as one familiar with foreign travel, though her passing
references to Paris, Venice, Vienna, and other cities have not the full
vigor of the descriptions in "Peregrine Pickle."

From the standpoint of structure, too, "The Fortunate Foundlings" is an
improvement over the haphazard plots of Mrs. Haywood's early romances,
though the double-barreled story necessitated by twin hero and heroine
could hardly be told without awkward interruptions in the sequence of
one part of the narrative in order to forward the other. But the author
doubtless felt that the reader's interest would be freshened by turning
from the amorous adventures of Louisa to the daring deeds of Horatio,
while a protagonist of each sex enabled her to exhibit at once examples
of both male and female virtue. And in spite of inherent difficulties,
she succeeded to some extent in showing an interrelation of plots, as
where Dorilaus by going to the north of Ireland to hear the dying
confession of the mother of his children, thereby misses Horatio's
appeal for a ransom, and thus prevents him from rejoining Marlborough's
standard. But