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 Passion 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 Passion, than the being uncapable of expressing it.” (p. 79.)

Oddly enough the early experimenters in fiction never perceived that to seem real a passion 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 circumstances, but they rarely succeeded in attaching the emotion to a lifelike character.  It was indeed passion, but passion 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 assaulted 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