too improbable even for the taste of readers steeped in melodramatic romances, for if we may judge by the few copies that have survived, these effusions did not enjoy a wide popularity.  But not to be discouraged by failure, Mrs. Haywood soon produced another extravagant and complicated romance, entitled “Cleomelia:  or, the Generous Mistress.  Being the Secret History of a Lady Lately arriv’d from Bengall” (1727).  The scene might equally well have been laid in the Isle of Wight, but Bengal on the title-page doubtless served to whet the curiosity of readers.

Gasper, secretly affianced to Cleomelia, is conveyed out of Bengal by an avaricious father to prevent him from marrying, and she, believing him unfaithful, gives her hand to the generous Heartlove.  Informed of the truth by a letter from her lover announcing his speedy return, she boards a ship bound for England, leaving her husband and lover to fight a duel in which Heartlove falls.  Meanwhile the heroine is shipwrecked, finds a new suitor in the ship’s captain, and hearing of her husband’s death and of Gasper’s marriage to a Spanish lady, marries the captain.  Hardly has he departed on his first voyage, when the still faithful Gasper returns to claim her, only to find her again the bride of another.  In despair he goes to England, and when her second husband is lost at sea, she follows to reward his constancy.

Cleomelia’s generosity does not seem to be as notable as the sub-title would indicate, but the story was evidently intended to illustrate virtues exalted to a high romantic level.

With the same end in view Mrs. Haywood attempted an even loftier flight into the empyrean of romance, with the result that “Philidore and Placentia:  or, L ’Amour trop Delicat” (1727) is more conventional and stilted than any other work from her pen.  It imitates closely the heroic French romances, both in the inflated style and elaborate regard for the tender passion, and in the structure of the plot with little histories of the principal characters interspersed at intervals throughout the story.  In substance the tale is simply a mosaic of romantic adventures, though some of the hero’s wanderings in the desert after being marooned by pirates and especially his encounter with the “tyger” sound like a faint echo of “Captain Singleton” or of Captain John Smith’s “True Travels.”

The noble Philidore falls in love with the rich and beautiful Placentia, but as his estate is no match for hers, he contents himself with entering her service in disguise and performing menial offices for the pleasure of seeing her.  One day she hears him singing in a grotto, and is charmed by the graceful replies he makes to her questions.  A little later he saves her from robbers at the expense of a slight wound.  She offers to make him groom of her chamber, but fearful of being recognized, he declines.  Finally she lays her fortune at his feet, but he has too much generosity to accept the offer.  Leaving a letter revealing his true rank and his poverty, he sails for Persia.  Some time later, the return of Placentia’s long lost brother, by depriving her of her fortune, puts her on a level with her lover.