Class i Book COP^'RIGHT DEPOSIT. THE MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 1663-1673 A MISSING CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL BY ERNEST BERNBAUM, Ph.D. INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH, HARVARD UNIVERSITY CAMBRIDGE HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD Oxford University Press 1914 ■PI? «^* COPYRIGHT, I9I4 HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS OCT 23 1914 S)CI,A387281 TO Le baron RUSSELL BRIGGS, LL.D., Litt.D. BOYLSTON PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ORATORY HARVARD UNIVERSITY CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE The Singular Life and Curious Biographies of Mary Carleton . i CHAPTER II The Carleton Publications of 1663 12 CHAPTER III The Minor Publications of 1673 33 CHAPTER IV " The Counterfeit Lady " a Fiction 45 CHAPTER V The Narrative Technique of "The Counterfeit Lady" ... 55 CHAPTER VI The Historical Significance of " The Counterfeit Lady " , . 78 APPENDIX A The Current Doctrine of the Rise of the English Novel. . 93 APPENDIX B Bibliographical Difficulties loi THE MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES CHAPTER I The Singular Life and Curious Biographies of Mary Carleton Two hundred and fifty years ago every Londoner had heard of the audacious adventuress Mary Carleton. To-day she is almost unknown ; and the only modern account of her, — that in the " Dictionary of National Biography," — is unreliable. Mary, whose father's name was Moders, was born in Canterbury in 1634 or 1635. She ran away from her first husband, a shoemaker, in 1658, married a second in Dover, and escaped punishment for bigamy only through the failure of her first husband to appear against her. She ran away again, — whither we know not; but in 1663 she stepped out of obscurity into almost national prominence. She appeared in London, took lodgings at an inn, and pro- fessed to be a high-born German lady, whose noble relations had wished to force her into a distasteful marriage. By the aid of forged letters from abroad, by a Hberal display of false jewelry, and by the possession of remarkable audacity, resourceful capabilities, and charm, she imposed successfully upon all that met her, and came to be known as the German Princess. A young student of the law, John Carleton, aided by his rapacious relatives, pretended to be a lord, and in April of the same year, 1663, won her affectedly reluctant consent to marriage. A few weeks after the wedding, the real circumstances of her past were discovered by the Carletons, and Mary was arrested for bigamy. 2 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES Several pamphlets thereupon satirized the pseudo-princess and her pseudo-lord; but many Londoners, including the susceptible Mr. Pepys, visited her in prison and remained assured of her innocence. At her trial, of which fortunately the record is preserved, the case against her was stupidly permitted to rest on one witness; for which reason, combined with her imperturbably confident bearing, the jury set her free. In triumph she published two pamphlets recording her fanciful version of her life's history, which her husband derided in two savage replies. As he cast her off, Mary was soon without funds ; and within a year we find her appearing on the stage and, strangely enough, acting the titular part in " The German Princess," a play satirizing the very fraud she herself had perpetrated. Thereafter nothing authentic is known of her for seven years, at the end of which she was transported to Jamaica for theft (February, 1671). From that exile she escaped, only to be caught again (December, 1672), and to be hanged for theft (January, 1673). Such are all the principal episodes of her career which, after careful study of contemporary publications, a cautious historian would consider credibly known. About this kernel of well attested fact, clusters a mass of assertions which may or may not be true. Very many biographical writings concerning Mary Carleton were pub- lished during her life-time and after her execution. They should interest the student of crime, of journalism, or of literary imposture. Above all, they need to be known, I believe, by future historians of English fiction ; for they serve to illuminate the course of the English realistic novel in its obscurest period. • That this important type of literature was begun, experi- mentally as it were, in the Elizabethan age, and that it flourished abundantly in the eighteenth century, is well MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 3 known ; but in the long interval it did not, according to the current doctrine, show distinct signs of life. In fact, most historians of literature, finding the EHzabethan attempts uninfluential, hold that realistic fiction begins with Daniel Defoe. It is Defoe with whom, according to Professor Raleigh, the novel (as distinguished from the romance) arises.^ It is Defoe who writes, in the opinion of Mr. Edmund Gosse, "the earliest great English novel"; and who deserves, in that of Mr. George A. Aitken, the proud title " the father of the Enghsh novel." ^ This does not mean that such authorities find no writers earlier than Defoe nearing ' the goal which he reached. Almost every modern manual of literary history notes signs of such approaches in Mrs. Behn and in Congreve, in Bunyan and in " The English Rogue." Moreover, so obviously interesting is the rise of one of the greatest branches of Enghsh hterature that investigators ^ have eagerly sought additional signs of its origin. Yet though their researches (surveyed in Appendix A of this study) have been minute, Defoe's reputation as an original genius, instead of being weakened by them, emerges apparently more secure than ever. Before his time, we are told, " the promise of the novel dissolved like a mirage." He remains " the founder of the novel," in the sense of being the first after the Ehzabethans to write a long fictitious prose narrative that is not an alle- gory, and that realistically and seriously recounts the actions 1 Walter Raleigh, The English Novel, 5th ed. (1906), p. 114. Cf. Wilbur L. Cross, The Development of the English Novel (1904), p. 27. ^ Edmund Gosse, A History of Eighteenth Century Literature (1889), p. 179. — G. A. Aitken, Introduction to " Robinson Crusoe " in " Romances and Narratives by Daniel Defoe " (1895), I, pp. xxv-xxvii. — Cf. John Dennis, The Age of Pope (1901), p. 191. — W. J. Dawson, The Makers of English Fiction (1905), p. 7. ' Especially R. P. Utter, in his unpublished Harvard thesis. The Origins of the English Novel (1906); F. W. Chandler, in The Literature of Roguery (1907); and Charlotte E. Morgan, in The Rise of the Novel of Manners (191 1). 4 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES of personages of the lower and middle classes. Such novels, scholars assure us with remarkable unanimity, were before him not attempted, least of all in the period from 1642 to his own day.^ Since in fiction itself no direct development toward the modern realistic novel has been found, historians have sought it in other literary types of the seventeenth century. " The influence that the century exercised on the growth of prose fiction," says Mr. Raleigh, " the foundations it laid for the coming novel, are to be sought, not in the writers of romance, but in the followers of other branches of literature, often remote enough from fiction, in satirists and allegorists, newspaper scribes and biographers, writers of travel and adventure, and fashionable comic playwrights. For the novel least of all forms of literature can boast a pure extrac- tion; it is of a mixed and often disreputable ancestry." ^ To complete the list of the novelist's predecessors, one should mention the writers of the character, of the familiar and the imaginary letter, of the conduct book, and of the moral essay.^ In many of these forms, the second half of the seven- teenth century developed traits recognizably similar to vari- ous elements of the coming novel. The prevalent theory is, then, that by observing such traits, — for example, the realistic expression of passion in " The Portuguese Letters " (1678), or the conversational vigor of Restoration comedy, — and thereupon combining them in a new way, novelists learned their art. Many traits that have a direct bearing on the work of Defoe are obviously to be seen in the biographies. Of such 1 Cf. Raleigh, The English Novel, pp. 85-86; and Aitken, ed. Robinson Crusoe, pp. xxv-xxvii. ^ Raleigh, p. 109. ' Raleigh, p. 113. — Cross, pp. 22-25. — Morgan, pp. 60-62, 66, 70-75, 89-91, 95- AL\RY CARLETOX N-\RRATrVTS 5 works the seventeenth centur>' was remarkably prolific ; and it celebrated in them persons of ever>^ rank of society, from princes and court beauties to adventurers and rogues. Some of these works, called secret histories, like '' The Amours of the Sultana of Barber}' " (1689) and Mrs. ^Ian- ley's " Queen Zarah " (1705), thinly veiled their personages under fanciful names, and appealed to the love of scandal; others, like " The Memoirs of ^Ille. de St. Phale " (1690) involved sectarian and political interests; still others, like Bunyan's " Grace Abounding '' (1666) dwelt chiefly on the spiritual meaning of Ufe. In all their variety, since they centered their narrative about one person, brought out his character, and recorded matters of fact, they might teach the writer of fiction unity of action, interest in characteriza- tion, and the graphic value of detailed incidents.^ But the most interesting models, because of the kind of career therein recounted, are the biographies of adventurers, rogues, or criminals; for just such lives were to be the favorite theme of the novels of Defoe. Indeed the present result of the search for the origin of the modem novel may be summed up in the words of ^Nliss ^Morgan and Mr. Raleigh: " Defoe cannot be classed with the writers of picaresque romances, for his narratives of roguer\' were developed from the popu- lar criminal biographies." " Realistic fiction in this country was first written by way of the direct imitation of truthful record." ^ The exact relationship of the criminal biography to the novel, though it would seem easily definable, raises questions which are as complex as they are important, yet which chance nowhere to be precisely answered by the authority on the literature of roguer>', ]Mr. F. W. Chandler. The general drift of his discussion, to be sure, is that an essential difference ^ Morgan, p. 62. ■ Morgan, p. 47. — Raleigh, p. 114. 6 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES between the biography and the novel lies in the latter being fiction and the former, fact. Yet some of the biographies, in his opinion, contained occasional fictitious episodes. " Where fact failed," he says, " fancy stepped into the breach, and many a jest-book anecdote or pleasing invention of the author's own came to be fathered upon hanged reprobates." ^ He casually mentions indications of the sort in the case of '' William Longbeard " (1593), " Gamaliel Ratsey " (1605), "The English Guzman" (1652), and "The Trepan" (1656).^ But he does not really examine or state the nature and amount of the supposedly fictitious matter until, pursu- ing the long line of biographies, he comes to Lucas's " Mem- oirs of Gamesters" (1714).^ In other words, the scholar who is probably more familiar with seventeenth century criminal biographies than any other, and who was the first thoroughly to appreciate their influence on literature, finds them radically different from the novel. " These produc- tions," he declares, " aimed and claimed to be veracious "; * and he consequently assigns to them, in " The Literature of Roguery," a separate chapter which includes such authentic accounts as Inspector Byrnes's " Professional Criminals of America," and which is entitled " Criminal Biographies," whereas he discusses Defoe's works in a chapter entitled " The Eighteenth Century Novel." Objections to so facile a classification soon arise. As everybody knows, not all of Defoe's supposedly fictitious narratives can be confidently denominated either absolute * Chandler, Literature of Roguery, p. 139. 2 Chandler, pp. 143, 148, 150. — There is a hint of incredulity in remarks (p. 153) concerning The Notorious Impostor (1692). But the suspicion is not acted upon. ^ Chandler, p. 171. * Chandler, p. 139. — The same opinion is implied in the statement, " English rogues of reality can boast a literature as ample as those of the imagination " (p. 139)- MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 7 fact or absolute fiction. " The Memoirs of a Cavalier," " Duncan Campbell," " Captain Avery," " Robinson Cru- soe " itself, have a groundwork of fact; " The Memoirs of Carleton " may be genuine; as to " Moll Flanders," " Colo- nel Jacque," " Roxana," and several others, much is in this respect assumed but nothing known. On the assumption that " The Apparition of Mrs. Veal " was fictitious, critics long used it as a favorite illustration of Defoe's marvelous power to make the purely imaginary seem plausibly real, — until Mr. Aitken's valuable researches confounded their speculations with the discovery that the story was sub- stantially true.^ The easy method of disbelieving in each and every case the solemn protestations of Defoe that he is not romancing, will evidently not do. Sometimes he lies, but sometimes he tells the truth; the real difficulty is to ascertain his moments of veracity. Add to that problem a legitimate suspicion that the amount of fictitious matter in the seven- teenth century criminal biographies is perhaps larger than supposed, and you have a Gordian knot which may not be lightly sundered but must be patiently untied. In approaching this complex situation, it is well to remind ourselves that the presence of considerable passages of true narrative, or of a groundwork of fact, has never been con- sidered to disqualify a work from being classed as a novel. " Robinson Crusoe " is known to draw largely on the experi- ences of Selkirk, and may incorporate more facts than at present beheved." " Pamela " is declared by Richardson to be in its main outlines based on a true incident. The experi- ences of Smollett, Sterne, and Fielding are frequently tran- scribed in their works of fiction. " The case of Gridley," 1 G. A. Aitken, The Apparition of Mrs. Veal, in The Nineteenth Century, XXXVII (1895), P- 95 ff- ^ Thomas Wright, The Life of Daniel Defoe (1894), pp. 164-174, 230-232. — G. A. Aitken, ed. Robinson Crusoe, pp. li-liv. 8 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES says Dickens in the preface of " Bleak House," " is in no essential altered from one of actual occurrence. " Of " Martin Chuzzlewit " he writes: " I wish to record the fact that all that portion of Martin Chuzzlewit's American experiences is a literal paraphrase of some reports of pubhc proceedings in the United States (especially of the proceedings of a certain Brandywine Association), which were printed in the ' Times Newspaper ' in June and July, 1843." Such instances are innumerable. What is essential to the novel is not the total absence of fact, but the presence of much fictitious incident, of at least an approach to unity and coherence of action, and of sufficient characterization and motivation to vitalize the whole. It is not to be expected, especially in the early days of the art, that even these elementary qualities should be highly developed ; sufficient evidence of the rise of the novel would be signs of an evident effort to invent incidents, to weave them together, and to motivate them. Are such discoverable in any criminal biography prior to Defoe ? Regarding the criminal biographies as fairly true accounts, Mr. Chandler of course does not consider the question whether indications of the novelist's art may be perceived in them. He speaks of " the direct and vital impulse given by the criminal biography to the making of the modern novel," but not with respect to the invention of imaginary plot and characterization. According to him the biographies helped the future novelist because they " furnished matter for literary exploitation "; they were " source books of realism, and their narrative method instructed great story tellers." On the other hand they were " intrinsically of small artistic value," and devoid of character study. Indeed the gulf between them and Defoe's novels lay in the fact that the latter contained invented incidents and drew character.^ ^ Chandler, pp. 181, 186-187. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 9 How may we ascertain more definitely the relation between the criminal biography and the novel ? The follies of criti- cism which sprang from a too ready disbelief of Defoe's assurance that " The Apparition of Mrs. Veal " was a true story, are sufficient to warn us not to judge a criminal biog- raphy fictitious because it chances thus to impress us. Mr. Chandler bases his occasional suspicions on the reappearance, in the biography of one criminal, of a trick previously re- corded of another; but, except where verbal borrowing can be shown, this test is unsafe. It is not only possible but common for rogues to foUow the practices of their predeces- sors, whether heroes of fact or fiction; and we do not usually disbelieve the newspaper accounts of a " gentleman burglar " on the ground that he seems to imitate the exploits of the fictitious Raffles. A better test, the comparison of several accounts of the same criminal, with a view to discovering discrepancies, is not employed by Mr. Chandler in the case of any work prior to 1 749 ; ^ and of course the question as to a work of that period may be whether the novel did not influence biography. This test furthermore, as well as any others, is with respect to the seventeenth century publica- tions seriously hampered by two circumstances. In the first place, owing to their ephemeral nature the extant narra- tives about one and the same criminal are in most cases few in number, — too few to permit us to ascertain by compari- son, with any reasonable degree of certainty, what is the true version of his career. Secondly, even when, as in the case of James Hind of Commonwealth times, as many as a dozen pamphlets have survived, the absence of any detailed legal or authentic documents to provide a basis of historical fact makes any conclusions highly speculative. Because in every other instance one is thus baffled, it is peculiarly fortunate ^ Chandler, pp. 166-168. lo MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES that the British Museum chances to preserve a collection of writings about Mary Carleton which is unusually large and varied, and which is not wholly lacking in legally recorded data. In them, if anywhere, we shall find, I believe, the clew to the origin of the realistic novel. The Mary Carleton narratives were more numerous than those concerning any other common criminal of her time. Some of them (bracketed below) are now lost, but of these the important ones were either wholly or largely absorbed in extant publications. Such bibliographical difficulties as they occasion are discussed in Appendix B, and a complete list of the narratives is given herewith : 1663 A news report and a burlesque advertisement in The Man in the Moon, no. 2 (c. May 12). [The Lawyer'' s Clerk Trapanned by the Crafty Whore of Canterbury] [A Westminster Wedding] The Great Trial and Arraignment of the late Distressed Lady, other- wise called the late German Princess. The Arraignment, Trial, and Examination of Mary Moders, other- wise Stedman, now Carleton, styled the German Princess. [John Carleton, A Replication.] The exact title is unknown. Mary Carleton, An Historical Narrative of the German Princess. [Mary Carleton, The Case of Madam Mary Carleton.] John Carleton, The Ultimum Vale of John Carleton of the Middle Temple, London, Gent. T. P., ^ Witty Combat: or, the Female Victor, a tragi-comedy, as it was acted by Persons of Quality in Whitson-Week with great applause. 1671 [Mary Carleton (pseud.). Letter from Jamaica to her Friends and Once Fellow-Prisoners in Newgate.] The exact title is unknown. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES ii 1673 Memories of the Life of the Famous Madam Charlton, commonly styled the German Princess. Some Luck, Some Wit, being a Sonnet upon the Merry Life and Un- timely Death of Mistress Mary Carlton, commonly called the Ger- man Princess. An Elegy on the Famous and Renowned Lady, for Eloquence and Wit, Madam Mary Carlton, otherwise styled the German Princess. [The Deportment and Carriage of Mary Carleton, alias the German Princess, immediately before and at her Execution, with her last Speech at Tyburn, being the 22 of January, 1672-3. And her Epitaph] [The Life and Character of Mrs. Mary Moders, alias Mary Stedman, alias Mary Carleton, alias Mary — the Famous German Princess.] J. G., The Memoir es of Mary Carleton, commonly styled the German Princess. [F[rancis] K[irkman], The Counterfeit Lady Unveiled, being a full Account of the Birth, Life, most remarkable Actions, and untimely Death of that famous Cheat Mary Carleton, known by the Name of the German Princess.] 1679 F[rancis] K[irkman], The Counterfeit Lady Unveiled, " the second edition corrected." 1714 Alexander Smith, The German Princess, a Cheat, Jilt, and Thief, in The History of the Lives of the Most Noted Highwaymen, Footpads, House-breakers, Shop-lift and Cheats, of Both Sexes, second edition, vol. I, pp. 236-257. — This is a summary of The Counterfeit Lady. 1732 The Life and Character of Mrs. Mary Moders, alias Mary Stedman, alias Mary Carleton, alias Mary — the Famous German Princess, being an Historical Relation of Her Birth and Fortunes, with the Havock and Spoil she Committed upon the Public in the Reign of King Charles the Second; together with her Tragical Fall at Tyburn on the 22nd of January, idyS, added by way of Appendix. " The second edition." CHAPTER II The Carleton Publications of 1663 For the purpose of this inquiry, we need ask concerning the Carleton pubHcations of 1663 only two questions. How reliable are they ? What light do they shed upon the jour- nalism of their time ? No confidence can be placed in the account of Mary's noble origin and romantic history presented in the two pam- phlets, " An Historical Narrative of the German Princess " and " The Case of Madam Mary Carleton," which she, aided by one or two professional writers, composed. Little faith, furthermore, may be taken in such obviously jour- nalistic productions as " The Man in the Moon," " A West- minster Wedding," or " The Great Trial," until they have been compared with more trustworthy documents. A reliable basis of fact is fortunately to be found in " The Arraignment, Trial, and Examination of Mary Moders, otherwise Stedman, now Carleton, styled the German Prin- cess." This pamphlet of sixteen pages, though probably not an absolutely accurate stenographic record of the court- room proceedings, and though not free from a few short passages of informal narrative and comment such as would find no place in a modern report, is evidently an official and impartial account of the trial. As such it has been received into the great " Collection of State Trials " by Howell and Cobbett, so that Mary makes her bow to Prince Posterity in the distinguished company of men like Sir Henry Vane and the Earl of Clarendon. The facts recorded in the " Arraign- ment " may, with some caution, be now and again supple- MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 13 merited by such statements concerning the marriage and trial in John Carleton's " Ultimum Vale " and Mary's " Histori- cal Narrative " as confirm one another and do not lie under the suspicion of being designed to exculpate their authors. Even with these guides it remains difficult to ascertain the precise truth among many details of the Carle ton affair; but it becomes possible, with some care, to discriminate between facts and falsehoods respecting the principal inci- dents. The first of the two chief episodes of 1663 was the marriage, the true account of which is fully as entertaining as the false. Early in the morning of March 31 (O.S.) of that year, Mary arrived at Billingsgate on the tilt-boat, or covered barge, from Gravesend, demurely clad in "an old black velvet waistcoat, black silk petticoat, and black hoods drawn over her face." ^ In company with a parson who was at- tracted by her, she passed several closed inns and came to the Exchange Tavern in the Poultry,^ where the host, one King, served the strangers some wine. Having dismissed the parson, whose attentions were growing ardent, she aroused by her apparent distress and solitary condition the sympathy of King; and confided to him that she was Maria van Wol- way, an earl's daughter, who had fled from the continent in order to avoid being forced into marriage with a count of eighty years, she herself being but nineteen.^ She had, she said, valuables in her charge, and desired secrecy, seclusion, and rest. She retired to her chamber until noon, then told her story to Mrs. King, and posted letters abroad to her friends across the Channel. ^ Historical Narrative, p. 7; Ultimum Vale, pp. 1-3. ^ The Man in the Moon, no. 2. — Cf. Boyne's Tokens, ed. Williamson (1889- 1891), I, p. 703. ' Ultimum Vale, p. 2. 14 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES At dinner next day, she met Mrs. King's brother, John Carleton, a youth of about eighteen and student of the law, who soon became enamoured of the romantic stranger. It appears, though John himself denies this, that after the first meeting he pretended to be of a higher station in life than he really was, and that his parents urged on what seemed to them an advantageous match with wealth and nobility. Certainly the courtship made rapid progress; and, though Mary used coyly to plead for delay, only about two weeks passed before the lovers were betrothed.^ The arrival of letters for Mary, seemingly from abroad, confirmed the gen- eral faith in her oft repeated story; and on Easter Sunday, April 19, the hastily arranged wedding took place, without a marriage license, at St. Bartholomew's church. The couple spent two days at Barnet; and, their license having now been procured, were on the twenty-first remarried in the same church. To establish them in a manner befitting the supposed rank of the bride, the older Carletons spared no ex- pense for fine clothes, handsome lodgings in Durham Yard, and equipages to drive in Hyde Park.^ A fortnight saw the end of this grandeur and gaiety.^ A friend of King's who had an acquaintance in Dover grew suspicious of Mary (why, we know not), and wrote to that town to inquire about her. In reply he received this letter : Dover, May the 4th, 1663. Sir: This morning I received your letter, dated May the 2nd instant, and accordingly have made inquiry. By what I can discover, it is a gentlewoman that is the greatest cheat in the world. She hath now two husbands living in this town, the one a shoemaker named Thomas Stedman, the other a chirurgeon named Thomas Day. She was born in Canterbury, her maiden name is Mary Modders, her father was a 1 Ultimum Vale, p. 20; Historical Narrative, pp. 9-10. 2 Ultimum Vale, p. 25; Historical Narrative, pp. lo-ii. ^ Ultimum Vale, pp. 24 and 27. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 15 musician belonging to Christ Church, Canterbury. She was lately in Dover Castle a prisoner, taken out of a ship bound for the Barbadoes, where she cheated the master of 50 pounds. If it be she, I am sorry for your friends' misfortune. If I shall refer you to Mr. John Williams his wife, who liveth near St. Saviour's Dock, Newstaires, near Redriff, she is the master's wife of the Barbadoes ship ; and if you can prevail with her to go to see her, she will give you full satisfaction whether it be she or no. I pray you send me a line of the appearance of the business, and the man's name that is married to her and his calUng; for it is reported a minister took her up at Gravesend. My respects to your- self and father. I remain, your loving friend. Confronted by the Carletons with this information, Mary calmly denied the charges. But, according to the Carletons, her jewels, which they now had tested, proved to be counter- feit. John himself, though his faith was shaken by the reve- lations, was still under the spell of her personality, and desired, if possible, to dismiss her without punishment, pro- vided this could be done without injury to his own reputation. The rumor of the scandal having, however, quickly spread, many angry persons descended upon Mary with violent denunciations to the effect that she had formerly victimized them, — among these the Mrs. Williams mentioned in the fatal letter, and a shoemaker who had known Mary when she lodged at Mrs. Williams' house. These enraged accusers were not convinced by Mary's invariable denial, " I do not kun-now you " ; but hurried her before Justice Godfrey, who, on May 6, the day after the letter had been received, com- mitted her to prison to await trial.^ The curiosity of the city, excited by this scandal, was speedily gratified by pamphleteers. Concerning one of their ^ Ultimum Vale, p. 27; Historical Narrative, p. 11. — Mary says that this letter was from a Mr. John Clay; Life and Character, p. 31. 2 Ultimum Vale, pp. 29 and 3$. — See also, in confirmation of the entire accoimt given above, The Arraignment, Trial, and Examination. i6 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES productions, now lost, all that is ascertainable is what Mary pungently says in her " Case ": That blasphemous lie (that I am of a most sordid and base extrac- tion in this kingdom, no better than the daughter of a fiddler at Can- terbury) was first broached in an anonymous libel entitled " The Lawyer's Clerk Trapanned by the Crafty Whore of Canterbury " ; but at whose instigation I could never tell, nor did I make inquiry; but at last spontaneously the roguery discovered itself at my being in custody near Newgate.^ It was the devil and necessity, she declares, that induced " a fellow of lewd and miserable infamy for such defamatory pamphlets " to write it; and she refused to " poison the eyes of the reader " by naming him. Another account of the affair, perhaps even earlier than the above, is still preserved, being contained in " The Man in the Moon." The second number of this scurrilous weekly journal reports events from May 5 to 12, and thrice refers to Mary. Though many people in the city believed her un- justly accused, the newswriter of this sheet did not scruple to condemn her without delay. Not that he has any sym- pathy for John Carleton: he delights in ridiculing all con- cerned, though he does not dare print their names. He opens with this offensive doggerel: Strange news from Dover now I do Intend for to repeat. ' Tis of a mob who lately did A London lawyer cheat. After ribald prose accounts of other happenings of the week, he presents, in about four hundred words, the Carleton affair. So far as the main facts are concerned, his report is fairly accurate; but regarding details it contains statements that, to say the least, seem loose. Whether these proceeded from 1 Life and Character, p. 13. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 17 his imagination, or from irresponsible gossip such as that of servants, neighbors, or acquaintances of those concerned, is mere surmise. Here is some of his news: She spoke Dutch, French, and several broken languages, telling them her estate was £12,000 a year, and that she had jewels about her worth £3000 more, and a coach with six Flanders mares besides store of coin coming over; with which his friends agreed he should marry her, which was performed on Easter Day, they buying her a gown of £55 to grace the day, besides other necessaries of great value, coaches being hired to carry them to Barnet, where they continued till Tuesday, feasting in such a nature that some who live by the pen will know the price for disbursement. As a matter of fact, John speaks at length in " Ultimum Vale " about her reiterated stories of her wealth and also about his expenditures on her, nor had he any reason to minimize either; and in the light of his statements the news- story appears a mixture of exaggeration and invention. £1500 is the largest annual income Mary seems ever to have alleged; ^ no such generous estimates as £3000 in jewels or £55 for the wedding gown are elsewhere discoverable; and the coach with the six Flanders mares was in all likelihood the invention, not of Mary, but of gossips or of " some who live by the pen." What may be even more confidently held imaginary, relates to Mary's arrest. This, as we have seen, was actually occasioned by a letter from Dover, after which disclosure several who declared themselves her former dupes, among them a shoemaker, ^ accused her of other frauds. " The Man in the Moon," however, has it: " She was discovered by a journeyman shoemaker, who wrought with her husband at Canterbury." How much more interesting than the ^ Ultimum Vale, p. 26. * Ibid., pp. 29-30. i8 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES truth ! The ingenious editor finally disposed of the affair by- placing at the very end of his paper a burlesque advertise- ment, of which the following passages illustrate the wit and sufficiently suggest the vulgarity: O yes, yes, yes! If any man or woman, in city, town, or country, can bring tale or tidings where the ship, pinnace, or vessel is landed that hath brought over the coach and sLx Flanders mares, with the jewels and money, belonging to the German Lady who cheated the London scrivener of a night lodging on Easter Eve last, let them bring word to the Gatehouse at Westminster, and they shall be rewarded when the scrivener receives her portion, with three flaps of a foxtail, . . . half an ounce of the vice of a swan, . . . with a pound of the honesty of a pettifogger. . . . Another vulgar journaHst, the author of " A Westminster Wedding" took the pains to versify his satire; and since Butler's " Hudibras " was the literary sensation of the hour, imitated its form though incapable of even distantly ap- proaching its wit. " A Westminster Wedding " is in part lost; but portions of it, amounting to over a hundred fines, are quoted in " The Counterfeit Lady " and adequately indicate its character. Like the account in " The Man in the Moon," it does not deviate widely from the truth about the more important incidents, but constantly adds pictur- esque details. According to it, for example, when the elder Carleton tried to induce Mary to sign over her property to John, she repfied as follows : " Sir," quoth the Princess, " I'll consult My pillow and give you result; But till I die I think not fit To part with state or wealth on^ bit. Besides, your son's to me but light wood And ha'n't received honor of knighthood, Though in regard of my high birth He 's called Lord, with cap to the earth. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 19 And judge, pray sir, when friends arrive, And see their princess scrivener's wife, Wil't not disparage high descent As garters in Rump Parliament ? " ^ The author gives a rather prominent place in the history of John's courtship to a mysterious rival or enemy, a supposed " foreign knight "; and to " The Man in the Moon's " state- ment that a Canterbury shoemaker betrayed her it adds the explanation that he " contrived rnalice in his horny pate " because, though Mary knew him, she " took no notice " of him.^ Mary herself, who, when " A Westminster Wedding " appeared, was still in jail awaiting her trial, justly called the satire " ribaldry " and " pitiful poetry "; ^ and we may as contemptuously dismiss it, for its modifications of her story are not numerous or important enough to be instructive. The trial and discharge of Mary did not put an end to the public curiosity about so extraordinary a person. Her acquittal, disconcerting to the Carletons, caused John to issue his " Replication," "* that is, his reply to the defendant's plea; and thereupon Mary, in two pamphlets, brought her cause, victorious in court, before the bar of public opinion. She was apparently not without hope that by laying the blame for the misunderstanding wholly upon the elder Carletons, and alienating John from his parents, she could revive in him his late infatuation. Hence, though she did not forbear to upbraid him vigorously, she struck an atti- tude of injured dignity and wounded affection, and strove to emphasize in her story those incidents that should manifest her nobility and innocence. She was, I believe, too keen not 1 The Counterfeit Lady, pp. 72-73. 2 Ibid., pp. 68 and 74. ^ Life and Character, p. 70. * On this lost work see Historical Narrative, p. 5; Life and Character, pp. 36-37; and Ultimum Vale, pp. i-n and 14. 20 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES to perceive that such an interpretation of her character would be more easily accepted if attention were not centered upon the dubious romance of her early life. In her first pamphlet, at any rate, though its title, " An Historical Nar- rative of the German Princess," seemed to promise other- wise, she was non-committal as regards her birth and breeding. " Whether I have that estate they dreamt of," she astutely said, " it is not material: I am not much to be blamed if I have it, and conceal it, since they have pursued me in that envious sort of which the world is witness." ^ Evading such matters, she devoted herself to a detailed explanation of how the Carletons, accrediting her with great rank and fortune, conspired to have John appear in her eyes a lord, and despite her protests hurried her in their blind haste into marriage. Important points of this story seem confirmed by the admissions of John Carleton, and such particulars as were false were doubtless not beyond the inventive ingenuity of Mary herself. Yet of some passages in the " Historical Narrative " Mary can hardly have been the sole author. It learnedly cites Diogenes, Themistocles, and ' a Spanish author I have seen " on the subject of detraction; likewise Valentinus Baruthius and Castaigneray on the obligation of knights to defend noble ladies in distress. It speaks exaltedly of truth, — "an amiable and delightful thing, it hath been no less my deliverer than it was my sanctuary; its precepts wiU I observe in this ensuing discourse." Who could doubt a lady who enhanced this high resolve by ac- companying it with an essay on truth that showed she had eagerly contemplated it in philosophy and history ? And here the philosophers Epimenedes, Chilo, and Anaxachus delineate the virtue; a priest of the reign of Augustus 1 Historical Narrative, p. 8. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 21 Caesar " that was famous for not telling a lie in his whole life," illustrates it; and one Pamphilus, of the time of Clau- dius, ^' that was upon good ground suspected never to have told the truth all the days of his life," and was consequently- denied burial, furnishes a horribly edifying contrast.^ Such passages, like the " encomiastic poem " with which the pamphlet closes, and in which Mary is favorably compared with Cleopatra, Thalestris, and other heroines, betray Mary's association with a journalist who saw in her notoriety a profitable opportunity. John Carleton angrily looked upon him as a " mite-witted pedantic coxcomb "; we may regard him as a press-agent. Such an one seems to have aided her in her first pamphlet, however, not by inventing or elaborating incidents for her narrative, but merely by endeavoring to make her appear a woman of noble temper and of learning. For that reason his additions are of less significance in our eyes than certain passages in her second pamphlet. " The Case of Madam Mary Carleton " followed '' An Historical Narrative " after an interval of about three weeks. During that time Mary's efforts towards reconciliation with her husband had proved fruitless, but she had a resource in the continued interest of the sensation-loving public. In fact, her second appeal to it was longer and more elaborate than her first. More than half of it, however, was occupied with an expanded version of " An Historical Narrative " and an amended reprint of " The Arraignment, Trial, and Exam- ination," — reissues with which we need at present not concern ourselves. What makes the " Case " important is that herein Mary, throwing caution to the winds, lifted the veil of vagueness from the mystery of her youth. Since she was to tell the story of a lord's daughter (though not, as she 1 Ibid., pp. 3-4, 6-7. 22 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES herself admitted, of a princess ^) , she presented it with pomp and circumstance, — dedicated to the noble Prince Rupert, embelhshed with the lady's portrait, and recounted in her loftiest manner. " I knew not," she proudly averred, " what belonged to vulgar and plebeian customs or conditions, and they that idly tax my discourses and behavior with mimic pedantry, know not the generous emanations of a right-born soul." ^ The effrontery of the performance was so great that it would have been self-evident and intolerable, had the style of the " Case " not been astonishingly well adapted to its ends. Indeed the work is so much more ably written than " An Historical Narrative " that I believe it must have been a new press-agent who gave literary form, if nothing more, to the story of Mary's youth. Precisely to what extent the knowledge and imagination of her scribe assisted the untutored ingenuity of the Canter- bury adventuress, is indeterminable. Certainly she needed no one to invent the outline of her story, — that she was born of noble German parents who died in her early infancy, was brought up in a nunnery, and was educated by an Eng- lish governess, — for this, as appears from the " Ultimum Vale," ^ she had maintained since the beginning of the imposture. But the " Case," like her former pamphlet, decks forth this bare statement with trappings that she her- self was most probably too uncultivated to supply. We are shown the full range of the studies of Marie van Wolway, daughter of the Lord of Holmstein. From her governess, " Mrs. Margaret Hammond, daughter of Sir Richard Ham- mond, of the North of England," she learned in about one year the " EngHsh tongue, that locked repository of so many excellencies." By " Giacomo della Riva, lately of London," she was taught Italian. (Let us hope that he was pleased by 1 Life and Character, pp. 15-16. ^ ibid., p. 12. ' P. 2. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 23 the advertisement.) As she justly says, no Enghsh spinster of even the best rank would be likely to know, as she does, " Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, English, and some- thing of the Oriental tongues, — all of which I pronounce with a Dutch dialect and idiom." Besides her severer studies, she enjoyed the " more facile pastimes of literature, romances, and other heroical ablandishments, being written for the most part in French." ^ Naturally she is not at a loss to justify her own enterprising journey by precedents from history and romance. " I am not single, or the first woman," she reminds us, " that hath put herself upon such hazards or pilgrimages; the stories of all times abound with such examples, enough to make up a volume. I might as well have given lustre to a romance as any, any, any, of those supposed heroinas." She alludes to the exploits of the princess of the north who was " knight errant in Italy and France," and of the female general who " followed the camp to the other world in America." She is too well informed to admit that her present predicament would be possible in other lands. In an acidulous manner, strangely like that of the modern feminist, she declares she has found false the proverb " England is a heaven for women "; for in her own country " the wife shares an equal portion with her husband in all things of weal and woe, and can liber intentare begin and commence and finish a suit in her own name "; and in Russia a bishop holds power only until his wife's death. Another illustration of the supposed author's knowledge is furnished by her scornful mention of " those punctual relations of Sir John Mandeville concerning things that were impossible." ^ To us the problem of special importance is not so much whether Mary's literary assistant supplied her with infor- ^ Life and Character, pp. 1-9, 17. 2 ibid., pp. 3, 14-15, 68. 24 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES mation and allusions, as whether he aided her in fictitious invention. It is a suspicious fact that signs of an education superior to her own seem clearly to appear in the relation of certain minor incidents which skillfully prepare her readers to accept an essential point in her story that otherwise would be strikingly improbable. The unsupported statement that a young woman of rank cared to leave her own country for the purpose of making a solitary journey to England, could hardly be considered plausible. But from the very outset of the " Case " circumstances rendering this credible are set forth prominently, and suggest a narrator who could draw on a fund of general information. Thus we are told that Cologne, the city of her birth, was one of the places where King Charles sojourned during the Commonwealth, and that Mary was in early life impressed by the extraordinary courtesy of the English gentlemen in the retinue of the royal exile. ^ We are led to understand how naturally her inclina- tion to visit their country was later strengthened, when, on leaving the nunnery, she went to the palace where Charles had dwelt at Cologne and met there the amiable English lady whom she invited to be her governess.^ Consequently we are ready to find it not wholly surprising that when cir- cumstances pressed her to seek a place of distant refuge she should turn to England. In explaining the immediate cause of her flight the " Case " departs, I believe, from the story she originally told the Carletons. To them she had intimated that her guardians were forcing her into a marriage with a gentleman of eighty years. In the " Case," no despotic guardians figure; she is an unprotected lady in distress fleeing from the distasteful and violent wooing of two singular gallants, who are graphi- cally described as follows: ^ Ibid., pp. 1-2. 2 Ibid., pp. 7-8. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 25 One was a old gentleman that had fair demesnes about Leige or Luyck, not many miles distant from Cologne, a man of serious gravity and venerable aspect for his gray hairs, but disfigured with some scars his youthful luxury had given him, . . . He accosted me the rude military way, for he had been a soldado, and had caught, as he said, that rotten hoarse cold and snuffing in the trenches of Breda in the brigade of Count Henry of Nassau in Spinola's army, and had after- wards served Monsieur Tilly against the King of Sweden, whom he had seen fall at Lutzen ; and therefore by no means must be said No, or denied his suit, since he had never known what a repulse meant in his life. The other was a young and pale student in the mathematics, chemistry, and magic, like a fellow here that pretends to be secretary to God and Nature, and had exhausted a plentiful estate and was like to be a second Dr. Faustus, and like my lord threatened either a con- tract with me or with the devil; for having lost his projection of the philosopher's stone, and decocted all his money and estate, his magical glass showed him me, who should by my fortune make him up again. In short, the one said he would storm and force me; and the other would make me yield or else he would set Archimedes his unexperi- mented engine at work to remove me with him into some imknown world, to which he added the efficacy of his spells and conjurations.^ At least some traits in the characterization of these worthies, being evidently beyond the range of Mary's own knowledge, may fairly be attributed to her able collaborator. Another work dealing with Mary, though it appeared later than the " Case," turned away from the romantic mystery of her youth and confined itself to the Carleton episode. The most interesting fact about this work, " A Witty Com- bat: or, the Female Victor," by " T. P., Gent," is that it is a play, and shows a dramatist of this time, like his Eliza- bethan predecessors, not insensible to the sensational value of a contemporary episode. Though it professes to have been " acted by persons of quality in Whitsun-week," 1663, ^ Life and Character, p. 11. 26 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES I do not believe it was then performed. Whitsun-week in 1663 ran from June 7 to 13; ^ yet no mention of the play is found in the "Historical Narrative," the "Case," or the " Ultimum Vale," which appeared respectively soon after June 12, late in June or early in July, and soon after July 7.^ Presumably it was published in the summer of 1663, and perhaps the words " acted by. persons of quality " ironically refer to the real participants in the affair. In the spring of 1664, to be sure, " A Witty Combat," then called " The German Princess," was staged, with Mary herself (who by then must have fallen on evil days) acting the lead- ing part; ^ but in 1663 it remained merely a printed publica- tion, having a journalistic purpose like that of " The Man in the Moon " and " A Westminster Wedding." To the evidence provided by the latter documents as to the free treatment of incidents, the play adds little. Except for some farcical horseplay between a drawer and a cellarman, it closely follows the events as recounted in Mary's " Historical Narrative." With respect to the characterization of the persons concerned, it is more independent. The amorous parson who accompanied Mary to the tavern is turned into a dissenting minister who whines in strains like these: " A glass of Malaga is very comfortable, yea, even unto the spirits, with a toast; it does regenerate and quicken much. . . . 'Tis sincerity of love I bear to strangers; . . . yea, we are all but strangers here, and therefore assuredly we should love one another, yea, so the word is, even as one another." •* An attempt at dramatic contrast is shown in 1 Good Friday that year fell on April 1 7, as one may see in the diary of Pepys, who records that because of the day " our dinner was only sugar sopps and fish." 2 Historical Narrative, p. 5; Ultimum Vale, introduction. ' Pepys's Diary, 15 April, 1664. — Cf. John Genest, Some Account of the Eng- lish Stage from 1660 to 1830, I, 51-53. * A Witty Combat, Act I, Scene 2. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 27 having King, the host, keep cautiously urging suspicions as to Mary, while Mrs. King eagerly accepts her pretenses, and advances the match with John; but the best strokes of characterization that the poor playwright can draw are silly reiterations by the couple, of phrases like " d'ye see." Throughout, the situation is treated as a ludicrous conflict between knavery and greed, in which neither Mary nor the Carletons deserve any admiration or pity but are one and all to be indiscriminately satirized. The last of the publications of 1663 to be considered is " The Great Trial and Arraignment of the German Princess," which is here reprinted because, even better than the other pamphlets, it illustrates the nature of journalism in those days. The true incidents of the trial are to be found in " The Arraignment, Trial, and Examination of Mary Moders," and are in the main the following. One James Knot of Canterbury, who had known Mary from childhood, identified her, and testified that he had given her in marriage to Thomas Stedman. The prisoner, speaking in her own defense, attributed the accusation of bigamy to the malice of the elder Carleton on failing to obtain her fortune, hinted that he had bribed witnesses against her, denied that she was Mary Moders, and declared Knot's unsupported testimony insufficient to condemn her. The court charged the jury to convict her if they believed Knot; but pointed out that if she had really been married previously, additional proof ought not to have been lacking. The jury thereupon brought in a verdict of not guilty. These simple facts are thus set forth in "The Great Trial:" It is not very strange to any of you all that here has lately been within the city of London a most prodigious project or wonderful cheat, betwixt the said supposed lady and her adopted lord, whose name I shall omit at present, for consequently it is or may be known 28 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES too evidently abroad this city of London. Where the fault lay, I know not, — my judgment is to stand neuter, — but as for their original acquaintance and including loves betwixt both in matters of holy writ and sacred bands of matrimony, I shall also forbear to de- clare, since for that from Mr. Carleton's hand himself satisfaction hath been given already. Therefore I shall only instance and declare the manner of her trial and the matter of her fact, accordingly as it was judiciously argued before the bench bar in the Old Bailey on Thursday last, in manner thus : Upon Thursday morning about nine of the clock, the said lady was brought from Newgate to the Old Bailey, conducted by two keepers and some other persons of eminency, where she was placed within the bar, that is to say, not in the bail dock. Being come to the place, she gave a reverend conge to the honorable bench, in such a grace and gallant deportment that several spectators of that honorable society did argue among themselves she could be no person of any low birth and parentage. She stood at the bar at least half a quarter of an hour, playing with her fan before her face, beholding the bench with a magnanimous and undaunted spirit. Oyes, and silence being made, her indictment was read, to which she gave great attention and marked every word verbatim. She was indicted in the name of Mary Carle- ton ; that was after the name of her later husband. The tenure of the indictment ran thus: that she had formerly two husbands, the one a shoemaker in Canterbury by name William Ford, and another at Dover. For which evidence her persecutors had but a letter to attest it; and as for the shoemaker she was charged withal, there was three witnesses, one whereof swore point blank that she had been married to him above nine years. The other two gave but small information, being daunted in the presence of the face of justice and more especially by her moderate and neat-limned expressions before the bench. John Carleton, her now husband, was the severer prosecutor against her; whether 'twas for money or no, I am not to judge, but it is no strange thing in such cases that corruption of bribes may take place before a bench of justice. But now I shall come to the point. When the indictment was read, she was commanded to hold up her hand and to say guilty or not guilty, to which she answered in a broken EngHsh, " Not guilty, my Lord." It was said again, by whom she would be tried. She an- MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 29 swered, " By the jury." And hereupon she drew off her glove and pointed to the most honorable bench, saying, " My Lords, I desire you to hear me patiently. Whereas there 's styled in my indictment an honorable contract in sacred bonds of wedlock with one Mr. Ford, a shoemaker in Canterbury, and that I was married to him nine years ago, and had two children by him, — to that, my Lord, I desire you rightly to consider, and also the worthy jury, that I am at this present but one-and-twenty years of age. Which by many circumstances I might argue it that law and nature would not grant it, though within this place it is not requisite to declare the reasons thereof; but accord- ing to my sex I shall beg pardon for the rehearsal." At which the grave senators admired her confidence, much more her prudence, and bade her speak on. At which words came in a bricklayer with a pretended interest that she was his wife, but providence or policy ordered it another way. There was a fair gentlewoman standing at the bar by her, much like unto her, to whom he addressed himself, saying, " This is my wife." To which the judge said, " Are you sure it is yours ? " And the old man, taking his spectacles out of his pocket looked her in the face again and said, " Yes, she is my wife; for I saw her in the street the other day." Then said the lady, " Good my Lord, observe this doting fel- low's words, and mark his mistake, for he doth not know me here with his four eyes ; how then is it possible that he should know me with his two ? " At which expression all the bench smiled. Again said she, " My Lord, and all you grave Senators, doth it stand anything in reason if you rightly behold my face that I should match with such a simple piece of mortality ? " Then the old fellow drew back, and said no more, at which there was a great hissing in the hall. And the lady all this while was silent, but steadfastly looking upon the bench with a most courageous spirit and a magnanimous countenance. If without reproof may I say it, she had within her cheeks a perfect vermilion. And after silence was given again, she said, " May it please the most honorable bench, and with the same words as Paul to Festus, I do beseech ye to hear me patiently." Which did very much argue with the bench that she was a person of no small education, and the proof of her most rare and neat accomplished deportment did also confirm the same. And therefore, leave being given her, she with a modest gesture and comely behavior leaned over the bar, constantly playing 3© MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES with her fan before her face, as a person without blot or stain, said, " My Lord, and all you grave Senators of this honorable bench, here are many witnesses come against me, who little or at least are not concerned in this my trial, are brought hither to testify against me. But whether it be through corruption of bribes, fear of foes, or favor of friends, I am not worthy to judge, though I am confident there is not a witness appears this day but what has taken his original from the depth of my prosecutors' purses. I hope the wise and judicious jury will in their own private consultations make a just inquiry in the very bottom of this unjust and tyrannical prosecution which here hath brought me to the bar — I hope — of justice." At these words the judge stood up, and very earnestly desired to know the place of her descent. She answered that she was born at Cologne in Germany, which is very well known to be a place of rare tutoring; and so it seems indeed, for the female sex of scholars in Athens hardly could go beyond her. Upon these words there were five witnesses did declare upon oath that they knew her of a child in Germany. The judge replied, " At what place ? " They said, " At Cologne," and indeed her broken English at the bar did very much conclude it. Then the judge asked what was the reason she came for England. She answered, only to advance her fortunes. The bench answered, 'tis possible a woman ought to endeavor for her own inter- est, where fortune, time, and place gave occasion for it. And thereupon they presently gave a censure that she came on purpose to cheat some person appertaining to the royal dignity. " No," said she, " I thought not to cheat anybody, though many went about to cheat me." " Why," said another of the bench, " what thought ye when ye married Mr. Carleton ? " To that she answered, " My Lord, if any cheat was in the business, they went about to cheat me, I not them; for they thought by marriage of me to dignify themselves and advance all their relations, and upon that account were there any cheat, they cheated themselves." These expressions made the bench something the more sensible of her condition, and thereupon the jury brought in their verdict of not guilty. And then began a great noise throughout the whole court, and most of it was to her great applause and brave acute wit. No proofs could be made that she had any other husband than Mr. Carleton, her now husband; by whom the bench by their wise and good discretions did MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 31 according to the laws of God and the laws of men, that he should keep her. And upon this indictment she said, " My Lord, though I am acquit from all these crimes which is falsely laid against me, what shall I do for my clothes taken from me ? " The judge said, " We ought not to look after that; you have now a husband to do it." Which words struck a great terror to the persecutors. So the bench acquitted her from all scandalous matters alleged against her, and she in a comely and modest behavior departed. In weighing the credibility of this account, it is not neces- sary to question the picturesque details in the description of Mary, whose confident bearing doubtless helped her to triumph. Obviously the " Great Trial " gives a false impres- sion by passing so lightly over the long and important testi- mony of James Knot. The speeches which it places in Mary's mouth are not authentic; her main contentions are not given, and her incidental remarks are distorted beyond recognition. She probably did not " answer in a broken English." That five witnesses swore they knew her as a child in Germany is a fivefold lie. A more ingenious false- hood is that concerning the old, near-sighted bricklayer. Such a person, as we know from the official report of the testimony of a minor witness,^ really sought to identify Mary as his wife, and blundered in the attempt; but this took place in jail before the trial. The clever author of the " Great Trial " not only elaborates the episode, but places it where it will be most astonishing and dramatic, — in the court-room during Mary's speech. In short, his account, apparently designed to make Mary a popular heroine, repeatedly sacrifices the true to the sensational. The pamphlets which we have examined will suggest to even a casual reader that the Restoration journalist some- times betrayed the traits of his modern, " yellow " descen- 1 The Arraignment, Trial, and Examination, testimony of Elizabeth Collier. 32 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES dant, — a malicious soul, a vulgar taste, and a lying tongue. To the student of the realistic novel, they have a deeper signi- ficance. Though Mary's exploit, compared with a political event or a great catastrophe, was unimportant news, five or six journalists thought their craftsmanship not wasted on so mean and domestic a theme. They relied on interesting, not so much the cultivated literary class as the common pubhc, — which, in the next century the real arbiter of literary suc- cess, came to support the vogue of the novel. To it some of them sought to appeal by casting about the accused woman the glamor of innocence in distress ; others, by satirizing both the deceiver and her victims. Their styles, which varied according to their purposes, ranged from coarse and incor- rect colloquialism to stilted and pedantic bombast, but now and then showed flashes of vividness. Yet even in the pas- sages which seemed most vivid, these writers were not always recording actual observation. As long as the incident recounted might be popularly interesting, they did not scruple in details to pervert the truth : they aimed, not to be veracious, but to seem veracious. In other words, they made it their business to gratify the love of wonder without alarming the sense of fact. The very art which the novelist was to practice at great length, they were trying in short and awkward flights. CHAPTER III The Minor Publications of 1673 Nine years elapsed before the career of Mary Carleton again became an attractive subject to a considerable number of writers. In the interval, the only occasion on which she even slightly reawakened public attention was in 1671, when she was convicted of theft and transported to Jamaica. There- upon appeared a little pamphlet, described by a contem- porary as follows: " In the time of her exile, we had a letter from her from Port Royal in Jamaica, to all her fellow sufferers in Newgate; wherein she, or the author that writ it, gives a drolling, romantic account of her voyage thither, arrival there, and several other fabulous fancies." ^ The reports in this letter of Mary's acts and feelings are meagre and unimportant; and the pamphlet interests us only as adding to the instances of journalistic invention that we have observed. Of greater value are the publications which appeared when Mary, having returned to England, was caught again, found guilty of stealing a piece of plate, and on January 22, 1673, hanged at Tyburn. This ignominious end called forth no less than seven publications. Three of these, — an account of her last days, and two verse satires, — are to us of little consequence. " Some Luck, Some Wit," termed a sonnet, is a crude verse satire in nine stanzas, and was composed before Mary's execution. It was probably based on the shortest of her biographies, the "Memories,"^ and with coarse merriment recounts some ^ The Counterfeit Lady, p. 179. — The letter itself may be found in The Memoires of Mary Carleton, pp. 54-63. ^ Issued, probably in December, 1672, by the same publisher as Some Luck, Some Wit, and recounting the same incidents. 33 34 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES of her alleged frauds on persons of various trades and pro- fessions, puns on each victim's occupation being the author's fixed idea of wit. Equally despicable is " An Elegy on Madam Mary Carlton," a mock lament in heroic couplets, surrounded, like elegies on the great, with a lugubrious black border. " The Deportment and Carriage of Mary Carleton immediately before and at her Execution," a prose pamphlet, gives, occasionally with vividness, circumstantial details of her last days; it mentions that Mary was attended by her sister, who here appears for the first time. More than a third of the work is occupied with theological remarks, sup- posed to be addressed to Mary by a gentleman concerned in her spiritual welfare, but perhaps reflecting the denomina- tional controversies of the day rather than the real thoughts of the condemned woman. Such seventeenth century prison tracts lie under a general suspicion of being untrustworthy, and the " Deportment and Carriage " is very likely not to be exempted therefrom; but since whatever falsification it may contain affects only one episode, the probably insoluble problem of the degree of its authenticity need not here be even attempted. What interests us now is not invention within a narrow compass, — for this we have sufficiently noticed in the journalism of 1663, — but invention that ranges more widely. Before examining whether sustained fabrication is to be found in the four biographies of Mary Carleton, it is well to consider what credible information as to her career may have been accessible to their authors. Perhaps some of the lesser publications of 1663 were no longer easily obtainable; but it is clear that the more important ones could still be had, for their aid is acknowledged and employed in the biographies. The comparatively trifling assistance of the " Letter from Jamaica" (1671), though this was regarded by some as a MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 35 hoax, was likewise at hand. Add to these documents the " Deportment and Carriage " (1673), and any news-sheets of December, 1672, and January, 1673, that may have reported Mary's last appearance ; and you have the printed materials that her biographers might draw upon. A large portion thereof, however, — namely the account of her noble birth and her romantic youth abroad, — was known to be false, and was consequently rejected by them. When the alleged impeccable young lady of wealth and nobility had shown herself willing to act in a play that characterized her an adventuress, and had presently sunk to the level of a petty and twice convicted thief, the faith which some persons had in 1663 placed in her narrative was of course irreparably destroyed. In place of the romance there was, to be sure, the true story; but even if one painstakingly sought for this in John Carleton's " Ultimum Vale," and in the testimony of James Knot at her trial, the discoverable data, though important, would be far less numerous and interesting than those which imagination had created. All the printed sources of accept- able information that biographers had on Mary's career before its final catastrophe, therefore, were certain rather meagre and colorless facts concerning her youth, the full and lively details of her imposture on the Carletons in 1663, and some trifling and dubious statements about her transporta- tion in 1 67 1. The gaps in her record from 1635 to 1663, from 1664 to 1671, and from 1671 to the end of 1672, were so large, and respecting the first two periods so difficult to fill from other than written sources, that one would not be sur- prised if the biographies had little or nothing to tell about her life during those intervals. The very first of the biographies, however, the " Memories of the Life of Madam Mary Charlton," which was apparently 36 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES hurried forth immediately after her death sentence/ is not silent on those previously unchronicled years. Indeed, it professes to set forth " the whole series of her actions, with aU their intrigues and subtle contrivances, from her cradle to the fatal period of her reign at Tyburn." ^ To the well known Carleton episode it devoted only three of its seventeen pages. Of Mary's enterprises between 167 1 and 1672 it reported only one, — the robbery of a young apothecary who believed her a rich citizen's niece. On her activities from 1664 to 167 1 it was discreetly reticent. But as to the days most. remote, from 1635 to 1663, it supplied new information that was extensive enough to occupy nearly one-half its entire space. The Canterbury musician's daughter, it had learned, had been a prodigy who at the tender age of five read perfectly. Ingratiating herself with the children of the rich, and admit- ted to their homes, she had begun to pilfer, — forming a habit which her mother, " after many a pitch battle," had come to regard as too profitable to suppress. At fourteen Mary succeeded in attaching herself to the company of a young lady who was journeying to France, where she remained four years, acquiring not only the language of the country but also a pert and self-confident manner. Her many wooers she systematically fleeced; and an unfortunate tailor who had paid her well for the pleasure of her society, she caused to be convicted of housebreaking. After a short period in Canterbury, during which she married a shoemaker, she returned to the continent. At Amsterdam, passing for the Duchess of Rumford, she cheated a jeweller, who found too late that a box, supposedly full of precious stones, which ^ Though its title-page intimates that the narrative extends to Mary's execution, " January 23, 1672 " (it really took place the twenty-second), it concludes with the sentence of death on January 17. ^ Title-page. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 37 she had left him as a surety, contained pebbles. Fleeing to London, she there married an old miserly bricklayer, and straightway ran off with his hoard of two hundred pieces of gold. Her last escapade before imposing on the Carletons, was to allure the son of a rich Kentish grazier, get the money he had received for his father's cattle, make him dead drunk, and sell him to the master of a Barbadoes ship. Not only does this narrative omit so essential a fact as Mary's bigamous marriage with Day, but it contains partic- ulars of her early adventures that stand in curious contrast to those previously noted in the publications of 1663. A close reader of the latter might observe the casual and brief mention of a few frauds that Mary was accused of having committed in her previous career; ^ but, except in the case of the deserted bricklayer, there is no resemblance between those tricks and the ones so fully described in the " Mem- ories." If we are to trust its author, therefore, we must credit him with the remarkable feat of securing in 1673 specific details concerning many of Mary's youthful crimes, only one of which her prosecutors in 1663, aided by the full light of the publicity of a scandalous trial, had been able to find. The author of " The Life and Character of Mrs. Mary Moders " was likewise a conqueror of difficulties. New information about Mary's youth, he did, to be sure, not venture to disclose. He reprinted, as the first and by far largest portion of his work, her " Case " ; and contented him- self with discrediting its romantic account of her origin by adding in his " Appendix " her dying confession that she was really Mary Moders of Canterbury and a bigamist. As to the last two years of her life, he could report more than the author of the " Memories." Besides the incident already ^ Life and Character, p. 34; Ultimum Vale, pp. 28-38. 38 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES related by the latter, — her fraud upon the young apothe- cary, — he could tell of her robbery of a fellow-lodger, a watchmaker, whom with their landlady she invited to the theatre, slipping away to rifle his rooms before the others returned; and also of her final capture by bailiff Fisher, who was searching a house for another criminal and by chance " unawares came upon her Highness, who was walking in her chamber in a rich nightgown, with a letter upon her table directed for one Hyde, a notorious robber, by which she was discovered." The especial achievement of this biographer, however, was to supply the wholly missing data of the long interval be- tween 1664 and 1 67 1. It now for the first time transpired that Mary, after her brief and inglorious appearance on the stage, had become the mistress of a Mr. Chamberlain, whom she presently robbed of his valuables and eluded. Then she pretended to be a wealthy young lady, and was courted by a gentleman named Woodson, whom she left the poorer by three hundred pounds. Establishing herself in a richly furnished lodging house, she arranged to have the funeral of one of her relatives take place therefrom, the landlady orna- menting the room where the cofhn stood with silver candle- sticks and other plate, all of which Mary stole the night before the appointed ceremony, leaving behind her the cofhn, filled with brickbats. In Lombard Street she bought silks worth twenty pounds, had them laid in her coach, and gave the slip to the clerk who was to ride home with her and get the money for them. On two weavers and a laceman in Spitalfields she played a similar trick. At another lodging house she invited the landlady to join a birthday party, to which " several of her sharping companions came richly habited," and at which the landlady partook so freely that she fell asleep and was easily robbed of silver and handsome MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 39 gowns. Besides committing many other successful thefts in London taverns before her capture and transportation, Mary " drew in and trepanned a young lawyer at Hesson in Middlesex of one hundred pounds." These incidents the author of the " Appendix," in four closely printed pages, related with the succinct precision of a good newspaper. Exhibiting a power to penetrate the obscurity of Mary's life which was second only to that of the author of the " Mem- ories," he managed to discover in the unknown period from 1664 to 1 67 1 some eight of her exploits; and even though several of these had occurred so long ago as nine years, he could usually name the localities where they took place and the persons victimized. A performance less remarkable for the novel disclosure of bygone incidents, is the third biography, " The Memoires of Mary Carle ton." Though longer than either of the others, it records little of the periods 1635 to 1663, and 1664 to 167 1. As to her subsequent career it offers some new particulars. It declares that on her transportation to Jamaica she was set at liberty as a reward for discovering a murderous plot against the captain of the ship that bore her thither. She employed her freedom on that island in scandalous living and profitable cheats. Journeying to Holland, she there fell in with some kindly persons who enabled her to take passage home and gave her letters of introduction to their English relatives. From the latter she stole ten pounds, frustrated pursuit by escaping through the back door of a tavern, and then undertook that series of tricks, including the already mentioned frauds upon the apothecary and the watchmaker, which led to her final arrest. Whence could the biographers have obtained their knowl- edge of all these hitherto unpubHshed incidents ? An interesting explanation on that point is offered by the follow- 40 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES ing remarks in the preface of the "Memoires": "The author had all the help and assistance imaginable to accom- plish this work, and that by order too. 'Tis true that the former part of her life is somewhat obscure, and taken up upon credit, though from persons of known integrity; the latter, more notorious and certain, being related by those who were eye and ear witnesses of her several particularized actions and discourses that are mentioned in this treatise." That a good many persons must severally have known vari- ous episodes in Mary's life is obvious. There were, for example, the witnesses at her last trial; in fact, the " Mem- oires" says that one of the defrauded landladies identified her in prison, and that the watchmaker whom she robbed " found her this last bout at the Marshalsea," adding that he " himself related the story " therein recorded.^ Then there were the witnesses at her trial in 167 1, and many of her other victims since 1664. There was both the criminal world, including her accomplices, and the police world. There was, perhaps, that mysterious sister of hers, men- tioned in the " Deportment and Carriage." If what all these knew could have been gathered, the minutest biography would not astonish us. We have forgotten the best informed "eye and ear witness," — Mary herself, — whom, indeed, the author of the " Memories " proclaims as his authority.^ The question, however, is not what these knew, but what they would tell. Large as the number of possible informants was, it is ante- cedently probable that they were in general not communi- cative. One of the biographers, the author of the " Life and Character," does not attribute his knowledge to any one of them. The other two refer specifically only to Mary, to a landlady, to a watchmaker, and to " the party that was also 1 Memoires, pp. 74, 83-87, 92. * Title-page. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 41 defrauded by her " after her return from Jamaica.^ Evi- dently they appreciated the value of something like a definite reference, yet the greater part of their information they either left unsupported by any reference whatever or vaguely attributed to " eye and ear witnesses." Curiously enough, they never thus allude to the bailiffs and turnkeys, who might well recall portions of the record of so interesting a criminal, and had comparatively little reason for refusing to talk about it. The number of Mary's victims who would tell anything was probably much limited by the fact that male victims of an adventuress, — especially such citizens of reputed respectability as, according to the biographers them- selves, were her prey in nearly every one of her important enterprises, — are strongly disinclined, even when revenge may thus be taken, to disclose to the public that they have had any kind of dealings with so scandalous a woman. An even greater danger of compromising themselves would tend to make reserved Mary's associates among criminals. The sister who is said to have comforted her last days, is not likely to have added to her notoriety by blabbing about her youth- ful misdemeanors. And as for Mary herself, since all the activities which her biographers in 1673 report for the first time are discreditable to her, she is unlikely to have disclosed them, except possibly in her dying confession, — and that, as given by the biographers themselves, did not contain them. She was not one of those criminals who incautiously vaunt their deeds. The shrewdly non-committal character of her " Historical Narrative " is noteworthy. Everyone that came to know her, whether in 1663 or 1673, was struck by her resolute denial of accusations, and by her evasive wit in turning leading questions aside. ^ 1 Memoires, pp. 74, 83-87, 92; Memories, title-page. ^ E. g., Ultimum Vale, pp. 30-33; Memoires, pp. 74 and 108; Counterfeit Lady, pp. ii and 203. 42 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES Yet these considerations do not make it impossible that some of the new matter in the biographies may really have been learned from the testimony of witnesses who had nothing to lose by coming forward, from the reminiscences of the police, or from the gossip of prisoners. That such information might be unreliable is nothing to the point; what concerns us is not whether the biographers were credulous but whether they were imaginative. And, with regard to a large portion of their contributions, this is something we shall never know. Take, for instance, the episode of the watchmaker. Here is an escapade which, though said in the " Memoires " to have been the one for which Mary was held in December, 167 2, Ms despite the court-room publicity which that would imply, apparently quite unknown to the author of the " Memories, " is certainly not the crime for which she was condemned, and is related in the " Life and Character " and the " Memoires " with singular differences regarding important incidents.^ It looks suspicious. Yet the alleged happening was recent, and was exceptional among Mary's frauds in that its two victims might fully testify in court, or talk to news-gatherers, without compromising themselves. What part, or what version, of it is true, if any, we have no means of ascertaining. We cannot test this occurrence, or the others between 1664 and 1672, by comparison with official records; for the court trials of Mary in 167 1 and in 1672-1673, unlike that of 1663, are not found reported. Other tests are inconclusive. That there are discrepancies between the testimony of James Knot in 1663 and the ac- count of Mary's youth in the " Memories," does not con- 1 Page 92. * Cf. Life and Character, pp. 73-74, and Memoires, pp. 83-87. — In the former Mary herself commits the robbery; in the latter, an accomplice. The maid's part varies; and both the locality and the stolen goods are differently described. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 43 clusively show that she did not do some of the things related in the latter, still less that all the contributions of the " Memories " are untrue. That several of her tricks, — like the one with the brickbat laden cofhn, — resemble those recorded in the earlier literature of roguery, would not pre- vent Mary from having actually imitated them. From every attempt to distinguish between fact and fiction we return, as in the case of the other criminal biographies of the time, thoroughly baffled. The presence of imaginary inci- dents we must suspect, and we may assume, but we cannot prove. If we did assume that much of the new matter really was fictitious, we should face the interesting question whether these three biographies might not be considered reahstic novels, — at least in a rudimentary stage of development. Two of them cannot be so regarded, because they are much too brief: the " Appendix " of the " Life and Character " contains less than twenty- three hundred words; the " Mem- ories," less than five thousand. The " Memoires," how- ever, might perhaps not be excluded from consideration on the ground of brevity. It is twenty thousand words in length, longer than Mrs. Behn's " The Fair Jilt," and only slightly shorter than her "Oroonoko"; and its scale of presentation is thus large enough to allow sufficient detail in the treatment of those episodes, possibly invented, which deal with Mary's career after her escape from Jamaica. Though the " Memoires " is the longest of the three biog- raphies, it contains, as I have already remarked, propor- tionately the least amount of new matter; and the added episodes are too few in number to give to the whole the gen- eral character of a work of fiction. Conversely, though in the " Memories " and the " Appendix " the new incidents are relatively numerous, the narrow limits of those works prevent 44 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES that fullness of treatment expected in even a short novel. Other essential qualities of fiction are likewise absent. There is little or no effort to link together the parts of the action; the seven new escapades in the " Appendix," for example, are so unrelated to one another that their arrangement seems almost haphazard. The motivation and characterization are, in all cases, of the vaguest. The " Memoires," in this important respect less deficient than the other two narratives, intersperses frequent satiric comment on Mary's conduct; but even herein there is next to no endeavor to imagine and describe her thoughts and feelings. Thus, even after assuming that portions of these biogra- phies are fictitious, we should be forced to conclude that at this time the real art of fiction was confined to the romance ; and that, though some authors might be trying to write novels of common life, they did not know how to do so. And this conclusion, which simply confirms what is generally accepted, would be built on a mere hypothesis; for, though these biographies may at times read suspiciously like fabri- cations, they cannot be satisfactorily proved to be, in the main, other than the truthful narratives they profess to be. It is this perplexing situation which gives peculiar value to the fourth biography of Mary Carleton. CHAPTER IV "The Counterfeit Lady" A Fiction The author of " The Counterfeit Lady," Francis Kirkman, repeatedly assures us of the exceptional diligence, caution, and accuracy with which he has composed this biography of Mary Carleton. He writes as follows: You have had some account of her by books already printed, but I think as this is the last so it is the best. ... If I should promise to give you a true account of her whole life, I should deceive you; for how can truth be discovered of her who was wholly composed of falsehood ? But that I might not err from the truth in what I shall relate to you, I have took some pains to gain intelligence. Some I had from herself, some from those who were considerably concerned with her, and some from Mr. John Carleton, her unfortunate husband; and what I could not gather from these informations, I have supplied by books which have been formerly written of her, both in defense and against her. And I have carried so even a hand in my belief of what I read, that I hope I shall do her no wrong in misrepresenting anything of her.^ . That Kirkman did not wish aU of his information to be con- sidered indirect is evident not only from the above words but from such phrases as these, which appear in various passages of his book: " as they expressed themselves to me," " from one of them I had it," " they lately gave me this account of their misfortunes," and " her husband Carleton told me within these few days." ^ He says or insinuates that he has interviewed, besides Mary and John, " those that knew her when young," some of those who professed to have been her lovers, and several of her victims between 1664 and 1673.^ ^ The Counterfeit Lady, preface and pp. 3-4. * Ibid., pp. 74, 89, 118, 154. Cf. pp. IS, 76-77, 95, 107, 210. ' Ibid., pp. ix, 89, 107-108, 118, 154 (the figures for the pages of the preface, which are unnumbered in the book, are my own). 45 46 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES None of his predecessors professes to know so many witnesses of Mary's career. If Kirkman actually was so inquisitive, and so fortunate, as to make the acquaintance of all these authorities, we should expect him to report many previously untold inci- dents. But if for the moment we disregard what he may have learned from Mary herself, we cannot consider that his extensive inquiries were rewarded with valuable discoveries. From " those that knew her when she was young," he learned the titles of the romances she had read; and from " several idle fellows " who had wooed her, he elicited testimony fav- orable to her reputation: but even these pieces of informa- tion were not surprisingly novel, for the " Memories " had mentioned her precocity as a reader, and the "Appendix" John Carleton's opinion that she was no common prostitute.^ With those two somewhat doubtful exceptions, Kirkman's informants gave him apparently no fresh knowledge of any important event in Mary's career. Further details about already recorded episodes they might give him, but that was all. It is decidedly significant that their versions of these episodes employ the phraseology of the already published accounts, as is shown, for example, in the following cases : ^ Appendix, p. 71 Counterfeit Lady, p. 89 Many of those who rejoiced at Many of those that were now her acquittal and deliverance so glad, had little cause for it from prison, had little cause for afterwards; for I know some that it afterwards, as will appear by were then there present, and the sequel; for some who had were, as they expressed them- even visited her with congratula- selves to me, mighty well pleased 1 Ibid., pp. 9, 107-108; Memories, p. 4; Appendix, p. 72. — Her Case (Life and Character, p. 9) speaks of her reading romances. All of the five romances Kirkman names are in the list recommended by him in his preface to his transla- tion of Don Bellianis of Greece (1664-1673), See also his Unlucky Citizen (1673), p. 13 ff. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 47 tions at her lodgings, were the very persons not long after cheated by her of a considerable quantity of plate; and then they cursed her, as now they magnified her for a great wit, beauty, and brave woman. Appendix, p. 72 Not to belie her, she was not yet much guilty of the crime of incontinency. Her husband Carleton often saying that he did not at all believe her to be en- joyed by everyone that courted her, that she had no great incli- nation that way. that the German Princess had come off so well, these very per- sons were not long after cheated by her of a considerable quantity of plate; and then they cursed her as much as now they magni- fied her for a great wit and brave woman. Counterfeit Lady, p. 107 Not to belie her, she was not yet much guilty of that crime of incontinency. Her husband Carleton told me that he did not at all believe her to be en- joyed by everyone that courted her, that she had no great incli- nation that way, and if she did, it was not with any that brought their half crown, crown or half a piece, it must be greater kind- nesses than these and some con- siderable acquaintance and knowl- edge of the party. Such instances, more of which will appear in the course of this discussion, combined with the unoriginal character of the information, lead us gravely to distrust Kirkman's ascription of his knowledge to personal interviews with Mary's acquaintances and victims. Only Mary herself could have communicated to Kirkman some of the interesting matters he pretends to know, — especially her emotions, thoughts, and motives, on various occasions during her career.^ Doubtless he, like many others, went to see Mary in prison; but that he wormed so much private and damaging information out of her as appears in " The Counterfeit Lady," is very unlikely. Even for an ^ E. g., Counterfeit Lady, p. 112. 48 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES habitual criminal she was, as I have remarked already, unusually close-mouthed. On this point Kirkman himself says: " She was too cunning to confess anything that might turn to her damage," and " Had she given any account her- self of her actions, she could best have done it; but as she acted them with all privacy, so she desired to conceal them, and she would never answer any particular question, nor would she own any particular action: if any told her they had heard she had twenty husbands, and desired to know the truth, she would answer that she had been told she had fifty, but would not answer punctually to any question." ^ He neglected, however, to explain why a woman of such marked discretion should furnish him with extraordinarily confiden- tial information. Had he professed less knowledge of her devious purposes, we might believe him more. In addition to these dubious relations with his alleged informants, there are other grounds for doubting Kirkman. The " Appendix," as we have seen, recounts about eight of Mary's escapades between 1664 and 1671; but it does not indicate whether they are all arranged in the order of their occurrence; nor, what is more important, does it show that they had any connection with one another. When, for example, it has told how Mary cheated two weavers and a laceman out of some goods, it abruptly goes on to tell how she robbed a mantua-maker " where she once lodged." One might transpose any of the incidents without noticeable effect on the account as a whole. But in " The Counterfeit Lady " this would be impossible. The order of the incidents remains precisely as in the " Appendix," but now each of them appears causally connected with the following. It is because Mary has stolen goods on her hands that she seeks lodgings at a tailor's, for there she may have them made into ' Ibid., pp. 203 and ii. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 49 a dress. (The episodes are vouched for in the character- istic statement, " Reader, let me tell you and assure you that the three last adventures, two whereof were with the weaver, and the third and last with the tailor, are certainly true; for they are both my relations, and lately gave me this account of their misfortunes." ) ^ If the eight incidents first chronicled in the *' Appendix " really occurred in pre- cisely the order that in *' The Counterfeit Lady " has become fixed, and if they thus led one to the other, it is more than strange that the author of the " Appendix," though appar- ently unconscious of their relationship, placed them correctly. Were the case against Kirkman's veracity to rest at this point, it might be said in his defense that the facts adduced, though highly suspicious, do not incontestably demonstrate deliberate and sustained fabrication on his part. That he collected his information directly from witnesses, was evi- dently a false pretense to enhance the authoritative appear- ance of the biography; but is it not possible that he considered the information itself substantially true ? May he not have sincerely believed the episodes recorded in the " Memoires " and the " Appendix," and linked them together according to what seemed to him their probable connection ? Was he not trying to surmise the truth rather than intentionally composing fiction ? These desperate objections may be met by considering a certain passage in Kirkman's version of Mary's youth. It will be recalled that by 1673 " The Case of Madam Mary Carleton" (1663), with its elaborate account of her noble origin, had been wholly discredited. The authors of the " Memories " and the " Memoires " rejected it, and even he who republished it contradicted its claims in his " Appen- dix." Kirkman himself says: " This was but a romance," ' Life and Character, pp. 74-75; Counterfeit Lady, pp. 1 50-1 51 and 154. 50 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES — and adds, " she had told this lie so often that she at last believed it herself to be true." ^ An integral part thereof was the explanation that " Maria van Wolway," daughter of the " Lord of Holmstein," had fled to England because she was pestered with the attentions of unwelcome suitors. One of these imaginary gentry, the " soldado " whose descrip- tion I have previously quoted,^ Kirkman evidently thought too picturesque to abandon; for he introduced him into " The Counterfeit Lady." After telling us that Mary, when her bigamous marriage with Day had brought her into trouble, fled to the continent, he proceeds to recount her adventures there in the following important passage : She, after some rambles about the countries, fixed at Cologne. When she arrived there, she, being the mistress of a considerable sum of money, took up her lodging at a house of entertainment there and lived in the greatest splendor she had ever done. And, as it is usual in England for ladies and persons of quality to go in the summer time to Epsom or Tunbridge Wells, so it is as customary to go to the Spa, a place well known in those parts. Her designs, without all question, were to advantage herself, and she intended to use her best artifices upon that occasion. But fortune was so favorable to put such an adventure upon her as the Hke hath seldom been heard of, and thus it was. As she was one evening walking in one of those pleasant walks that were adjoining to those medicinal waters, she was met and accosted by a gentleman whom she thus described. He was an old gentleman that had fair demesnes about Leige or Luyet, not many miles distant from Cologne, a man of serious gravity and venerable aspect for his gray hairs, but disfigured with some scars his youthful luxury had given him, . . J This man, whom she herself thus described, accosted her the rude military way, for he had been a soldado, and had caught as he said, that rotten hoarse cold and snuffing in the trenches of Breda ' Counterfeit Lady, p. 6. ^ Supra, p. 25. ' The two lines here expunged are word for word identical with those expunged on page 25. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 51 in the brigade of Count Henry of Nassau in Spinola's army, and had afterwards served Monsieur Tilly against the King of Sweden, whom he had seen fall at Luthen. This gentleman meeting and accosting her, as if she had been long known to him, raised some wonder, for she could not believe herself to be known at that place. But she soon found he was mistaken in her, for in his applications and discourse he gave her the title of Madam Maria, and sometimes of Wolway. She could not tell what to imagine when he called her by the right name of Maria, but when he added the other of Wolway she was sensible of his mistake. But she, finding him civil enough in his deportments and actions, and withal that his pretentions were amorous, she permitted him to proceed in his dis- course, which he did in such manner that he would not be denied his suit, since, as he said, he had never known what a repulse meant in his life. Our new made Madam not finding any prejudice likely to accrue by her admitting him, gave him such answers as were indifferent and only complimental, and desired for that time to retire home to her lodging. He, understanding her mind, readily attended her, and at her arrival there after some few words of course they parted. She was glad she was rid of him, that she might consider of the adventure; but she could not gather any profitable or advantageous meaning of herself without the help of her landlady. To whom she having discovered what had happened, and she having seen this inamorato, told her his quality, for he was very well known there. And she, being now acquainted with this, desired to know, if she might, the reason of his mistake in her name. To this she received a satis- factory answer, for her landlady also told her that there was such a lady hving at Cologne, or else in the nunnery of the Barefooted Clares, who was of that name of Maria Van Wolway, and whom she had seen, and who indeed did very much resemble her. This discourse of the landlady did not only satisfy but please our new madam ; and she, who was always ready-witted on such occasions, did purpose to make some advantage of his adventure, and therefore presently applied herself to her landlady, desiring her advice in this mistake. " Truly," said the landlady, " I cannot think it will be any disadvantage to you to continue the mistake; for although the gentle- man is old, yet he is of great estate, and if he will deceive himself let him, you cannot but reap some advantage thereby, for he can do no 52 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES less than make you some presents, which I advise you to accept of; and so you may continue your acquaintance with him so long as it shall stand with your benefits." Our lady was not deaf to this discourse, but listened very attentively and resolved to follow her landlady's directions, and not questioning but by her assistance to reap some profit. And her landlady was well enough pleased to engage in this affair for her own interest, because she expected some profits in the visits which she expected he would make there. And as they pro- jected it so it fell out, for our soldado the next day met his mistress and, waiting on her home, was there indifferently received by her. And that I may come to the main point of my story, I in short tell you that she used such artifice in the manage of this affair, being withal assisted by her landlady, that he presented her several fair jewels, some whereof were of real worth, and others that appeared to be so but since proved to be otherwise, as her husband Carleton, to whose hands they afterwards came, doth affirm. This was the adventure of our soldado and our new dignified lady. She by this means did get a name which she always held, and which indeed was very fortunate to her, not only in her present transactions with her suitors but afterwards in her husband Carleton. But that I may quite finish this adventure and come to that, I will proceed. She was doubtful that it would not always be such fair weather, and therefore she was resolved to make hay while the sun did shine. She had many resplendent jewels that gave a great lustre, but she was will- ing to have more and some money to boot. Therefore, her suitor still continuing his courtship, and that importunately, and pressing to marriage, she knew then that all would come out, that she should be discovered, and that she, having always delayed it till her return to Cologne, and her lover intending to go thither with her, could no longer be deluded, and that then the true Maria van Wolway would be known ; wherefore she devised how to manage her affairs, and thus she accomplished them. She at length consented to go to Cologne, but first her lover was to go home and fetch such habit and other necessaries as were convenient for his intended match. His habitation was not far off, and he had made several trips thither, and never returned empty-handed but still brought some jewel or another such as his ancestors had left or he had otherwise come to by the fortune of the wars. And when she had MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 53 them together, they were a very fair parcel. But now at his going home he promised to bring her more variety, but she resolved not to expect him in his return. But however he having a chain of gold and a medal which was given him for some remarkable good service in the war, and which he always wore next his shirt, she with small entreaties prevailed with him to leave that also behind him. He, knowing that if he had her, as he did not question, that then he should have all again, was very free with her; and so they parted. She, knowing that it was then full time to be gone, acquainted her landlady with her design, who had had a pretty share in the spoils of our captain. But our lady was resolved she should not carry it off; she would have it all herself and admit no sharers. In order whereunto she persuaded the landlady to get her a conveniency to be gone, not to the intended Cologne, but to another place, where she should not be suspected and therefore not followed by her lover. The landlady was willing to accomodate her, and therefore went out, leaving her at home; but she did not intend to stay there. For this ungrateful woman, so soon as her landlady was gone out, did break open a chest wherein she put all her treasure, and there she found not only what had been given her by the captain but also a considerable sum of money, all of which she took, and packing it up with her own parcel away she went. And having privately provided herself of a passage to Utrecht, there she made a stop for a while, thence passed to Amsterdam, where she sold the gold chain and some other jewels. From thence she passed to Rotterdam, and so coming to the Brill, took shipping for England. These were the adventures of our lady. And now, being possessed of so much wealth, she did beheve herself to be one. And she, having had such good success by this name of Maria van Wolway, she was resolved to continue it. She cared not for either her old lover or her landlady, nor how they would resent her departure. She believed she had done well in chousing the old fool of his jewels, and that she had done very well in so cheating her landlady who had assisted her.^ What Kirkman did in this instance is perfectly clear. He took Mary's lying account of the soldado (whose description he copied with verbal fidelity), converted it into a new ^ Counterfeit Lady, pp. 15-25. 54 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES imaginary story full of circumstantial detail, and ingeniously joined it to the Carleton episode. Here, then, we have caught him, as it were, red-handed, — unhesitatingly pur- loining incidents that he knew to be fictitious and modifying them as he pleased. The lie that Mary told to defend her- self, Kirkman embroidered to entertain his readers. Thus the proofs of fabrication that eluded us in examining the " Memories, " " Memoires," and " Appendix," are found in " The Counterfeit Lady." The invention of the soldado incident, the forging of links between episodes previously unconnected, and the attribution to personal informants of statements either invented or taken, often word for word, from books, — these evidences (which will be supported by others recurrently appearing in the further course of this study) irresistibly force us to recognize that " The Counter- feit Lady " is not to be regarded as a credulous or carelessly inaccurate work but as an intentionally fictitious one. Having ascertained this, we are prepared to trace the secret methods employed in its composition. CHAPTER V The Narrative Technique OF " The Counterfeit Lady " Kirkman's statement that he had gathered " all that hath been written of her," is true as to the more important writ- ings about Mary. He had before him " A Westminster Wedding," John Carleton's " Ultimum Vale," the " Life and Character " (comprising Mary's " Case " and the " Appen- dix "), and the " Memoires." ^ Having mastered these books, he strove to compose one which should surpass each of them in fuUness, coherence, and verisimilitude. To make his readers believe that he was a cautious his- torian, Kirkman often admits that he is uninformed or uncertain about some details of Mary's Hfe, He cannot explain what led this girl, with her head full of romances, to marry a humble shoemaker; " what ever she conceited I know not," he confesses, " but married she was to one Stedman, a gentleman of the gentle craft." She ran away from Stedman, " but whether it was to Barbadoes or what other place, I cannot learn." Then she married Day, but " what means she used to manage this affair I know not." Whether, on her fhght to the continent, " it was France or Holland where she first landed, I know not." Some of the ' Counterfeit Lady, pp. 67-81. — Cf. ibid., pp. 15, 27, 74, 76, 93, 95, 107, with Ultimum Vale, pp. 11, 17, 20, 25, 28, 29, :is, 37, 38. — The link with which the author of the Life and Character joined the Appendix to the Case is followed verba- tim in The Counterfeit Lady, pp. 66-67. The Case is mentioned on pp. vi and 27, and both it and the Appendix are constantly borrowed from. — The Memoires are mentioned on p. 180, and followed from there to the end. — The Memories Kirk- man does not seem to have used. SS 56 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES thefts she is accused of he doubts, and in one case he reports two accounts of a fraud without committing himself as to which of them is accurate. " As for her jewels," he says, " he [John Carleton] tells me they were counterfeit, but she alleges that they being offered in Cheapside to a goldsmith, he valued them at £1500; this I beheve a lie, and a loud one, neither do I believe they were of so little value as her husband Carleton reporteth." After he has told us some of her remarks to her lovers, he refuses to say more, " that I may not seem to romance by telling you all their private dis- courses." He does not know how long she remained in exile in Jamaica; and as for her supposed letters thence, " being known to be only a piece of romantic wit, I shall not recite it here, lest all the rest of my relation be suspected to be only my own invention; therefore, I shall pass that by and pro- ceed to matter of fact." ^ Most of his remarks of this sort appear in the early part of his book, and they appertain to comparatively unimportant points. When he is in the full swing of his story, he relies upon having gained the confidence of his readers by his air of judicial caution about trifling matters, and unhesitatingly narrates all the particulars about the chief incidents. So numerous are the details given by Kirkman that they expand " The Counterfeit Lady " to a noteworthy length. It contains about thirty-five thousand words, — ten thous- and more than Mrs. Behn's longest novel, " Oroonoko," and nearly twice as many as the " Memoires," previously the longest biography of Mary Carleton. Only in very rare instances is the additional space devoted to episodes that may be called entirely new. On one occasion, " The Coun- terfeit Lady " tells us, Mary stopped at a West Smithfield ^ Counterfeit Lady, pp. ii, 12, 13, 14, 90, 95, 104-105, 180, 194. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 57 alehouse, alleging that she was a young heiress from the country. The hostess and her daughter believed her; but the host exclaimed: "Away, away, I cannot believe any man to be so mad as to leave a thousand pounds to your dispose; neither do I believe you to be such a person as you name yourself; if you were, you would not sit tippling here at this time of the night." Determined to be revenged on him, Mary visited the inn again, ordered her ale served not in a pewter mug but in a silver tankard, and that night — though the hostess, hearing a noise, " leaps out of her bed and with her clothes half on and half off went down " — Mary slipped away with the " ancient piece of plate worth about three pound." ^ The only hint of such an incident given in the "Appendix" is its vague statement: "She often changed her lodgings, visited taverns and alehouses, stealing silver tankards, bowls, and other drinking vessels in abundance." ^ What Kirkman does as a rule, however, is to expand those incidents that are definitely, though more succinctly, given by his predecessors. The episode of the defrauded apothe- cary, for example, contains in the " Appendix " only thirty- eight words, in the " Memories " over six hundred and fifty, in the " Memoires " about nine hundred and fifty, but in " The Counterfeit Lady " over seventeen hundred and fifty.^ In studying the character of such additions, we shall see that they were made for many different purposes, all of which were helpful to the historic development of the art of realistic fiction. ^ Ibid., pp. 171-175. 2 Appendix, p. 75. — Cf. Memories, p. 13, and Memoires, p. 52. ' This does not include the 200 words given to his second version of the episode. — Appendix, p. 75; Memories (which is not usually so detailed), p. 13; Memoires, p. 76; Counterfeit Lady, p. 183. 58 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES Of these purposes, the most obvious was to make fully- clear what in the preceding accounts had been vague. The " Appendix " says: She cheated two weavers in Spitalfields, and a laceman, of goods to the value of eighty pounds, by dancing them up and down the town from place to place till by some wile and stratagem she could find means to drop them and carry off the goods she had brought from their houses.^ According to " The Counterfeit Lady," Mary, after selecting the goods told the weaver that she had brought no money with her, and requested him to accompany her home. After some protests, he was persuaded to step into her coach. She then asked him where she could buy gold and silver lace, and he directed her to a friend of his, from whom she bought twenty pounds' worth. " The laceman seeing his friend the weaver there, not doubting anything, did not think it neces- sary to go himself, but sent his man." On their arrival at her lodgings, she served them wine, tossed a bag apparently containing over fifty pounds on the table, and asked them to write out itemized bills for the purchase, — " half of it being for a niece of mine who is above in her chamber." " They began to write; her bag of money and hand on it was still on the table." Turning to her maid, she told her to take the things upstairs and show them to her niece. When " one of the two [tradesmen] had now made out his bill, and the other begins to do so, she takes it in her hand as to peruse it, walks three or four steps towards a curtain, and turns in there." That was the last they saw of her, the goods, and the money; for she had escaped by a rear door, leaving the weaver and the laceman angrily blaming one another for the loss.^ ' Appendix, p. 74. ^ Counterfeit Lady, pp. 145-149. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 59 Another escapade, in which Mary was again passing as a country gentlewoman, is thus described in the " Appendix ": She had a thousand pounds to her portion, left by an uncle, and which she would demand upon her marriage. One Mr. Woodson, a young gentleman of Islington, who had an estate of two hundred pounds per annum, and five hundred pounds in ready money, saw her, and soon became enamoured, and professed a most violent regard for her; but she, pretending to be mighty unwilling to marry without her father's consent, and showing him twenty forged letters as from ad- . mirers in the country, and by one trick or another, at last found means to rob him of about three hundred pounds.^ This slight account becomes in " The Counterfeit Lady " copious and vivid. Here Mary is said to have pretended that her father wanted her to marry somebody she disliked, whereupon she fled to the city and lived on the interest of " the thousand pounds, quarterly paid her." To make people believe this, she forged letters from a supposed kins- woman of hers, and left them lying in her room, where her landlady surreptitiously read them, A well-to-do young man, who was related to the landlady and used to visit her, sought to court Mary; but she was very shy, and only " out of complacency to her landlady " suffered herself "to be treated by this young gallant," and reluctantly accepted the present of a watch. " Now being free in their converse, she told him all the sad story of her father's harshness in seeking to force her to such a match as she hated; her suitor pitied her in that, and made a free tender of his love and service." Despite his good income, she pretended to be unwilling to marry without her father's consent, " for by that means she would lose a thousand pounds more." " As they were one day discoursing of these and such like affairs, a porter knocks and brings a letter. The maid 1 Appendix, pp. 73-74- 6o MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES receives it and brings it to her mistress, who presently opens and reads it; but she had no sooner finished her reading but she, pretending to be amazed and affrighted, cried out: ' I am undone! ' and was so ready to fall into a swound that her servant was forced to apply things to recover her." Her lover comforted her, and she showed him the letter (given in full by Kirkman), in which a " loving and affectionate kins- woman, R. F." informed her that by the recent death of her brother she was now the sole heir, but he, " who used to dissuade your father from violence," being dead, her father was determined she should marry her rejected lover, and to force her to do so was coming to London with him in a few days. It being therefore necessary for Mary to flee from her known lodgings, her lover offered her the shelter of his rooms, '' gave her the accommodation of the fairest room of the two, which was to the street side," moved his trunk to the back room, and put his man in the garret. " This was that which she aimed at." One evening, complaining of a headache and the noises in the street, she was moved into the back room, " only changing the sheets." Towards morning she and her maid broke the trunk open. " They searched for gold which they knew he had, but that being portable he carried in his pocket, and so they missed of it," but they " found a hundred pounds in a bag and some suits of clothes," and therewith slipped away.^ Such additions, it will have been observed, give not only clearness to the narrative but also plausibility. Too often the original sources ignored matters that seemed to require explanation. The care with which Kirkman forestalled possible doubts, may be seen by comparing these parallel passages : ^ Counterfeit Lady, pp. 1 19-129. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 6i Appendix, p. 74 She told her landlady that a country gentleman of her ac- quaintance, happening to fall sick in a pitiful alehouse in London, died; and that some friends of his and hers together had thought it convenient to remove the corpse to a house of more credit, in order to a handsome burial. The landlady readily granted the use of her best chamber, whither the corpse was brought, and a topping undertaker in Leadenhall Street laid hold of the job, who, having received an un- limited commission to perform the funeral, resolved that nothing should be wanting to make the bill as complete as possible. Accordingly he provides a good quantity of old plate for an orna- ment to the room where the body Counterfeit Lady, pp. 130-132 She told her landlady that a country gentleman of her ac- quaintance, being unacquainted in the city, had happened into a pitiful alehouse, where, falling sick, he soon died; and that some friends of his and she together had thought it very inconvenient to bury him from thence, and not knowing any place so fit, they de- sired to bring his dead body to her lodging to bury him from thence. Therefore she desired her leave and assistance in ac- commodating her with necessa- ries, and she should have a piece for the trouble of her house. The landlady, hearing of profit, soon consented; and that even- ing the corpse in a very handsome coffin was brought in a coach and placed in the chamber, which was the room one pair of stairs next the street, and had a balcony. The coffin being covered only with an ordinary black cloth, our Counterfeit seems much to dis- Hke it. The landlady tells her that for twenty shillings she might have the use of a pall of velvet, and for as much more some scutcheons of the gentle- man's arms. Our lady was well pleased with the pall, but for the scutcheons she said they would be useless in regard the deceased gentleman was unknown. The landlady provides a good quantity of old plate for an orna- ment to the room where the body 62 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES lay, viz. two silver candlesticks, a silver flagon, two standing gilt bowls, and several other pieces of plate, — this was for an adorn- ment and to be used in serving the wine the next day. But the night before the intended burial our Counterfeit Lady and her maid within the house handed out to their comrades without, all the plate, the pall of velvet, and all the other furniture of the chamber. . . . The coffin . , . was filled with brickbats and hay, such a quan- tity as might make it weighty enough for a dead body. The earlier writings often lack interest because in them Mary seems to accomplish her designs too easily. Kirkman imagines such difficulties, great or small, as would naturally have arisen before her. The '' Appendix," for example, simply states as a matter of fact that Mary had a maid as ingenious as herself; but " The Counterfeit Lady " shows how she managed to obtain her. The following passages illustrate the difference in this particular between the cruder method and the more advanced: lay, viz. two large silver candle- sticks, a silver flagon, two stand- ing silver bowls, and several other pieces of plate. But the night before the intended burial, Madam and her maid handed out to their comrades all the man's plate, together with the velvet pall. . . . The coffin . . . was filled with nothing but brickbats. Appendix, p. 73 She passed in her new lodgings for a virgin newly come out of the country upon some extraordinary occasions. Counterfeit Lady, pp. 118-119 First when she took her lodg- ing, pretending she was a virgin and newly come out of the coun- try upon some extraordinary oc- casion she wanted a maid to wait on her. She therefore desires her landlady to help her to one. She soon furnished her, but not to her content; and several she had be- fore she was pleased. They had MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 63 one fault or other, and she found they would not be for her purpose. She was provided of a maid- But in conclusion one she had servant, as cunning and as subtle that very well pleased her, and a baggage as herself, and who was indeed was as cunning and subtle afterwards very assisting to her a baggage as herself, and was in all her affairs. afterwards very assistant to her in all her affairs. None of her victims are as easy prey in " The Counterfeit Lady " as in the earlier versions. The young apothecary whom she inveigled is shown at first disinchned to matri- mony, and has to be persuaded by an accomplice to court her.^ When she asks the weaver to carry his goods to her rooms, he says : " I shall not let my goods go out of the house before I have my money," adding that a man, on being granted a similar request, had robbed him. " She seems to wonder at the contrivance, and exclaims against the cunning subtle wickedness of the world." Not until she has urged that, as she is a woman, he need not fear her, does he consent to go.^ Owing to the systematic addition of such touches, there is in " The Counterfeit Lady " a much UveHer conflict and greater suspense. The action, considered as a whole, moves more smoothly from episode to episode than in the earlier narratives. The links by which Kirkman gave coherence to the story, we have already considered as among the proofs of its fictitious character; and they are of equal importance as signs of his method of composition. Such connections he does not make in every instance, but they appear in more than sufficient number to show that he was conscious of their value. He joined, for example, the imaginary incident of the soldado to the Carleton affair, by declaring that the former taught Mary to impose upon John as " Maria van Wolway." ^ ^ Counterfeit Lady, p. 183. ^ Ibid., p. 145. ^ Ibid., pp. 21-22 and 26. 64 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES Unlike the author of the " Appendix," he did not carry her cursorily from her robbery of wealthy lovers to the meaner fraud of the feigned funeral, but explained that she had in the interim fallen into low company " so that money flew away apace." ^ To lead up to the next incident, he said that she had the funeral pall of velvet made into a coat, and " seeing that her stolen French coat became her so well, purposed to have a new gown of the same price," which led her to cheat a silk merchant out of the necessary materials.^ This fraud he connected with the next one in a more elaborate manner. " She bragged," he says, " of her fair undertaking to her comrades," one of whom, a man, ven- tured to surpass her ingenuity by getting silk " from the weaver himself that makes it." When he had succeeded in doing so, " she told him that she should never be at quiet until she had acted somewhat that should be equal to it, and, considering of what, she told him that she would put the cheat upon the very same man, the honest weaver." ^ In the " Appendix," the thefts from the weaver and the lace- man are followed, without any hint of a connection, by her robbery of a mantuamaker. In "The Counterfeit Lady," it is the possession of the silks and laces which suggests to her the expediency of taking lodgings in a house where, besides robbing it, she may without cost to herself get the stolen goods made into a gown.^ Later it is because she has wearied of her " splendid gallant garb " that she defrauds a shop- keeper of mourning garments.^ Thereupon, because thus " habited in sable a la mode, [she] became the talk of those that saw her," — among whom was a " young gentleman in ^ Ibid., p. 130. — Cf. Appendix, p. 74. 2 Ibid., p. 133. — Cf. Appendix, p. 74. ' Ibid., p. 137-143. — Cf. Appendix, p. 74. * Ibid., p. 154. — Cf. Appendix, p. 75. ^ Ibid., p. 158. — Cf. Appendix, p. 75. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 65 mourning too," the victim of her next exploit/ The epi- sodes, most of which are thus woven together, have in them- selves, as we have seen, been made much more clear, plausible and lively. Surely the art of realistic fiction, which is sup- posed to have been neglected at this time, shows in " The Counterfeit Lady " remarkable signs of development so far as the conduct of plot or action is concerned. The same thing is true regarding the characterization. Just as Kirkman, to enhance the plausibility of the story, adds many details to the action; so, for the same purpose, he inserts comments which illuminate the motives of the per- sonages. He does so even in the case of minor characters, as may have been observed in several episodes previously described. In the soldado episode, the landlady is willing to assist Mary " because she expected some profit in the visits which she expected he would make there "; and when Mary agrees to marry the soldado, he is willing to entrust his treasures to her " knowing that if he had her, as he did not question, he should have all again." ^ The laceman is willing to send his man with the goods, because his friend the weaver is to go also.^ The lawyer whose curiosity was aroused by the fair stranger in her " sable a la mode," would probably not have fallen into her toils, for he was courting a young lady; but when Mary pretended to need his professional advice, his expectation of legal fees led him to cultivate her acquaintance.^ An incident which appears in all the versions is that of the apothecary whom Mary, with the help of an old bawd, tricked into marrying her. Though it is told at considerable ' Ibid., pp. 160-161. — Cf. Appendix, p. 75. 2 Ibid., pp. 20-21 and 23. — Cf. p. 131, " The landlady, hearing of profit, soon consented." ' Ibid., p. 147. * Ibid., p. 162. 66 - MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES length in the " Memoires " (whence Kirkman took it), the characterization remains comparatively slight and unnatural. In " The Counterfeit Lady " the old woman, — openly greedy in the original, — when urging the apothecary to marry Mary cleverly pretends that she has no financial interest in the affair. " I will have no hand in the match," she says, " unless you can love one another." The apothe- cary, — who in the original is simply represented as pros- perous, — is disinclined to marry, as he thinks " trading dead, and housekeeping chargeable." Later, when he has begun to swallow the bait but is still careful of his money, Mary accuses him of being as stingy as the detested uncle who is her supposed guardian. " I doubt," she complains, *' I shall be still in the same condition and be kept bare of money." It is because the apothecary's vanity is thus touched, — and not, as formerly, out of incredible folly, — that he makes her a large gift of money. Here, as usual, Kirkman adds good touches of motivation and characteriza- tion to minor personages who, even in the more elaborate of the earlier versions, seemed unreal.^ Mary herself, Kirkman describes and characterizes with a thoroughness approached by none of his predecessors. Referring in his preface to her portrait, drawn in 1663, which made the frontispiece of his book, he says : You will conclude it very like, only she was somewhat thinner faced; nine years had made that alteration. And you will find that the dressing of her head is different from the present fashion, and from what she now wore, which was a la mode, — a large parcel of frizzled hair, which is called a tower. And her habit now at her trial was an Indian striped gown, silk petticoat, white shoes with slaps, laced with green; and in these she was hanged and, I think, buried. This was her outside; what her inside was, by reading this book you will be siifficiently acquainted. 1 Ibid., pp. 183-194. — Cf. Memoires, pp. 76-83. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 67 Her appearance as a condemned prisoner he describes as follows : She was heard to sigh very often, and cry out: ' Oh that I had my days to live over again ! ' . . . I am sure she was much dejected and very humble when I was with her. . . . She was as clouded in her spirit as she was in her face, for her hood was still over it down to her mouth, and she very rarely turned it up ; and her speech was very low and faint, broken and interrupted with deep and often sighing.^ Besides giving such outward descriptions of Mary, Kirk- man especially devoted himself to the more difficult task of revealing her feelings, thoughts, and motives. The pre- viously mentioned passages which he uses to join uncon- nected episodes, serve at the same time to display the workings of Mary's mind.^ He shows that it was her youth- ful love of pleasure, and her reading of romances, that made her discontented with a humble station and moved her to seek adventures.^ After telling us how she cheated the soldado and the landlady, he does not forget to say what she herself thought of that exploit."* He describes her scornful pride when, following the Carleton affair, people suggested that she keep a coffee house: " she was mighty angry at it, and said it was a flam given out to sully her name and reputation." ^ The poor remnants of modesty vaguely granted her by previous writers, he defines in precise words : if she consorted with lovers, he says, " it was not with any that brought their half crown, crown, or half a piece, it must be greater kindnesses than these, and some considerable acquaintance and knowledge of the party. ... I know several idle fellows that would pretend to be very inward * Ibid., pp. vii, 2IO, 213. — These descriptions Kirkman may have drawn from life, as he probably had seen Mary at her last trial, in prison (cf. p. 208), or at her execution. 2 Supra, pp. 63-65. * Ibid., p. 9 flf. * Ibid., p. 25. ^ Ibid., p. 100. — Cf. Appendix, p. 72. 68 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES with the German Princess, . . . but she knew how to frustrate their expectations, so that this crime she was not so guilty of as the world supposes." ^ Such additions, taken one by one, may seem slight; but they are made so constantly that their cumulative effect is remarkably strong. KLirkman even has a rudimentary conception of what, speaking of modern novels, we caU character development. To his predecessors Mary was a fixed character from birth to death, but Kirkman exhibits her in progressive phases. When she meets the soldado, she is an adventurous rather than a wholly depraved person. Thereafter for a time she cheats as a rule only those who were trying, like the Carle- tons, to gain some advantage from her. Not until she has eluded the advances of several gallants does she become a kept mistress.^ Finally she reaches the lowest point of her moral decline when she descends to the company of criminals and to petty thefts from innocent victims. Whether or not Kirkman was building better than he knew, it is certain that in his story for the first time we clearly see the character of Mary developing from that of a romance-reading girl, through that of a sorely tempted and partly deluded woman, into that of a deliberate and habitual criminal. The principal changes made by Kirkman in the action and characterization, we have now considered one by one. Their combined effect may be studied in the following passages : ^ Ibid., pp. 107-108. — Cf. Appendix, p. 72. 2 Ibid., pp. 102-110. — This part of her career is very largely, if not wholly, invented by Kirkman. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 69 Appendix, pp. 72-73 One Mr. Chamberlaine of Southampton Street, a gentleman of about fifty-five years of age, found means to win her, but he paid dear for his lechery. This person was so deep in love with her that notwithstanding he knew all her tricks and the story of her foreign birth to be romantic, he cohabi- ted with her for some weeks. The day after he had first lain with her, he presented her with a jewel of fifty pound value, and Counterfeit Lady, pp. 109-118 She was not easy to be courted to incontinence, and they who did win her to it paid full dear for their lechery. ... A gentleman of about fifty years of age lodged in the same house with her, and was so deeply in love with her that he would willingly have been at the charge of a constant main- tenance if she would have lived with him. Only he not only dis- trusted but knew all her tricks, and told her of them, and that he did believe the story of her foreign birth was romantic. But however, if she would answer his love and live soberly with him, he would maintain her in as splendid a garb as she would de- sire, for he had four hundred pounds per annum and no charge but himself and a man-servant. This was his discourse to her, to which she gave him various an- swers; but at last, presenting her with some rings and such toys, he won her to consent. Now in regard this their pur- pose could not be handsomely ex- ecuted in the house where they were, and they designing to live in all freedom as man and wife, they therefore left that lodging and went to another at a conve- nient distance, where he cohabi- ted with her for some weeks. He had promised her a jewel worth fifty pound, which he would give her the first night she 7° MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES decked her in the most rich ap- parel, not altogether perhaps in respect to her person but for his own wanton humor. Yet he like an old fox, knowing that he had a serpent in his bosom, would not trust her with any money, nor himself neither; for all the time they lived together he did not keep above ten pounds in the house at a time. He had an annuity of four hundred pounds, and as he received his quar- terly or half-yearly payments, he carried the money to a gold- smith's, and fetched it as he had occasion. And the goldsmith's bill he was very cautious of, not leaving it in any box, chest, or trunk, that might be broke open, but still carrying it about with him in his pocket. She minded all this well enough, and was for some time contented to live in that private retired manner, would lie with him, as an engage- ment of his truth to her, and he performed his word accordingly. Sometime they lived thus to- gether and complied with one another very reciprocally, yet he like an old fox, knowing that he had a serpent in his bosom, would not trust her with any money, nor himself neither; for all the time they lived together he did not keep above ten pounds in the house at a time. But still as he received his quar- terly or half-yearly payments, he carried the money to a gold- smith's, and fetched it as he had occasion. And the goldsmith's bill he was very curious of, not leaving it in any box, chest, or trunk, that might be broken open, but still carrying it about with him in his pocket. She minded all this well enough , and was for some time contented to live in that private retired manner. But like fire that is kept close will blaze when it can get out, so she could not endure to live long without being in action. She had a mind to blaze abroad in the world a little; her inclination, or rather fate, forced her, and act she must. Where- fore she waited her opportunity when she might get some prize, and so march off with flying colors. She waited the coming of the next quarter-day when his rents were to come up, which MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 71 till he coming home one night so drunk that she was forced to put him to bed, where when he was laid, and she found by his snoring that he was fast asleep, she examined his pockets, and looking into his let- ter-case among his papers, she there found a bill upon a gold- smith in Lombard Street for one hundred pounds. This she secures, and puts all up again; and although her bed- fellow sleeps hard, yet she takes little rest. Where- fore early in the morning, before were brought accordingly but se- cured as I have already told you. She knew not how to engage him to bring it home, lest he should distrust her; and if it lay long there he would fetch it away in parcels, wherefore she knew not what course to take. But fortune put an opportu- nity into her hands by his coming home one night so drunk that she was forced to put him to bed, where when he was laid, and she found by his snorting that he was fast enough, she examined his pockets, and looking into his let- ter-case among his papers, she there found a bill upon a gold- smith in Lombard Street for one hundred pounds. This she secures, and puts all up again; and although her bed- fellow sleeps hard, yet she takes Httle rest for thinking how she should finish her design. For she doubted that the next day upon examining his papers, which he often turned over, he would miss the bill and presently go to the goldsmith's and prevent her re- ceiving it. Wherefore she con- cluded it absolutely necessary to hinder from that, by getting him out of the town; but how to do that she did not presently know. But at length considering that he had a very loving friend that lived about eight mile off, she resolved to send her bed-fellow of some errand thither. Where- fore early in the morning before 72 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES he was willing to awake, she called on him, telling him that his friend, Mr. Horton of Brent- ford, had been there, and must needs speak with him that day. This Horton having a great many effects of the old gentleman's in his hands, wherefore he judging something more than ordinary, made all possible speed to Brent- ford. he was willing to awake, she called on him, telling him Mr. such a one, his friend, had been there, and must needs speak with with him that day. " Now," said she, " I thought fit to call you thus early, that you may have time enough to go and return again before night; for you know that I cannot be content without your company." He, hearing her discourse, and not having any occasion to hin- der him, soon rises, and taking leave of her begins his journey. No sooner was he gone, but she makes ready for hers; and, being dressed, she takes coach for the goldsmith's. When she was al- most come thither, she drew out the bill to look on it. And it was well she did so, or else all her project would have been spoiled, for she intended to demand a just hundred pound, when, looking on the backside of the bill, she found that twenty pound of the hundred had been received. This startled her, and troubled her to think that she was twenty pound worse than she thought for. But she was glad she saw it before she came to the goldsmith's, who might else have distrusted her, had she asked him for the full hundred pound. She, being now come to the goldsmith's shop, told him that she came from such a gentleman, who had such a day left a hun- dred pound, but had received MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 73 The coast being now clear, she was resolved to march oflf and leave her old friend. She breaks open the locks of a trunk and box, and rifles them both, where she finds twenty pieces of old gold, a golden seal, an old watch, and some odd pieces of plate. These, together with the rings, pendents, and neck- laces, the old gentleman had pre- sented her with, made a tolerable booty. And now she trips off to a new lodging towards West Smith- field, and there lies close. twenty pound; and he, being sick had sent her for the eighty remaining. There was no dis- trust, nor no cause for it, where- fore the money was paid and the bill delivered up. She, being now the mistress of this rich cargo of eighty pound in money, the jewel of fifty pound which he had given her, and several other rings, pendants, and necklaces to a good value, was resolved to march off, leave her old friend, and seek a new, or at leastwise new quarters. But she was much disturbed and vexed that she was disappointed twenty pound in her expectation, and thought how she might make that good. And being now resolved to leave her old lover, and there- fore to make the most of him, and knowing that she had time enough by reason of his being out of town, she therefore returned to her lodging, and, not having the keys, breaks open the locks of a trunk and box, and rifles them both, where she finds twenty pieces of old gold, a golden seal, an old watch, and some odd pieces of plate. These, and all things of any worth, she takes. And then, without taking any leave of her landlady, she again takes coach, and marches off to a new lodging at another end of the town, where for some days she keeps close. 74 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES Having thus filled out the outlines of action and character- ization found in the " Appendix " (in which this episode, by the way, is developed exceptionally weU), Kirkman added the following typical conclusion : And now I have related this story of her, is she not a bad ungrateful woman thus to leave a man who so handsomely provided for her ? Had it not been better for her to have continued with him, who loved, tendered, and would always have taken care of her, and kept her from running into those lewd courses that she since then committed ? Was it not enough for her to take the gentleman's bill, and all his money, but also afterwards to go back and take his gold, which he valued at may be more than the worth, but above all things his seal of arms, which it may be had descended to him from his ancestors, and which he would not have parted from for forty times the price ? This, she must needs think, must much discontent him, considering the trouble and necessity she would put him to till next quarter-day, until when he must stay without money or be forced to borrow. All these things she knew, but no consideration weighed with her at anything; all was laid aside to perform her will and to be, as she reckoned, revenged for the twenty pounds she was disappointed of. Well, let her go for a base lewd woman ! But time will come that she must repent this unhand- some ingrateful action. And thus you see how dearly this man paid for her wanton company. If he had any music, he paid the fiddler soundly, or she paid herself; his sweet meat cost him sour sauce, and so will hers in the end. But she had much more work cut out for her to do. This was but one of her first projects, and was not likely to make much noise; for the gentleman for shame would not speak much of it in public, only to some private friends, — and from one of them I had it. If he had made it public, it would have availed him little; he should only have been laughed at, and therefore silence was best in the case. Such comments upon Mary's conduct are characteristic of " The Counterfeit Lady," and exempHfy the last of the important differences between it and the earlier writings. With the exception of the sensational " Great Trial " in 1663, and the religious " Deportment before and at her Execu- MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 75 tion" in 1673, these either were (Hke the "Appendix") so matter of fact in style as to be colorless, or were grossly- satiric. The derisive note was dominant in " The Man in the Moon," in " A Westminster Wedding," in " A Witty Combat," in " Some Luck, Some Wit," in " An Elegy," in the " Memories," and in the most ambitious work of them all, the " Memoires." The. latter, for example, says of Mary, " she refreshed her princely carcass," and " the costly drench is prepared for the brute." It delights in ironic remarks like " Lord bless me, what an age do we live in that innocence should be so foully accused! " It describes John Carleton as a " poor pigmy in a whining tone (like a howling Irishman) with a trembling gesture and a pale countenance "; and calls the go-between in the apothecary incident " an old superannuated beldam in this embassy between the Turk and the devil." It concludes after this fashion: Now the play is done, we '11 make an end too, in the same humor as we began. Only we are first bound in civility to draw the curtain, bid her good-night, and so leave her to her repose, closing all with her sad epicedium in the mournful accent of the poet Per varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum Tenditur in fur cam. . . . Thus we have attended her from her cradle to her coffin, discovered and diverted ourselves with the adventures of her life and the cir- cumstances at her death. . . . 'Tis pity a person of her titular dignity and quality should be deprived of so modish an ornament, viz., an epitaph, which may forewarn all passengers from trampling upon or rudely disturbing the ashes of a deceased princess.^ The tone of these accounts was, in fact, similar to that of the cynical picaresque novels of the time; and the more they affected literary quality, the more they indulged in ridicule of Mary and her victims. In view of this tendency, one * Memoires, pp. 10, 21, 2)3t 73, 76, 1 18-120. 76 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES should expect '' The Counterfeit Lady " to be predominantly satiric in style. The contrary is, however, the case. In a few passages, to be sure, Kirkman, closely following his sources, writes in their biting manner; ^ but as a rule he omits or softens their abusive descriptions,^ and maintains the serious attitude of a stern moralist. These are the words in which he condemns Mary's false account of her origin : It is to be doubted that she who denied her earthly parents, and particularly her father, in her words, and in her actions denied or practiced against the laws of God, — her heavenly father, if he was not the more merciful to her, might have disowned her and denied her a place in his heavenly kingdom.^ The author of the " Memoires " said he wished us to " divert ourselves," but '' to the end that we may see her vices and thereby amend our own wicked lives, is the intent of your friend, F. K." * Accordingly he begins her story as follows: Let nature be never so liberal to us in the complete forming of our bodies after the most exact copies of perfection, and let us be never so well accomplished in all our outward qualities, so that we may imagine ourselves to be complete; yet if grace be not implanted in our hearts, whereby to guide us in our actions, we are like a fair vessel at sea which is sufficiently furnished with all her sails and tackling but yet wants the only thing to guide and steer her by, her rudder, without which it is very difficult to guide her to any safe harbor. The truth whereof we may every day experiment in ourselves, and we need look no further than into our own actions when we are only led by our natural inclinations. But in regard we either cannot or will not so soon see mistakes and crimes in ourselves as in others, therefore we have plentiful examples. And of all that this age have produced, none does so clearly demon- strate the truth of our frailness and imbecility, when governed by our wild desires, than this ensuing narrative. ' E. g., in connecting his quotations from A Westminster Wedding. See Coun- terfeit Lady, p. 67 ff. ^ E. g., in the apothecary incident; ibid., p. 183 ff. 3 Ibid., p. 8. * Ibid., p. vii. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 77 He concludes in the same strain: Thus have I brought this unlucky woman from her birth to her burial. As she was born obscurely and lived viciously, so she died ignominiously. Such crimes as she was guilty of, deserve such end and punishment as was inflicted on her; and without repentance and amendment infallibly find them here, and worse hereafter. The only way, therefore, for Christians to avoid the one and contemn the other, is with sanctified hearts and unpolluted hands still to pray to God for his grace, continually to affect prayer and incessantly to practice piety in our thoughts, and godliness in our resolutions and actions; the which if we be careful and conscionable to perform, God will then shroud us under the wings of his favor, and so preserve and protect us ^\dth his mercy and providence as we shall have no cause to fear either hell or Satan . But if we give ourselves over to ill company, or our own wicked inclinations, we are infallibly led to the practice of those crimes which, although they may be pleasing at the present, yet they have a sting behind. And we shall be sensible thereof when we shall be hurried to an untimely end, as you have seen in the vicious life and untimely death of this our Counterfeit Lady. The weaknesses and Hmitations of " The Counterfeit Lady " are obvious. Its diction is faulty, its style slipshod, and its construction without subtle refinements. Measured by the standard of a good modern novel, it is a crude performance. Those elementary principles of good narration which to-day a mere tyro, taught by great examples, may practice with facility, Kirkman applied with conscious and painful effort. He was doing no conventional thing, yet he succeeded surprisingly well in making both the action and the character- ization in his story clear, lively, and so plausible as to compel beUef. " The Counterfeit Lady," ethically an indefensible fabrication, is to the historian of literature, considering that it was pubhshed in 1673, an admirable work; for it treats a story of common life in a serious tone, and makes the imaginary seem real. CHAPTER VI The Historical Significance OF " The Counterfeit Lady " The facts disclosed by our study of the Mary Carleton narra- tives contradict, if they do not wholly destroy, three cardinal doctrines about the origin of the modern novel, — (i) that the criminal biographies were as a class substantially true, (2) that the narrative methods of Defoe were acquired by *' imitating truthful records," and (3) that in seventeenth century fictitious literature there were no very close ap- proaches to the work of " the father of the English novel." Against the supposed rule that the criminal biographies werA true, militates the fact that " The Counterfeit Lady," tlie first seventeenth century criminal biography to be sub- jected to critical scrutiny, proves fictitious. Such being the case, it is no longer permissible to assume that such works differ from novels as a history of Queen Elizabeth differs from " Kenilworth," or as fact from fiction. The question naturally arises: was "The Counterfeit Lady " an exceptional performance, or was the practice of fabrication extensive ? In the present state of knowledge, we cannot give a positive answer, but we may adduce a number of circumstances which will permit a reasonable surmise and perhaps point the way to future research. To begin with, we have the ascertained fact that the authors of " The Man in the Moon," " A Westminster Wedding," and the " Great Trial " were, in a brief and awkward way, romancing. We know that the hired pedantic writer who assisted Mary in preparing her " Case " was embroidering 78 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 79 lies. We have seen grounds for suspecting, though not for proving, that the authors of the " Memories," " Memoires " and " Appendix " were supplying from their imaginations the incidents which were needed to fill out Mary's biogra- phies. In sum, counting Kirkman, there are five writers whom we know to be fabricators and three more whom we suspect. Is it not an untenable theory that all the fabrica- tors of this period should write on the Ufe of Mary Carleton and on nothing else ? Surely the more reasonable tentative assumption is that the writers with whom we have been dealing belonged to a larger group of unknown journalists who practiced the art of plausible lying, and to whom fabri- cation was a trade secret. In the field of journaHsm, in that of literature, and in the twilight zone between them, we find from the days of Eliza- beth to those of the Georges the flourishing of imposture. To mention aU its manifestations is impossible, but some typical instances will sufficiently illustrate the variety of the numerous deceptions. The trick of attributing invented stories to foreign wTiters was practiced by Gascoigne and Whetstone.^ In the partly autobiographic pamphlets of and about Robert Greene, there is a confused and hitherto not disentangled mixture of truth and falsehood.^ Among the many fictitious stories of the period that pretend to be true, are several in Thomas Heywood's " Gunaikeion," probably including the source of the well known " English Traveller," which, according to its author was " a modern history lately happening and in mine own knowledge." ^ 1 Gascoigne, " Ferdinando Jeronimi"; Whetstone, " Rinaldo and Giletta." — Cf. H. S. Canby, The Short Story in English (1909), p. 127. 2 E. g., The Mourning Garment, Greene's Never Too Late, his cony-catching pamphlets, A Groatsworth of Wit, and the Repentance. — Cf . Dictionary of Na- tional Biography, viii (1908), pp. 512-515. ^ R. G. Martin, A Study of the Technical Development of Thomas Heywood (unpublished Harvard dissertation, 1910), pp. 641-646. 8o MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES (Heywood's methods of work, by the way, Kirkman inti- mates that he knew well). There is much that is fanciful in Sir Kenelm Digby's " Private Memoirs " ^ as well as in his other works; and many of the supposedly authentic letters of his friend, James Howell, are fictitious.^ The reputation of the early news-writers was bad. They undertook to report events, in the words of their dean, Nathaniel Butter, " weekly, by God's assistance, from the best and most certain intelligence "; but it was notorious that when real news failed they invented false. Ben Jonson exposed their fraudulent artifices in " The Staple of News," and described their pamphlets as " set out every Saturday, but made all at home, and no syllable of truth in them." * Forobosco, the quack in Fletcher's " The Fair Maid of the Inn," furnishes one who intends to write corantos with an appropriate guardian spirit in the form of " the ghost of some lying stationer." ^ Gaspardo, in Shirley's " Love Tricks," says they " will write you a battle in any part of Europe at an hour's warning, and yet never set foot out of a tavern; describe you towns, fortifications, leaders, the strength of the enemies, what confederates, every day's march, . . . nothing destroys them but want of a good memory." ^ But these journahsts of the earlier part of the century seem respectable chroniclers when compared with their immediate successors. During the Civil War and the Commonwealth it became almost a matter of Hfe or death to succeed or fail in control- ling public opinion; and the journalists who strove to mould it fashioned the news in a wholly partisan manner. Whether ^ Cf. A. H. Upham, The French Influence in English Literature (1908), pp. 369- 370; Diet. Nat. Biog., v (1908), p. 570; and C. E. Morgan, The Novel of Manners (1911), pp. 60-61. 2 A. W. Ward in The Cambridge History of English Literature, vii (191 1), p. 198. ' Preface to Act III. * Act IV. ' Act I, Scene i. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 8i Puritans or Royalists, they were less concerned to report occurrences accurately than to make the trend of events appear favorable to their cause. " They betook themselves to fabulous invention," says " A Press Full of Pamphlets " (1642).^ To-day the imagination of reporters, even of the *' yellow " tribe, is somewhat restrained by our rapid and easy means of communicating information, and of exposing canards; but those means did not then exist, and bold lying, being harder to overtake, progressed apace. Of the Com- monwealth " diurnal-maker," John Cleveland remarks: " To call him an historian is to knight a mandrake; . . . when those weekly fragments shall pass for history, let the poor man's box be intituled the exchequer." ^ Among the ten thousand " diurnals " and " relations " between 1640 and 1660, many were forgeries. Even the comparatively reliable Samuel Pecke was imprisoned for issuing false news. John Berkenhead so misreported the victories of the royalist commander Sir Ralph Hopton that they seemed disasters. The very productive and prosper- ous Henry Walker concocted, among many other fabrications a wholly imaginary account of the flight of Charles II; ^ and falsified the death-bed sayings of Oliver Cromwell, pro- fessedly recorded by " one who was groom of his chamber." Walker was indignantly called by the saintly George Fox " a liar, and forger of hes," — terms which accurately describe the other prominent journaHsts of the period, John Harris, George Wharton, and Marchamont Nedham.^ They 1 J. B. Williams, A History of English Journalism to the Foundation of the Gazette (1908), p. 25. 2 John Cleveland, The Character of a Diurnal Maker (1653), in Works (1687), P- 73- ' Cf. A. M. Broadley, The Royal Miracle (191 2), p. 227. * J. B. Williams, History of English Journahsm (1908), and The Beginnings of English Journalism, in The Cambridge History of English Literature, vii (191 1), PP- 343-365- 82 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES were indeed fit predecessors of Titus Gates, who may well be regarded as their monstrous scion, and who in 1678 un- abashed perpetrated the most outrageous hoax that has ever mislead the British public.^ After the Restoration, though journahsm in some respects improved, fabrication was still common. It appears, for example, in the '' Speeches and Prayers of the Regicides " ^ as well as in the Mary Carleton papers. To Wycherley's Manly, "out-lying a gazette writer" seemed an extraordi- nary achievement.^ Nor did the other kinds of imposture cease. Narratives which everybody nowadays regards, perhaps too confidently, as whoUy fictitious, were issued as true stories.^ Such is the case with Head and Kirkman's "English Rogue" (1665-1680), Croke's "Fortune's Uncer- tainty" (1667), Villers' "Gentleman Apothecary" (1670), Kirkman's " Unlucky Citizen " (1673), the anonymous "Rival Mother" (1692), "The Complete Mendicant" (1699), and many others. It has lately become known that the supposedly autobiographic portions of Mrs. Behn's " Groonoko " (1688) are mendacious.^ Such deceptions seem indeed the natural outcome and accompaniments of those journalistic practices at which we have glanced. The Commonwealth news-writers, for instance Wharton,^ fre- quently composed short lives of their friends and enemies, the truth of which was doubtless often greatly affected by the 1 Cf. Thomas Seccombe, " Titus Gates, Perjurer ", in " Lives of Twelve Bad Men " (2d ed., 1894), pp. 95-154. 2 Williams, History of Journalism, p. 186 n. 3 The Plain Dealer, Act I, Scene 2. ^ On the effect of this practice see A. J. Tieje, A Peculiar Phase of the History of ReaUsm in Pre-Richardsonian Fiction, in Publications of the Modem Language Association of America, xxviii (1913), pp. 213-252. * Ernest Bernbaum, " Mrs. Behn's Oroonoko," in the George LjTnan Kittredge Anniversary Papers (1913), pp. 419-433. * Williams, p. 86. — Cf. Cambridge History of English Literature, vii (191 1), p. 501. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 83 strength of their partisanship. Mrs. Hutchinson intimates that for a pecuniary consideration they would " write up " anybody's reputation.^ At least a few of their biographical accounts, since they are contradicted by others, must have been untrue. When so many men had long and systemati- cally been engaged in fabrication for political and sectarian purposes, it is readily intelligible that they would in time employ their artifices for other purposes as well. Biographies certainly came to have a poor reputation for veracity. " Memoir," says Richard Steele satirically, " is French for a novel." ^ When Dr. Johnson planned to write the biography of Richard Savage, he expressed a similar suspicion. " It may be reasonably imagined," he said, " that others may have the same design; but as it is not credible that they can obtain the same materials, it must be expected they will supply from invention the want of intelligence; and that under the title of ' The Life of Sav- age ' they will publish only a novel, filled with romantic adventure and imaginary amours." ^ As imposture was so notoriously operative in journalistic and literary activities, one is led to beHeve, at least tenta- tively, that other biographies besides that of Mary Carleton were really novels. Many biographical writings will, how- ever, have to be tested before this belief is wholly established. Facts which bear it out have, to be sure, appeared within the last year or two. Professor A, H. Upham has observed that so highly respectable a biographer as Lucy Hutchinson in writing the memoirs (c. 1664-167 1) of her husband, borrowed a good deal from the Duchess of Newcastle.* Professor C. N. ^ Williams, p. 36. ^ Tatler, no. 84. ^ Boswell's Johnson, ed. G. B. Hill, i (1891), p. 190. * A. H. Upham, " Lucy Hutchinson and the Duchess of Newcastle," in Anglia, xxxvi (191 2), pp. 200-220. 84 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES Greenough has disclosed that John Dunton stole many of his descriptions of New England scenes and people (composed after 1703).^ " The Life and Memoirs of Mrs. Behn " (1696) probably written by Charles Gildon, is, as I have shown else- where, really a novel with a woman of letters for its heroine; and stands in the boldness and extent of its imposture second only to " The Counterfeit Lady " itself.^ Signs of a parallel development in France are displayed in the memoirs of Cardinal Retz and in the voluminous biographies by Sandras. Much research remains, however, to be done. It will be hampered by that difficulty of applying reliable tests, which I mentioned in discussing the Carleton biographies, and doubtless it will in many a case be fruitless. But some biographies, — especially, I believe, those of criminals, adventurers, travelers, and sectarians, — will probably yield valuable results. At any rate they may henceforth be studied, in view of what is now known about " The Counter- feit Lady," with a better insight into their probable charac- ter, and with the expectation that a considerable number of them will, as Professor Greenough says of Dunton's " Life," prove to be misplaced in our libraries and to require trans- ferring from the shelves of history to those of fiction. If it is no longer safe, or even reasonable, to assume that seventeenth century journalism and biography on the one hand, and the works of " the father of the English novel " on the other, differ as fact differs from fiction, it follows that the doctrine of Professor Raleigh with reference to Defoe, — " realistic fiction in this country was first written by way of the direct imitation of truthful record," ' — is equally doubt- 1 C. N. Greenough, " John Dunton's Letters from New England," in Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, xiv (191 2), pp. 213-257. ^ Ernest Bernbaum, " The Biography of Mrs. Behn a Fiction ", in Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, xxviii (1913), pp. 432-453. * Walter Raleigh, " The English Novel " (sth ed., 1906), p. 114. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 85 ful. It would be safer to hold that Defoe wrote in imitation of records that falsely pretended to be truthful. The notion that he would read a " biography " like " The Counterfeit Lady " and accept it as credulously as would the general public, ill accords with his intimate knowledge of all the tricks of his trade and his perfect mastery of their practice. His nineteenth century biographers, William Lee and Thomas Wright, regarded and described him as an ingenuous char- acter; but such contemporaries of his as Gildon, — thieves catching a thief, — knew that, like Walker and Kirkman before him, he was thoroughly schooled in unscrupulous mendacity.^ " Robinson Crusoe " had not yet been pub- lished when a contributor to "Read's Journal" described, in oft-quoted words, Defoe's " little art he is truly master of, of forging a story, and imposing it on the world for truth, . . . with all the little embellishment of lies that are contrived to set it off."^ Master of the art, they de- clared him ; but not its inventor, — that error is of modem making. It is probable that as we come to know more familiarly the journalists and biographers of the Commonwealth and Restoration, we shall recognize that it was their devious methods which guided the practices of Defoe. Their politi- cal subterfuges and tergiversations correspond to his. After their fashion are his reports of notable criminals, e. g., of Cartouche, John Sheppard, and Jonathan Wild. Like him who forged a letter from Mary Carleton in Jamaica, Defoe concocted a letter purporting to come from a female pick- ^ Charles Gildon, " The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Mr. D — DeF — ." Its motto, Qui vult decipi, decipiatur, is noteworthy. — As early as 1691, Defoe is found associated with Dunton and Gildon, through his verses (The Char- acter of the late Dr. Samuel Annesly) contributed to the second volume of The Athenian Oracle. See William Lee, " Daniel Defoe " (1869), pp. 33-34. ^ Read's Journal, i November, 1718. — Lee, "Defoe," pp. 282-283. 86 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES pocket returned from transportation.^ And, just like his predecessors, he vouches for the truth of all his accounts. In his circumstantial narrative of the storm of 1703, during which some believe he was sheltered within prison walls,^ he expresses detestation of those who " forge a story." In his " Dumb Philosopher " he deplores that " the public has too often been imposed upon by fictitious stories." " This supplying a story by invention," he makes Robinson Crusoe remark, " is certainly a most scandalous crime; it is a sort of lying that makes a great hole in the heart, in which by de- grees a habit of lying enters in." Conformably to these hypocritical reflections, he wished all men to regard his novels (and so, indeed, one of his biographers regarded them) as " the narratives of some of the extraordinary characters who had crossed his path." ^ His protestations are no longer credited, and so high an authority as Professor W. P. Trent regretfully says: " My belief in his integrity is shattered." ^ What needs to be added, however, is that Defoe did not invent the methods of fabrication, but applied with surpass- ing skill methods that had been practiced, probably more extensively than yet realized, by a large group of minor writers. Fuller knowledge of the relation of Defoe to his predeces- sors would give us a clearer understanding of his novels. On this subject there exists at present much confusion. In the reaction against Wright's tendency to accept Defoe's assur- ances of authenticity at their face value, it is assumed that at least some of the novels — for example, " Moll Flanders " ^ Applebee's Journal, i6 July, 1720. — Lee, " Defoe," ii, pp. 256-258. '^ Cf., however, W. P. Trent in The Cambridge History of Enghsh Literature, ix (1913), p. II. ^ Thomas Wright, The Life of Daniel Defoe (1894), p. 275. * W. P. Trent, Bibliographical Notes on Defoe, in The Nation, Ixxxiv (1907), P- 515- MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 87 and " Roxana," — were wholly derived from their author's imagination. But the fact that others of them are, like Kirkman's " Counterfeit Lady," based upon pubhshed sources, suggests the necessity of investigating the Defoe mystery anew. If, as I believe likely, journalistic and bio- graphic sources shall be eventually found for all of Defoe's great novels, the fact that he is so voluminous will seem less astounding. However that may be, the history of earlier fabrication ought to aid us in determining which of Defoe's narratives are substantially true, which (if any) are wholly imaginary, and which mingle fiction with fact. The considerations which I have advanced in denial of the- two doctrines that the criminal biographies were as a class substantially true, and that the narrative methods of Defoe were acquired by " imitating truthful records," are, like the doctrines themselves, surmises rather than proofs. The other current doctrine, however, — that in seventeenth century fictitious Uterature there were no very close ap- proaches to the novels of Defoe, — I venture to hold demon- strably confuted by the facts revealed concerning " The Counterfeit Lady." In reviewing the researches of the students of the English novel, we saw that the fictitious narratives of this period which seemed to them the nearest approaches to those of " the father of the English novel " were the following: 665-1680 Head and Kirkman " The Enghsh Rogue " (picaresque) 1668 Neville " The Isle of Pines " (imaginary voyage) 1673 Kirkman " The Unlucky Citizen " (picaresque) 678-1684 Bunyan " The Pilgrim's Progress " (rehgious allegory) 1680 Bunyan " Mr. Badman " (story in dialogue) 1688 Mrs. Behn " Oroonoko " (short romance) Mrs. Behn " The Fair Jilt " (short romance) 1692 Congreve " Incognita " (short romance) 1693 " The Player's Tragedy " (short romance) 1699 " The Complete Mendicant " (reahstic story) 88 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES By inserting in this chronological list " The Counterfeit Lady " (1673) its very important place at once becomes apparent. It is important, for one reason, because it appears so early, — seven years before " The Pilgrim's Progress," fifteen before Mrs. Behn's stories, and twenty-six before " The Complete Mendicant." Many of the advances in the progress towards realistic fiction which those works are said to have initiated, were previously made by " The Counter- feit Lady." Even though it had appeared a decade or two later than 1673, its claims to significance in the history of the novel would remain superior to those of any of the works in the above list, with the debatable exception of " The Complete Mendicant." The picaresque novels lack, as is generally conceded, unity and coherence; and they are too vulgarly satiric in tone. " The Isle of Pines," which is only about one-fourth as long as " The Counterfeit Lady," is too short to be considered a novel, and is pre-occupied with a gro- tesque theory of an ideal commonwealth. The works of Bunyan, surpassing of course all the others as literary works of genius, widely depart from the typical novel both in their purpose and especially in their form. '' The Player's Tragedy," and the stories of Mrs. Behn and Congreve, are short romances. Mrs. Behn's " Oroonoko " is, indeed, an instructive illustration of the manner in which the romantic narratives of the time were being slowly contaminated by realism without being essentially changed; for its few touches of true description are submerged beneath floods of traditional romance. Undoubtedly each of these works contributed something to the coming novel; but of none of them can we say, what is precisely true of " The Counterfeit Lady," that it closely resembles the novels of Defoe in both subject matter and in methods of composition. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 89 What " The Counterfeit Lady " exhibits is, of course, an early phase of the reahstic novel, and not the full develop- ment. It is considerably shorter than the average length of the novels of Defoe. Perhaps it contains a proportionally larger amount of true incident than they do, though this cannot be confidently asserted until they have been more thoroughly studied. Undoubtedly it is inferior to those admirably written works in style. Even making due allow- ance for the remarkable and general improvement in prose style that took place after 1673, we must judge the author of " The Counterfeit Lady " a writer whose diction is crude and whose interminable sentences are often incorrect. Such short-comings will, however, not surprise anyone who under- stands how slowly, as a rule, a hterary type develops. What to him will seem really astonishing is that Kirkman managed to anticipate in so many particulars the ways of his great successor. Inferior in literary skill and quahty to such masterpieces as " Moll Flanders," " The Counterfeit Lady " distinctly approaches them in matters that were indispensable to the progress of the novel. The similarity in the substance is comparatively unimportant, though one might draw a curi- ous parallelism between the careers of Moll Carleton and Moll Flanders with their frequent marriages, their thefts, and their transportation. The historically significant ap- proach is seen in less accidental matters. Kirkman might truly have stated one of the differences between his work and the earlier Carleton narratives in the words that Defoe used to contrast his own " Jonathan Wild " with previous accounts of that hero, — " the following tract does not indeed make a jest of his story as they do, or present his history, which indeed is a tragedy of itseh, in a style of 90 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES mockery and ridicule, but in a method agreeable to the fact."^ The serious moral tone, the minute depiction of occurrences, the coherence of the plot, the tracing of the motives of the characters, and the elaborate creation of verisimilitude, — these qualities, whose combination is usually considered original with Defoe,^ we have seen to be prevailing traits of " The Counterfeit Lady." Not in merely a single respect, nor in an occasional passage, but in many essential partic- ulars, and in his narrative as a whole, Kirkman maintains the manner commonly associated with Defoe. " To connect Defoe with the past of English literature," says M. Jusse- rand, " we must get over the whole of the seventeenth century, and go back to ' Jack Wilton '." ^ This we find no longer necessary, for we recognize in " The Counterfeit Lady " an early link in the chain of realistic novels. ^ Defoe, " Jonathan Wild " (1729), preface. ^ Sentence after sentence from the current descriptions of Defoe's art and pur- pose, might be quoted and applied to The Counterfeit Lady. Compare with Kirkman's technique, as analyzed supra, chapter vi, the statements about Defoe's methods in: Gosse, Eighteenth Century Literature (1889), p. 180; Dennis, Age of Pope (1901), pp. 188 and 191; Harold Williams, Two Centuries of the English Novel (1911), pp. 18-19 and 21; G. A. Aitken, ed. Robinson Crusoe (1895), pp. xxxviii-xlvi; W. L. Cross, English Novel (1904), pp. 28 and 30; C. E. Morgan, The Novel of Manners (1911), pp. 47, 119, 127, 129, 134; and especially F. W. Chandler, The Literature of Roguery (1907), pp. 289, 291, 293, 295. ' J. J. Jusserand, The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare (1895), p. 348. APPENDIX APPENDIX A The Current Doctrine of the Rise of the English Novel In the first chapter, I stated that modern scholars, with a remarkable tendency to unanimity, consider Defoe to remain the founder of the English novel, even after the claims of his alleged predecessors have been fully scrutinized. The researches and discussions which have led to this conclusion are so numerous that it is difficult to synthesize them; but I shall endeavor to do this, and thereby to give the ruling answer to the important questions : did seventeenth century writers approach the art of reahstic fiction, and, if so, in what manner and to what degree ? According to the general reply, the Ehzabethans who, like Deloney, Nash, and Breton, had occasionally ventured to write realistic stories, did not found a school, and were su- perseded by the writers of romance. The latter type in aU its varieties ^ long dominated, if it did not monopolize, the field of fiction. For at least half a century, until about 1680, the narrative art was progressing in a direction opposite to the work of Defoe. Only by keeping this in mind as the out- standing fact, can one, without gaining a false view of the whole situation, examine those other types of fiction, in their time less admired and produced, which by departing from romance were drawing nearer to reahsm. ^ On proposed classifications of seventeenth century fiction, see C. E. Morgan, The Novel of Manners (191 1), p. 3 2.; A. J. Tieje, The Expressed Aim of the Long Prose Fiction from 1579 to 1740, in Journal of English and Germanic Philology, XI (1912), pp. 402-432; and Tieje's criticism of Miss Morgan's classification, in the same Journal, XI (191 2), p. 633. 93 94 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES Among these was the historical novel, exemplified by " English Adventures " (1678) and " The EngHsh Princess " (1678), in which the writers did not loftily idealize the characters and manners of a former age but in some degree conformed them to those of the Restoration period itself.^ More important and more numerous were those stories of which Mrs. Behn and Congreve are to-day the only unfor- gotten authors. They arose from the Italian novelle] and, after being modified in Spain and France, flourished in England, especially during the i68o's, in several varieties. Though it was peculiarly to them that Dryden and his contemporaries applied the term " novel," they seem to us rather short stories, few of them exceeding in length one hundred small pages. Their popularity was short-hved, for they appealed chiefly to the society of the Restoration court. In contrast with the remoteness and languor of the romances, these tales, which generaUy professed to deal with actual happenings, and which sometimes had a lively air, showed a departure toward realism.^ Hence Mrs. Behn has been called '' the first important English writer to apply anything like realistic methods to material that is not picaresque," and has been credited with " a share in the attempt, faint and ineffective, that the later seventeenth century witnessed, to bring romance into closer relation with contemporary Ufe." ^ But he who reads such opinions without reading Mrs. Behn's '' Oroonoko " or " The Fair Jilt," may easily infer too much. Relatively to the romances these tales seem realistic; but absolutely, they are far from being so. For all its alleged basis in the author's own experience, " Oroonoko " has the exalted temper and style of the heroic play; and in " The Fair Jilt," as Professor Raleigh says, " the ' C. E. Morgan, The Novel of Manners, pp. 55-59. * Morgan, pp. 75-85. ^ Raleigh, The English Novel, p. 109. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 95 character may have been real, . . . but the language resembles that of the most high-souled of the heroic ladies." ^ Similarly, though Congreve (again by way of differentiation from the romance) points out similarities between his " In- cognita " (1692) and comedy, the real resemblance of the tale is rather to a romantic comedy, like Dryden's " The Rival Ladies," than to those masterpieces of realism, the comedies of manners that have made Congreve illustrious. Nor does the unusually vigorous human passion which an anonymous author infused into " The Player's Tragedy " (1693) project its gloomy intrigue into the clear Hght of actuality.^ Even as Miss Morgan finds that " a romantic glamour attached itself to the historical novels," so Professor Canby sees in the tale of gallantry " only the old novella, pompous from contamination by the historical romance." Pre- occupied with amorous episodes among the leisure class, " it lacked at all times the good stuff of character, Hfe, or emo- tions which could properly extend it toward the real novel." And though it endeavored to become realistic, it "at most approximated locality, actions, costumes, occasionally the language of the times." ^ To confirm these modern judg- ments, I may cite the significant title of a collection of these tales, published in 1686: " DeHghtful Novels, Exemplified in Eight Choice and Elegant Histories, Lately Related by the most Refined Wits, ... in which are comprised the Gallant Adventures, Amorous Intrigues, and Famous Enter- prises of several English Gentry: with the most Pathetic Oratory and Subtile Stratagems used in Love Affairs." ^ Raleigh, p. 108. 2 Morgan, p. 54. * Morgan, p. 55. — H. S. Canby, The Short Story in English (1909), pp. 348, 171, 160-161. 96 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES Such were the traits which the age itself valued in these productions. Among the kinds of narrative which, unlike the historical novel and the tale of gallantry, satisfied the perennial craving for realism, were the burlesque romance, the narrative satire, and the picaresque novel. These, says Miss Morgan, were effective in " the training of readers and writers of all classes to appreciate the humorous or comic view of life, the culti- vating of a taste for robust animalism as opposed to the ethereal sentimentalism of the romances, the revealing of the possibilities of low life and bourgeois material, the realistic depiction of a definite, concrete background, and the develop- ing of a vigorous, colloquial style for purposes of narration, although not as yet for the expression of emotion." ^ But surely these general consequences cannot be solely or even chiefly ascribed to the narratives in question; for the same results were being produced by far more distinguished types of literature, — for example, verse satire and the comedy of manners. If we ask whether influences of a less indeter- minable character proceeded specifically from the burlesque, the narrative satire, and the picaresque novel, we obtain, in the cases of the first two, a prompt negative. No one sug- gests that Defoe borrowed the substance, or imitated the form, of travesties like " The Essex Champion " (1683), or of so-called narrative satires (largely descriptive) like " The Adventures of Covent Garden " (1699) ^^^ the scandalous sketches of Ned Ward and Tom Brown. Whatever was peculiar to these forms was uninfluential. Of the picaresque novel, the status seems at first sight somewhat different. Professor Chandler, the authority on the literature of roguery, defines that branch of it called the picaresque novel in these precise terms: " the comic biog- ^ Morgan, pp. 48-49. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 97 raphy (or more often the autobiography) of an anti-hero who makes his way in the world through the service of masters, satirizing their personal faults, as well as their trades and professions." ^ Since the novels of Defoe fre- quently recount the lives of rogues, it is natural to assume, before reading a seventeenth century picaresque novel, that in such work lies the source of his art. But this assumption proves mistaken. In the first place, Defoe might learn (and, as we have seen, as a matter of fact did learn) that choice of subject from yet another type of narrative. Secondly, by the time he began to write fiction, the picaresque novel had been for nearly half a century a moribund form.^ In the days of Elizabeth and James I, it had had a promising start in several interesting works, among them Nash's admirable "The Unfortunate Traveller"; but thereafter, except for two insignificant tales, by Dekker and by Thomas Cranley, it lived for over sixty years only in translations. The native revival of this exotic type, in " The English Rogue " (1665-1671) and " The Unlucky Citizen " (1673), was both brief and contemptible. Critics unite in despising these chaotic " scrap-heaps of literary reminiscences," pilfered from jest-books and cony-catching pamphlets, compared to which the plots of Defoe are firmly knit.^ Even more insignificant were " The Dutch Rogue " (1683), " a wretched copy of the Spanish and possibly a translation "; and " The Irish Rogue " (1690), " a cheap tract." * Not only were picaresque novels in this period rarely and badly written, but 1 F. W. Chandler, The Literature of Roguery (1907), I, p. 5. 2 Chandler, p. 229. — Confirmed by Morgan, pp. 46-47. 3 R. P. Utter, The Origins of the English Novel (unpublished Harvard disser- tation), pp. 119, 121. — W. L. Cross, English Novel, p. 26. — George Saintsbury, A Short History of English Literature (1900), p. 517; and his The English Novel (1913), PP- 48-50. * Morgan, p. 46. 98 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES for an even more important reason they did not lead up to the work of Defoe: in their general tone they were vulgarly comic, if not cynical. A narrative of exceptional character, " The Complete Mendicant," published as late as 1699, and sometimes termed a picaresque novel, is not truly of the type for the very reason that it is serious. More than any other work so far mentioned, it anticipates the narratives of Defoe; it has, in fact, been attributed to him. The picaresque novel in the accurate sense of the term, however, fell short, according to authorities on this subject, of exercising upon Defoe a notable impulse.^ *' What fiction needed," Professor Cross remarks, " was first of all to rid itself of the extravagances of the romancer and the cynicism of the picaresque story-teller." ^ In his opinion, as in that of many others, the author who freed narration from these encumbrances was John Bunyan. " In his use of accurate detail to produce the illusion of actual- ity," says Miss Morgan, " in the naturalism of his characters and in the adoption of a vigorous, colloquial, yet dignified style, he was a worthy predecessor of Defoe." ^ The form of Bunyan's works being, however, obviously different from that of Defoe's, she herself adds that they " scarcely belong to the history of prose fiction." ^ Others unhesitatingly assign them an integral place in its development. Professor Saintsbury, who minimizes the importance of " The English Rogue," says of Bunyan's greatest work: " If, discarding arbitrary axioms, we confine ourselves to the real qualities of the novel, we shall find it very hard to discover one which is not eminently present in " The Pilgrim's Prog- ress " (1678-1684). And of "The Life and Death of ^ Chandler, pp. 285-300. — Confirmed by Miss Morgan, p. 47. ^ Cross, English Novel, p. 21. ' Morgan, p. 123. * Ibid., p. 138. Cf. pp. 126-127. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 99 Mr. B adman " (1680) he declares: " It is scarcely an exag- geration to say that this once printed, the English Novel in its most characteristic form, as opposed to the Romance, was founded." ^ Likewise concerning it Mr. Gosse had pre- viously remarked: " It is absolutely original as an attempt at realistic fiction, and it leads through Defoe on to Fielding and the great school of English novels." " These sweeping assertions seem on reflection the impulsive result of justifiably enthusiastic admiration of Bunyan's graphic style and imaginative genius. From the historical point of view, Bunyan's especial contribution is, after all, not to the novel as a type but to the general spirit of litera- ture. In all literary forms, his age regularly treated the life of the lower and middle classes with satiric levity. Bunyan, on the other hand, dignified common humanity by treating it with profound seriousness. One may see his influence on Defoe in this respect, as well as that of his style and his imagination, without becoming blind to the fact that Bunyan did not directly approach the fiction of the future either in purpose or in form. Surely the purpose of the eighteenth century novel was not religious edification; nor was its form either dialogue or allegory. That the seventeenth century approaches to the realistic novel hitherto considered were neither direct nor close, will, I think, be the conclusion of anyone who scrutinizes them without indulging the propensity of the student of origins to see the coming flower in every leaf. Other forms of nar- rative, — e. g., the vulgar redactions of the romances, the didactic story, and the Oriental tale, — have been examined without overturning the established doctrine.^ The claims 1 Saintsbury, History of English Literature, pp. 515, 516; and his The Novel, PP- 53-58. ^ Gosse, Eighteenth Century Literature, p. 85. ^ Morgan, pp. 115-116, 118, 111-114, iio-iii. loo MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES of one and all to be regarded as progressing toward Defoe appear as weak as those of the ancient worthy of Blarney who, on being asked whether he had ever been to Dublin, replied: " Not all the way, — but I've been as far as Cork." A singular little work, Henry Neville's " Isle of Pines " (1668), anticipates, according to Mr. Garnett and Mr. Saintsbury, the style of Defoe with its " ingeniously multi- pHed and adjusted detail," and is in a way a Robinsoniad.^ But as this imaginary voyage, with its polygamous hero and " ideal " commonwealth, is only thirty-one pages long, it can hardly be regarded as an important step toward the novel. The least distant approaches which have been discovered, — like " The Complete Mendicant " (1699) already mentioned; " Love in a Passion, Without Discretion " (1709) and " The Reformed Whore " (c. 1709), two short love stories; " The Lover's Secretary" (1713) by Tom Brown; and "The Double Captive " (1718),^ — are, it is noteworthy, works contemporary with Defoe's activity. In short, the re- searches whose conclusions we have reviewed, end in estab- lishing Defoe's reputation for originality upon a wider foundation. 1 Richard Garnett, The Age of Dryden (1895), p. 246. — Saintsbury, The Novel, pp. 58-61. — The credibility of The Isle of Pines was attacked in Das Verdaechtige Pineser Eyland, Hamburg (1668). ^ Morgan, pp. 1 19-120, 108. APPENDIX B Bibliographical Dlfficulties Many of the Carleton narratives give rise to bibliographical and chronological problems. Eight of them, bracketed in the list given in Chapter I, are lost; the respective order of appearance of some is unascertainable; and the inter- relationship of others is not self-evident. But for the pur- pose of this inquiry, some of these difficulties need not, fortunately, be attacked. It is probably impossible, and is here unnecessary, to determine which of the three earliest narratives was the very first to appear, and whether the " Memoires " preceded the " Life and Character " of 1673. No surmises of these points have entered into the argu- ment presented in this study. Of some of the difficulties that must be surmounted, rea- sonably satisfactory solutions may be found. The character of four of the lost works is discoverable because they were either wholly or partly absorbed in extant works, — "A Westminster Wedding " in " The Counterfeit Lady," the '' Replication " of John Carleton in his " Ultimum Vale," and both the " Letter from Jamaica " and the " Deportment and Carriage " in the " Memoires." Again, though the second edition of " The Counterfeit Lady " professes to be *' corrected," it need not be regarded as essentially different from the first. Not only was revision of that kind an unusual and in this case unnecessary labor, but in places where correc- tions might certainly be expected they are not found; for example, the 1679 edition retains the sentence: " It is now just nine years from her thus first acting on the stage to her I02 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES last acting on the gallows," ^ — obviously a mere reprint of the 1673 edition. The really serious perplexities arise con- cerning " The Case of Madam Mary Carleton " (1663), the 1673 edition of " The Life and Character," — both being lost, — and the relationship of those two works to " The Counterfeit Lady." That a work entitled " The Case of Madam Mary Carle- ton," with a portrait of Mary and a dedication to Prince Rupert, was actually published in 1663, is certain; for it is thus described in that year by John Carleton in his reply thereto, " Ultimum Vale." ^ His description, furthermore, enables us to identify the first part of " The Life and Char- acter " (1732) as a re-issue, without the portrait and dedica- tion, of the " Case." All that Carleton says of the " Case " is comprised in the statements that it is written for Mary by a " mercenary pedant," " is better worded than believed," contains " new invented lies," intimates that he did not write the " Replication," declares " she will own him till death dissolve the union," and suggests that she will shortly return home. Every one of these allusions, — with the possible exception of the last, which is ambiguous, and which may easily have been his interpretation of several remarks that she makes concerning his house on the one hand, and her alleged home country on the other, — clearly apphes to the "Life and Character"; for the latter is remarkably tren- chant yet pedantic in style, makes many new allegations, hints a doubt regarding the authorship of the " Rephcation," and does protest that *' she will own him till death dissolve the union." ^ Again, the second part of the " Life and Character " opens with the words: " Thus you have read 1 Counterfeit Lady, p. lOo. ^ Pp. 41-42. ^ Cf. Life and Character, especially pp. 35 and 68-69, ^nd Ultimum Vale, pp. 42-46. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 103 her Case." ^ Add to these evidences the fact that long passages in " The Counterfeit Lady " closely resemble passages in " The Life and Character," yet are declared by the author to have been derived from the " Case "; ^ and the identification of the first part of " The Life and Character " with " The Case of Madam Mary Carleton " appears established. The second part of " The Life and Character," called the " Appendix," shows likewise an intimate relationship to "The Counterfeit Lady": for both recount episodes of Mary's career from 1664 to 1673 in much the same way and in just the same order, which is true of none of the other biographies; and verbal correspondence between them frequently recurs. On first comparing them one is uncertain whether the " Appendix " is a new, and perhaps slightly revised, edition of a source of " The Counterfeit Lady "; or, on the other hand, a succinct summary of the concluding portions of " The Counterfeit Lady." Closer examination eliminates the last of these possibihties. " The Counterfeit Lady " rarely mentions the names of persons involved in Mary's escapades; but the " Appendix " gives them even in unimportant cases, — an addition that, in a summary, is at least curious. The " Appendix " concludes with a con- fession by Mary which the closing pages of " The Counter- feit Lady " do not record. Most convincing in this respect are the many differences of detail in corresponding passages of the two works, of which we have seen many illustrations in the course of this study, and which are inexplicable on the theory that the " Appendix " is a summary but are easily explainable on the ground that it is a source. * Life and Character, p. 71. ^ Cf. Counterfeit Lady, pp. 27-94, and Life and Character, pp. 17-63. I04 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES Whoever re-issued the " Appendix " in 1732, however, did not faithfully follow the first edition throughout. One passage, — meant to challenge the attention of the reader, for the word " boy " is therein printed in large capitals, — reads as follows : She returned in little more than a year, great with child, and was delivered of a fine BOY, at her lodgings in the Httle Old Bailey; though some have said she was brought to bed in Newgate, and that it was a miraculous child, by saving his mother's life when in the womb, insinuating thereby that she evaded the execution of her sentence of death by pleading her belly. ^ It is true that Mary, vainly hoping to escape the gallows, alleged that she was pregnant; but the rest of the quoted statement is false, the actual birth of a boy not even being rumored in the publications of Mary's own day. Since the author of " The Counterfeit Lady " does not overlook gossip of a far less trivial character than this, he very prob- ably would have discussed the matter had he found it mentioned in the first edition of the " Appendix." Fortu- nately enough, we can account for this mysterious boy, who is first mentioned in 1 732. In that year a conspicuous figure, with whom slander was busy, was Alderman Barber; and his contemporary. Lord Harley, in some interesting notes on biographies, chances to make the following remarks regard- ing the one with which we are concerned: At the end of the year 1732 comes out the " Life of Mary Moders, alias, alias," said to be the second edition. The meaning of printing this was upon a story that John Barber, Mayor of London that year, was her natural son, got upon her in Newgate, and bred up a devil to a printing house; but as to his birth it is not so.^ ^ Life and Character, p. 75. * Notes and Queries, 2d Series, IX (i860), p. 418. MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES 105 This explanation of how the troublesome passage came to be written, removes the only stumbhng block in the way of the conclusion that the " Appendix," slightly modified in 1732, was a source of " The Counterfeit Lady." Thus the author of the latter had when he wrote, in 1673, both the " Case " and the " Appendix " before him. More- over these two publications were not at that time separate; but, as in 1732, combined : for the Hnk which united them in the 1732 edition is found verbatim in '' The Counterfeit Lady." ^ The title of the combined work was, doubtless already in its first edition, of 1673, " The Life and Character of Mrs. Mary Moders." The fact that under 1673 no such work is recorded in the *' Term Catalogues " proves nothing to the contrary, since no less than three other publications concerning Mary, — " Memories of Madam Charlton," " Some Luck, Some Wit," and " An Elegy on Madam Mary Carlton, " — which are extant and of that year, are likewise not recorded there. These difficulties once out of the way, we may now clearly see what the genesis of " The Life and Character " really was. Its first part, Mary's own " Case," appeared in 1663. Ten years later, on the occasion of her execution, someone re- printed that " Case, " added as the " Appendix " a succinct account of her fife between 1663 and 1673, ^^d entitled the whole " The Life and Character of Mrs. Mary Moders." Both parts of it were straightway used as a source by the author of " The Counterfeit Lady." In 1732, when rumor made the then mayor of London a son of the notorious woman of half a century earlier, someone seized the opportunity to issue a second edition of " The Life and Character," and made it saleable by adding the conspicuous amendment con- * Cf. Counterfeit Lady, pp. 66-67 and Life and Character, p. 71. io6 MARY CARLETON NARRATIVES cerning Mary's boy. Except for that passage, and some trivial changes to bring the work up to date, — like " was " for " is now," or " famous " for the obsolete " celebrious," — the edition of 1732 followed the first edition closely. For us its value is very great; for it substantially preserves the lost " Case " of 1663, and the lost " Appendix " of 1673, the two most important sources of " The Counterfeit Lady." PRINTED AT THE HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U.S.A. Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: Jan. 2009 Preservationlechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 111 Thomson Park Drive r.ranhom/ TAin/nchin PA 1 RnKK