ench Baroness I have attempted to expose the
Reputation of an English Woman of Quality. I shou'd be sorry to think
the Actions of any of our Ladies such as you'd give room for a
Conjecture of the Reality of what he wou'd suggest. But suppose there
were indeed an Affinity between the Vices I have describ'd, and those
of some Woman he knows (for doubtless if there be, she must be of his
Acquaintance) I leave the World to judge to whom she is indebted for
becoming the Subject of Ridicule, to me for drawing a Picture whose
Original is unknown, or to him who writes her Name at the Bottom of
it.

"However, if I had design'd this as a Satyr on any Person whose Crimes
I had thought worthy of it, I shou'd not have thought the Resentment
of such a one considerable enough to have obliged me to deny it. But
as I have only related a Story, which a particular Friend of mine
assures me is Matter of Fact, and happen'd at the Time when he was in
Paris: I wou'd not have it made Use of as an Umbrage for the Tongue of
Scandal to blast the Character of any one, a Stranger to such detested
Guilt."

Before long the term "secret history" fell into disrepute, so that
writers found it necessary to make a special plea for the veracity of
their work. "The Double Marriage," "The Mercenary Lover," and
"Persecuted Virtue" were distinguished as "true secret histories," and
in the Preface to "The Pair Hebrew: or, a True, but Secret History of
Two Jewish Ladies, Who lately resided in London" Mrs. Haywood at once
confessed the general truth of the charge against the type and defended
the accuracy of her own production.

"There are so many Things, meerly the Effect of Invention, which have
been published, of late, under the Title of SECRET HISTORIES, that, to
distinguish this, I am obliged to inform my Reader, that I have not
inserted one Incident which was not related to me by a Person nearly
concerned in the Family of that unfortunate Gentleman, who had no
other Consideration in the Choice of a Wife, than to gratify a present
Passion for the Enjoyment of her Beauty."

About 1729 Eliza Haywood seems to have found the word "Life" or
"Memoirs" on the title-page a more effective means for gaining the
credence of her readers, and after that time she wrote, in name at
least, no more secret histories. The fictions so denominated in "Secret
Histories, Novels and Poems" were in no way different from her novels,