Female writers of fiction during the early eighteenth century may generally be divided into two groups, according to their conception of the novel's intent and function. On one hand are Mrs. Manley and Mrs. Haywood, whose scandal chronicles were designed to titillate their readers with gossip and eroticism. On the other are ladies who viewed the novel as a vehicle for moral instruction: Elizabeth Singer Rowe, Penelope Aubin, and the authoress of the present volume, Mrs. Jane Barker.

Mrs. Barker makes her intentions concerning Exilius: or, The Banish'd Roman very plain, both on the title page and in the preface. It is "Written After the Manner of Telemachus," Fénélon's celebrated didactic romance, "For the Instruction of Some Young Ladies of Quality." Convinced as she is that "a happy Marriage, by the way of Virtue and Honour … lyes through, or borders upon, Heroick Love," she finds that "Romances (which commonly treat of this virtuous Affection) are not to be discarded as wholly useless." Such novels offer examples of what is, and is not, to be esteemed; they also "help to open the Understandings of young Readers, to distinguish between real Worth and superficial Appearances" and contain "many Handfulls of good Morality." She cites with pleasure a reader's opinion that she has successfully rendered "such an idle subject [as Love] both pure and useful; so 'tis to be hop'd there is nothing opposite to real Virtue; I am sure, if I knew or thought there were, I would burn both the Copy and my Fingers, rather than employ them towards its Publication."

Mrs. Barker keeps her promise: Exilius is an impeccably high-minded work which contains a multitude of examples of heroic and virtuous love suitably recompensed by Heaven, augmented by the characters' own reflections concerning the folly or wisdom of their behavior. Structure (and plausibility) is sacrificed to purpose, for there is little plot per se; each character relates his own story, and each story meshes intricately with those of his fellow narrators, until at the end Mrs. Barker has succeeded in unraveling all mysteries and uniting all possible pairs of lovers.

Since she speaks to a female audience, the authoress is concerned less with masculine behavior—the male characters belong in general to the heroic mode, fiery and passionate, but respectful, courageous, and loyal—than with the responsibilities and obligations of her virtuous heroines.¹ And she reveals herself to be an extremely strict moral disciplinarian. A girl's duty to her parents supersedes everything in her life. Though she may burn with passion for a worthy suitor, she must not reply to his advances until he has solicited parental consent. If her father has betrothed her to one she views with indifference or aversion—as is the case with Marcellus and Jemella and Fabius and Scipiana—she has no alternative but to accept his arrangement and hope that her lamentations may soften his heart. No matter what a father may do, his daughter never loses her sense of obligation to him. Thus, Clarinthia discovers to her dismay that "contrary to all Morality, and the Laws of Heaven, my wretched Father became inamoured of me" (I, 28); when he attempts to rape her and is killed, she tries to fly from her gallant rescuer, for "his Hands [were] still wreeking with my Father's Blood (for wicked as he was he was still my Father)" (I, 32).

A girl also has the duty to conform to the dignity and honor expected of her sex. She must not be forward: "'tis certain nothing so charms the Heart of Man as Modesty in Woman; this being the Beauty of the Mind, exceeds that of the Body, and remains when the other perishes" (II, 95).² Though passionately in love, she must conceal it; and if insuperable obstacles like rank or parental opposition stand in the way of marriage—as in the case of Cordiala and Scipio—she must lecture her lover firmly about respecting their importance. The conflict between the necessity to conform to public expectations and the strength of the individual's passion provides, of course, the tension in most of the heroines' stories; but Mrs. Barker never wavers in her advocacy of submitting to conformity.

But, as all the tales prove, Heaven justly recompenses one's behavior. So each heroine who, while doing violence to her own feelings, has obeyed parental commands and public obligations, is suitably matched up with a properly noble hero. Clelia is united with Marcellus, Clarinthia with her childhood sweetheart Asiaticus, Scipiana with the dashing Exilius. Those whose behavior has been less honorable are also carefully paired according to their deserts. The perfidious but finally repentant Libidinia falls to the libertine Clodius; Artemisia and Valerius suit one another since the mothers of each were notoriously dissolute, and even debauched by the same man.

Amidst this harmonious matrimonial manipulation, two incidents call attention to the severity with which Mrs. Barker can mete out justice to the vicious. The shipwrecked Jemella is rescued by a siren, half-man, halffish, and makes the acquaintance of the siren's human wife. The woman recounts her story: defying her father's choice of a husband, she was debauched and deserted by a rake, cast out by her family, delivered of an illegitimate child, and finally taken in by the siren. "In this I could not but again admire the exact Justice of Heaven, in thus punishing her Lewdness and Disobedience to her Parents," observes Jemella; "She that refus'd the honest Espousals provided by her Father, became Wife to a Monster; she that disgrac'd herself and her Friends by unlawful Lust, was a Prostitute to a Fish" (II, 72). The wife identifies Clodius, also saved by the siren, as her seducer, but he has no sympathy whatsoever for her. Dissolute women deserve nothing "but to become the broken Meat for lost Vertue to feed upon, and be the miserable Support of a ruin'd Reputation," he says contemptuously, "therefore it is your self you are to reproach for all your Misfortunes" (II, 76). The most vicious female character of all, Asbella, former mistress to Turpius and mother of his bastard Valerius, tries to poison Turpius. But he throws the potion on her, and she is instantly—and appropriately—disfigured: "Asbella's Eyes, that gave way to loose Glances and alluring Looks, are now only Blindness and Deformity; and her Ears, that were open to the soft Whispers of unlawful Love, are now shut from all Conversation" (II, 103).

One must admit that as a formal novel, Exilius is very weak: an implausible tangle of plots with scarcely any characterization. As a moral romance, however, it has its points: exciting adventures, elevated sentiments, and impeccable propriety. That it was intended to define the standards set for the female sex offers an interesting commentary on the status of Englishwomen in the early eighteenth century.

Notes

¹ John J. Richetti, who discusses Exilius in his Popular Fiction before Richardson: Narrative Patterns, 1700-1739 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), pp. 230-236, points out that to the male hero, the woman is "a divine messenger whose beauty and saintly presence both prove and prefigure the truths and joys of religion in this life and the next" (p. 235). There are indeed occasional hints of Platonism in the novel, like Scipiana's remark, as she laments to the "importai Powers," "why Oh why have you given me an Interior bearing so great Resemblance to your own Divine Purities, and not given me the Power to act accordingly" (I, 165).

² Occasional remarks indicate that she should not even be particularly well educated. Scipiana has studied philosophy and languages; but "How far this is suitable to our Sex I dare not pretend to determine, the Men having taken Learning for their Province, we must not touch upon its Borders without being suppos'd Usurpers" (I, 76).