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At the point where the heroine swallows a sleeping potion supposing it poison, faints, and is thought to be dead, the narrative breaks off abruptly with the words: "Though the History of Cleomira and Belinda's Misfortunes, may be thought foreign to my Affairs ... yet it is absolutely necessary I should give it a Place, because it is the Source, or Spring, of many strange and uncommon Scenes, which happened to me during the remaining Part of my Life, and which I cannot give an Account of without" ...
When in 1740 Applebee published a new edition of "Roxana," he had it supplemented by "a continuation of nearly one hundred and fifty pages, many of which are filled with rubbish about women named Cleomira and Belinda." Here again Mrs.
Cleomira dances with all the Elegance of Motion imaginable; but her Eyes are so chastised with the Simplicity and Innocence of her Thoughts, that she raises in her Beholders Admiration and good Will, but no loose Hope or wild Imagination.
"The British Recluse" was in sub-title the "Secret History of Cleomira," and "Cleomelia: or, the Generous Mistress" claimed to be the "Secret History of a Lady Lately arriv'd from Bengall." The writer attached no particular significance to her use of the term, but employed it as a means of stimulating a meretricious interest in her stories.
Imagining that their lots may be somewhat akin, she induces the retired beauty to relate the history of her misfortunes. Cleomira upon her father's death is removed from the court to the country by a prudent mother. She does not take kindly to housewifery, and languishes until friends persuade her mother to let her attend a ball.
In real life the author of these stories was even more uncompromising. If she was blighted, she gave no indication of the fact. Something of the same defiant spirit actuated the unfortunate Belinda and Cleomira of "The British Recluse" . Belinda, a young lady of fortune in Warwickshire, comes to London on business and meets at her lodging-house a mysterious fair recluse.
Haywood followed the guidance of her own experience when it ran counter to the traditions of romance. The betrayed heroine ought to have died, or at least to have been immured in a convent to suffer a living death, but instead of acquiescing in their fate, Belinda and Cleomira, Mirtamene, and Glicera defy the world, and in the last case prove that the worm may turn.
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