had been probated. Even more conclusive evidence may be found in comparing the dates of the final events in the two accounts. Diego Redivivus, licensed on January 12, stops short with the humble burial of Morrell on January 13. Considerably later, certainly, must be the occurrence described in the Postscript of The Notorious Impostor: the nurse's and assistants' recollection that Morrell was laughing to himself in his last grim cheating of the world.

Part One of The Notorious Impostor, as the sequel informs us, met with a "general Reception." Advertised in the February issue of The Term Catalogues, also, was a separate continuation. Interest in the impostor did not diminish during February. "The Death of William M^orrell," complained The Gentleman's Journal of this month, "hath made too much Noise not to have reach'd you before this.... Had not his Will and Life been printed, I would have given you a large Account of both." The anonymous writer refers here, perhaps, to Diego Redivivus ("Will") and The Notorious Impostor ("Life") in the order of their publication. He then ironically lauds, in the verses of "William Morrell's Epitaph," the great skill of the impostor ("Columbus-like I a new World descry'd, / Of Roguery before untry'd").

Elkanah Settle's two parts of The Notorious Impostor were finally published together in 1694 as The Compleat Memoirs of the Life of that Notorious Impostor Will. Morrell, alias Bowyer, alias Wickham, &c. … under the imprint of Abel Roper and E. Wilkinson. So extensive are the re-arrangements of the episodes taken from Parts One and Two that The Compleat Memoirs may be regarded as a fifth, very different narrative. All the apologies for not resorting to "romance" are now dropped, and the humorous dedication is replaced by a direct appeal to Gabriel Balam, signed "E. Settle." The Compleat Memoirs then reworks the texts of the two Parts into a smooth, chronologically consistent narrative.[5] Even more important in designating The Compleat Memoirs as "new" are the "Considerable Additions never before Published" announced by the title-page. After using the incidents from The Second Part of the Notorious Impostor, Settle then adds: "Since the first Publication of our fore-going History of our Grand Guzman, we have receiv'd some Comical Adventures, worth inserting in his Memoirs, which though they now bring up the Rear of his Chronicle, however, they were the first of all his Wedlock Feats...." In the totally new adventures that end The Compleat Memoirs (pp. 72-88), the cynical tone and raciness of the picaresque become even more dominant than in the earlier separate narratives.[6]

The importance of the Morrell narratives in the development of English fiction lies mainly in their deft combinations of the real and the picaresque and in their conscious effort to unify the action, draw out the humour, or handle realistic talk and setting. But the narratives also look backward to an older type, the picaresque. William Morrell makes his printed appearance as the new picaro. The title Diego Redivivus (i.e. James Revived) had overtones of the sensationally picaresque. The witty pseudonym "Don Diego Puede-Ser" had been used by James Mabbe in his translation (1623) of Aleman's Vita del Picaro Guzman;[7] and more recent in English memories were the exploits of James Hind, the English Rogue. In the Dedication, The Notorious Impostor describes itself as "the Life of our English Guzman" and later promises to "paint our new Guzman in some of his boldest and fairest Colours." But the picaresque traditions have shaded into one another. For Morrell is not simply the new Guzman; he is also Hudibras and, in The Second Part, Don Quixote.

Still another reason for the importance of the Morrell narratives is their consciousness of fictional techniques and theory. In Diego Redivivus, for example, the final deception is meticulously developed with closely-woven incidents which do not appear elsewhere. The motives of the characters, too, are sharply defined; and the action is unified by the two references to oath-taking (pp. 2-3). The anonymous author, at the outset, stresses the value of "the Particulars … no disacceptable Entertainment" (p. 1). Aware of theory, he specifies that Morrell created "some Romantick narrative" to explain his poverty (p. 4). In fictional technique, Elkanah Settle approaches a unified theme especially in The Second Part of the Notorious Impostor and the "Comical Adventures" of The Compleat Memoirs where the incidents are mainly of one kind—matrimonial. Theorizing appears, too, in Part One somewhat in the manner of Daniel Defoe: "we dare not venture to play the Historian any farther than certain Intelligence (which yet we have not received) can guide us, being resolved not to load our Rambles with Romance or Fiction, his Life being furnisht with matter sufficiently voluminous without the addition of Flourish or Fancy" (p. 27). This may be Settle's pointed reference to the "fiction" of Diego Redivivus.[8] He maintains, also, that he had to delay for a fortnight the publication of The Second Part of the Notorious Impostor in order to be certain of its authenticity.

Finally, the importance of the Morrell narratives may be seen in terms of the realistic fiction that was to achieve fulfillment in the eighteenth-century novel. The clear presence of fictional elaboration, in The Notorious Impostor, caught the attention of both Frank Wadleigh Chandler and Ernest Bernbaum.[9] Elkanah Settle thus rightly belongs with writers, like Francis Kirkman, who masked fiction as the truth. Historians of the novel, moreover, attach significance to The Notorious Impostor in its resemblance to the novels of Defoe, Mrs. Heywood, and Smollett. Only the claim of influence on Smollett's Ferdinand Count Fatham has been investigated to any extent. In a full analysis of Smollett's novel, Chandler's strong statement will have to be taken into account: "The resemblance, indeed, between the two anti-heroes and the terms in which the accounts of their cheating are couched is so strong as to suggest actual borrowing on the part of Smollett."[10]

Spiro Peterson

Miami University
Oxford, Ohio

Notes to the Introduction

  [1] See F. C. Brown, Elkanah Settle: