Barber, whom the character little resembles, but rather Antonio in
Otway's "Venice Preserved." And the plot of "The Distressed Orphan, or
Love in a Mad-House" (c. 1726), where young Colonel Marathon feigns
himself mad in order to get access to his beloved Annilia, may perhaps
owe its inspiration to the coarser mad-house scenes of Middleton's
"Changeling."[8] On the whole, however, the drama but poorly repaid its
debt to prose fiction.

An indication of the multifarious origins of the short tales of love is
to be found in the nominal diversity of the setting. The scene, though
often laid in some such passion-ridden land as Spain or Italy, rarely
affects the nature of the story. But as in such novels as "Philidore and
Placentia" and "The Agreeable Caledonian" the characters wander widely
over the face of Europe and even come in contact with strange Eastern
climes, so the writers of romantic tales ransacked the remotest corners
of literature and history for sensational matter. The much elaborated
chronicle of the Moors was made to eke out substance for "The Arragonian
Queen" (1724), a story of "Europe in the Eighth Century," while
"Cleomelia: or, the Generous Mistress" was advertised as the "Secret
History of a Lady Lately Arriv'd from Bengall." The tendency to exploit
the romantic features of outlandish localities was carried to the
ultimate degree by Mrs. Penelope Aubin, whose characters range over
Africa, Turkey, Persia, the East and West Indies, and the North American
continent, often with peculiar geographical results. But neither Mrs.
Aubin nor Mrs. Haywood was able to use the gorgeous local color that
distinguished Mrs. Behn's "Oroonoko," and still less did they command
the realistic imagination that could make the travels of a Captain
Singleton lifelike.

Even when, as in "The Mercenary Lover," the setting is transferred to