The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood | Page 3

We know that Steele was
personally acquainted with Mrs. Manley, and it is possible that he knew
Mrs. Haywood, since she later dedicated a novel to him. With some
reservation, then, we may accept this sketch as a fair likeness. As a
young matron of seventeen or eighteen she was evidently a lively,
unconventional, opinionated gadabout fond of the company of similar
She-romps, who exchanged verses and specimen letters with the lesser
celebrities of the literary world and perpetuated the stilted romantic
traditions of the Matchless Orinda and her circle. A woman of her
independence of mind, we may imagine, could not readily submit to the
authority of an arbitrary, orthodox clergyman husband.
Mrs. Haywood's writings are full of the most lively scenes of marital
infelicity due to causes ranging from theological disputes to flagrant
licentiousness. Her enemies were not so charitable as to attribute her
flight from her husband to any reason so innocent as incompatibility of
temper or discrepancy of religious views. The position of ex-wife was
neither understood nor tolerated by contemporary society. In the words
of a favorite quotation from "Jane Shore":
"But if weak Woman chance to go astray, If strongly charm'd she leave
the thorny Way, And in the softer Paths of Pleasure stray, Ruin ensues,

Reproach and endless Shame; And one false Step entirely damns her
Fame: In vain, with Tears, the Loss she may deplore, In vain look back
to what she was before, She sets, like Stars that fall, to rise no more!"
Eliza Haywood, however, after leaving the thorny way of matrimony,
failed to carry out the laureate's metaphor. Having less of the fallen star
in her than Mr. Rowe imagined, and perhaps more of the hen, she
refused to set, but resolutely faced the world, and in spite of all rules of
decorum, tried to earn a living for herself and her two children, if
indeed as Pope's slander implies, she had children to support.
The ways in which a woman could win her bread outside the pale of
matrimony were extremely limited. A stage career, connected with a
certain degree of infamy, had been open to the sex since Restoration
times, and writing for the theatre had been successfully practiced by
Mrs. Behn, Mrs. Manley, Mrs. Centlivre, Mrs. Pix, and Mrs. Davys.
The first two female playwrights mentioned had produced beside their
dramatic works a number of pieces of fiction, and Mrs. Mary Hearne,
Mrs. Jane Barker, and Mrs. Sarah Butler had already gained a milder
notoriety as _romancières_. Poetry, always the elegant amusement of
polite persons, had not yet proved profitable enough to sustain a
woman of letters. Eliza Haywood was sufficiently catholic in her taste
to attempt all these means of gaining reputation and a livelihood, and
tried in addition a short-lived experiment as a publisher. Beside these
literary pursuits we know not what obscure means for support she may
have found from time to time.
Her first thought, however, was apparently of the theatre, where she
had already made her debut on the stage of the playhouse in Smock
Alley (Orange Street), Dublin during the season of 1715, as Chloe in
"Timon of Athens; or, the Man-Hater."[7] One scans the dramatis
personae of "Timon" in vain for the character of Chloe, until one
recalls that the eighteenth century had no liking for Shakespeare
undefiled. The version used by the Theatre Royal was, of course, the
adaptation by Thomas Shadwell, in which Chloe appears chiefly in
Acts II and III as the maid and confidant of the courtesan Melissa. Both
parts were added by Og. The rôle of Cleon was taken by Quin, later an

interpreter of Mrs. Haywood's own plays. But if she formed a
connection with either of the London theatres after leaving her husband,
the engagement was soon broken off, and her subsequent appearances
as an actress in her comedy of "A Wife to be Lett" (1723) and in
Hatchett's "Rival Father" (1730) were due in the one case to an accident
and in the other to her friendship for the playwright.
She herself, according to the "Biographia Dramatica," when young
"dabbled in dramatic poetry; but with no great success." The first of her
plays, a tragedy entitled "The Fair Captive," was acted the traditional
three times at Lincoln's Inn Fields, beginning 4 March, 1721.[8] Aaron
Hill contributed a friendly epilogue. Quin took the part of Mustapha,
the despotic vizier, and Mrs. Seymour played the heroine. On 16
November it was presented a fourth time for the author's benefit,[9]
then allowed to die. Shortly after the first performance the printed copy
made its appearance. In the "Advertisement to the Reader" Mrs.
Haywood exposes the circumstances of her turning playwright, naïvely
announcing:
"To attempt any thing in Vindication of the following Scenes, wou'd
cost me more