The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood | Page 7

length, with extraordinary rapidity. In 1724, for
instance, a year of tremendous activity, she rushed into print no less

than ten original romances, beside translating half of a lengthy French
work, "La Belle Assemblée" by Mme de Gomez. At this time, too, her
celebrity had become so great that "The Prude, a Novel, written by a
Young Lady" was dedicated to her, just as Mrs. Hearne at the
beginning of her career had put a romance, "The Lover's Week," under
the protection of the famous Mrs. Manley. Between 1720 and 1730 Mrs.
Haywood wrote, beside plays and translations, thirty-eight works of her
own composing, one in two stout volumes and several in two or more
parts. If we may judge by the number and frequency of editions, most
of the indefatigable scribbler's tales found a ready sale, while the best
of them, such as "Idalia" (1723), "The Fatal Secret" (1724), "The
Mercenary Lover" (1726), "The Fruitless Enquiry" and "Philidore and
Placentia" (1727), gained for her not a little applause.
Nor was the young adventuress in letters unhailed by literary men.
Aaron Hill immediately befriended her by writing an epilogue for her
first play and another of Hill's circle, the irresponsible Richard Savage,
attempted to "paint the Wonders of Eliza's Praise" in verses prefixed to
"Love in Excess" and "The Rash Resolve" (1724).[21]
Along with Savage's first complimentary poem were two other
effusions, in one of which an "Atheist to Love's Power" acknowledged
his conversion through the force of Eliza's revelation of the tender
passion, while the other expressed with less rapture the same idea. But
it remained for James Sterling, the friend of Concanen, to state most
vigorously the contemporary estimate of Mrs. Haywood and her early
writings.[22] "Great Arbitress of Passion!" he exclaims,
"Persuasion waits on all your bright Designs, And where you point the
varying Soul inclines: See! Love and Friendship, the fair Theme
inspires We glow with Zeal, we melt in soft Desires! Thro' the dire
Labyrinth of Ills we share The kindred Sorrows of the gen'rous Pair;
Till, pleas'd, rewarded Vertue we behold, Shine from the Furnace pure
as tortur'd Gold:"
of _Love in Excess_,

Part II, and at the front of each successive
edition, have never been reprinted. [Transcriber's note: wording in
original.] A specimen of his praise follows,
"Thy Prose in sweeter Harmony refines, Than Numbers flowing thro'
the Muse's Lines; What Beauty ne'er could melt, thy Touches fire, And
raise a Musick that can Love inspire; Soul-thrilling Accents all our
Senses wound, And strike with Softness, whilst they charm with Sound!
When thy Count pleads, what Fair his Suit can fly? Or when thy
Nymph laments, what Eyes are dry? Ev'n Nature's self in Sympathy
appears, Yields Sigh for Sigh, and melts in equal Tears; For such
Descriptions thus at once can prove The Force of Language, and the
Sweets of Love. You sit like Heav'n's bright Minister on High,
Command the throbbing Breast, and watry Eye, And, as our captive
Spirits ebb and flow, Smile at the Tempests you have rais'd below: The
Face of Guilt a Flush of Vertue wears, And sudden burst the
involuntary Tears: Honour's sworn Foe, the Libertine with Shame,
Descends to curse the sordid lawless Flame; The tender Maid here
learns Man's various Wiles, Rash Youth, hence dread the Wanton's
venal Smiles-- Sure 'twas by brutal Force of envious Man, First
Learning's base Monopoly began; He knew your Genius, and refus'd
his Books, Nor thought your Wit less fatal than your Looks. Read,
proud Usurper, read with conscious Shame, Pathetic _Behn_, or
_Mauley's_ greater Name; Forget their Sex, and own when Haywood
writ, She clos'd the fair Triumvirate of Wit; Born to delight as to reform
the Age, She paints Example thro' the shining Page; Satiric Precept
warms the moral Tale, And Causticks burn where the mild Balsam fails;
[_sic_] A Task reserv'd for her, to whom 'tis given, To stand the Proxy
of vindictive Heav'n!"
Amid the conventional extravagance of this panegyric exist some
useful grains of criticism. One of the most clearly expressed and
continually reiterated aims of prose fiction, as of other species of
writing from time immemorial, was that of conveying to the reader a
moral through the agreeable channel of example. This exemplary
purpose, inherited by eighteenth century novelists from Cervantes and
from the French romances, was asserted again and again in Mrs.
Haywood's prefaces,[23] while the last paragraphs of nearly all her

tales were used to convey an admonition or to proclaim the value of the
story as a "warning to the youth of both sexes." To modern readers
these pieces seem less successful illustrations of fiction made didactic,
than of didacticism dissolved and quite forgot in fiction, but Sterling
and other eulogists strenuously supported the novelist's claim to moral
usefulness.[24] The pill of