The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood | Page 8

improvement supposed to be swallowed
along with the sweets of diversion hardly ever consisted of good
precepts and praiseworthy actions, but usually of a warning or a
horrible example of what to avoid.[25] As a necessary corollary, the
more striking and sensational the picture of guilt, the more efficacious
it was likely to prove in the cause of virtue. So in the Preface to
"Lasselia" (1723), published to "remind the unthinking Part of the
World, how dangerous it is to give way to Passion," the writer hopes
that her unexceptionable intent "will excuse the too great Warmth,
which may perhaps appear in some particular Pages; for without the
Expression being invigorated in some measure proportionate to the
Subject, 'twou'd be impossible for a Reader to be sensible how far it
touches him, or how probable it is that he is falling into those
Inadvertencies which the Examples I relate wou'd caution him to
avoid." As a woman, too, Mrs. Haywood was excluded from
"Learning's base Monopoly," but not from an intuitive knowledge of
the passions, in which respect the sex were, and are, thought the
superiors of insensible man.[26] Consequently her chief excellence in
the opinion of her readers lay in that power to "command the throbbing
Breast and watry Eye" previously recognized by the Volunteer
Laureate and her other admirers. She could tell a story in clear and
lively, if not always correct and elegant English, and she could describe
the ecstasies and agonies of passion in a way that seemed natural and
convincing to an audience nurtured on French _romans à longue
haleine_ and heroic plays. Unworthy as they may seem when placed
beside the subsequent triumphs of the novel, her short romances
nevertheless kept alive the spirit of idealistic fiction and stimulated an
interest in the emotions during an age when even poetry had become
the handmaid of reason.
But although Eliza had few rivals as an "arbitress of the passions," she
did not enjoy an equal success as the "proxy of vindictive heaven."
When she attempted to apply the caustic of satire instead of the mild

balsam of moral tales, she speedily made herself enemies. From the
very first indeed she had been persecuted by those who had an
inveterate habit of detecting particular persons aimed at in the
characters of her fictions,[27] and even without their aspersions her
path was sufficiently hard.
"It would be impossible to recount the numerous Difficulties a Woman
has to struggle through in her Approach to Fame: If her Writings are
considerable enough to make any Figure in the World, Envy pursues
her with unweary'd Diligence; and if, on the contrary, she only writes
what is forgot, as soon as read, Contempt is all the Reward, her Wish to
please, excites; and the cold Breath of Scorn chills the little Genius she
has, and which, perhaps, cherished by Encouragement, might, in Time,
grow to a Praise-worthy Height."[28]
Unfortunately the cold breath of scorn, though it may have stunted her
genius, could not prevent it from bearing unseasonable fruit. Her
contributions to the Duncan Campbell literature, "A Spy upon the
Conjurer" (1724) and "The Dumb Projector" (1725), in which the
romancer added a breath of intrigue to the atmosphere of mystery
surrounding the wizard, opened the way for more notorious appeals to
the popular taste for personal scandal. In the once well known
"Memoirs of a Certain Island adjacent to the Kingdom of Utopia"
(1725-6) and the no less infamous "Secret History of the Present
Intrigues of the Court of Carimania" (1727) Mrs. Haywood found a fit
repertory for daringly licentious gossip of the sort made fashionable
reading by Mrs. Manley's "Atalantis." But though the _romans à clef_
of Mrs. Haywood, like the juvenile compositions of Mr. Stepney, might
well have "made grey authors blush," her chief claim to celebrity
undoubtedly depends upon her inclusion in the immortal ranks of
Grubstreet. Her scandal novels did not fail to arouse the wrath of
persons in high station, and Alexander Pope made of the writer's known,
though never acknowledged connection with pieces of the sort a pretext
for showing his righteous zeal in the cause of public morality and his
resentment of a fancied personal insult. The torrent of filthy abuse
poured upon Eliza in "The Dunciad" seems to have seriously damaged
her literary reputation. During the next decade she wrote almost
nothing, and after her curious allegorical political satire in the form of a
romance, the "Adventures of Eovaai" (1736), the authoress dropped

entirely out of sight. For six years no new work came from her pen.
What she was doing during this time remains a puzzle. She could
hardly have been supported by the rewards of her previous labors, for
the gains of the most successful novelists at this period were small. If