The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood. George Frisbie Whicher
years little can be discovered. "The Female Spectator," in emulation of its famous model, commences with a pen-portrait of the writer, which though not intended as an accurate picture, certainly contains no flattering lines. It shows the essayist both conscious of the faults of her youth and willing to make capital out of them.
"As a Proof of my Sincerity, I shall, in the first place, assure him [the reader], that for my own Part I never was a Beauty, and am now very far from being young; (a Confession he will find few of my Sex ready to make): I shall also acknowledge that I have run through as many Scenes of Vanity and Folly as the greatest Coquet of them all.— Dress, Equipage, and Flattery were the Idols of my Heart.—I should have thought that Day lost, which did not present me with some new Opportunity of shewing myself.—My Life, for some Years, was a continued Round of what I then called Pleasure, and my whole Time engross'd by a Hurry of promiscuous Diversions.—But whatever Inconveniences such a manner of Conduct has brought upon myself, I have this Consolation, to think that the Publick may reap some Benefit from it:—The Company I kept was not, indeed, always so well chosen as it ought to have been, for the sake of my own Interest or Reputation; but then it was general, and by Consequence furnished me, not only with the Knowledge of many Occurrences, which otherwise I had been ignorant of, but also enabled me … to see into the most secret Springs which gave rise to the Actions I had either heard, or been Witness of—to judge of the various Passions of the Human Mind, and distinguish those imperceptible Degrees by which they become Masters of the Heart, and attain the Dominion over Reason. …
"With this Experience, added to a Genius tolerably extensive, and an
Education more liberal than is ordinarily allowed to Persons of my
Sex, I flatter'd myself that it might be in my Power to be in some
measure both useful and entertaining to the Publick."
A less favorable glimpse of the authoress and her activities is afforded
by a notice of a questionable publication called "A Letter from H—
G— g, Esq." (1750), and dealing with the movements of the Young
Chevalier. It was promptly laid to her door by the "Monthly Review."[32]
"The noted Mrs. H— d, author of four volumes of novels well known, and other romantic performances, is the reputed author of this pretended letter; which was privately conveyed to the shops, no publisher caring to appear in it: but the government, less scrupulous, took care to make the piece taken notice of, by arresting the female veteran we have named; who has been some weeks in custody of a messenger, who also took up several pamphlet-sellers, and about 800 copies of the book; which last will now probably be rescued from a fate they might otherwise have undergone, that of being turned into waste-paper, … by the famous fiery nostrum formerly practised by the physicians of the soul in Smithfield, and elsewhere; and now as successfully used in treasonable, as then in heretical cases."
This unceremonious handling of the "female veteran," in marked contrast to the courteous, though not always favorable treatment of Mrs. Haywood's legitimate novels, suggests the possibility that even the reviewers were ignorant of the authorship of "The History of Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy" (1753) and "The Invisible Spy" (1755). Twenty years later, in fact, a writer in the "Critical Review" used the masculine pronoun to refer to the author of "Betsy Thoughtless." It is quite certain that Mrs. Haywood spent the closing years of her life in great obscurity, for no notice of her death appeared in any one of the usual magazines. She continued to publish until the end, and with two novels ready for the press, died on 25 February, 1756.[33]
"In literature," writes M. Paul Morillot, "even if quality is wanting, quantity has some significance," and though we may share Scott's abhorrence for the whole "Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy tribe" of novels, we cannot deny the authoress the distinction accorded her by the "Biographia Dramatica" of being—for her time, at least—"the most voluminous female writer this kingdom ever produced." Moreover, it is not Richardson, the meticulous inventor of the epistolary novel, but the past-mistress of sensational romance who is credited with originating the English domestic novel. Compared with the delicate perceptions and gentle humor of Fanny Burney and Jane Austen, Mrs. Haywood's best volumes are doubtless dreary enough, but even if they only crudely foreshadow the work of incomparably greater genius, they represent an advance by no means slight. From "Love in Excess" to "Betsy Thoughtless" was a step far more difficult than from the latter novel to "Evelina." As pioneers, then, the author of "Betsy Thoughtless" and her obscurer contemporaries did much to prepare the way for the notable women novelists who succeeded them. No modern reader is likely to turn to the "Ouida" of a bygone day—as Mr. Gosse calls her—for amusement or for admonition, but the student of the period may find that Eliza Haywood's seventy or more books throw an interesting sidelight upon public taste and the state of prose fiction at a time when the half created novel was still "pawing to get free his hinder parts."
FOOTNOTES
[1] E. Bernbaum, Mrs. Behn's Biography a Fiction, PMLA, XXVIII, 432.
[2] David Erskine Baker, Companion to the Play House, 1764.
[4] He was the author of An Examination of Dr. Clarke's Scripture-Doctrine of the Trinity, with a Confutation of it (1719). The work is a paragraph by paragraph refutation from the authority of scripture of the Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity (1712) by the metaphysical Dr. Samuel Clarke, whose unorthodox views prevented Queen Caroline from making him Archbishop of Canterbury. The Reverend Mr. Haywood was upon safe ground in attacking a book already condemned in Convocation.
[5] "Whereas Elizabeth Haywood, Wife of the Reverend Mr. Valentine Haywood, eloped from him her Husband on Saturday the 26th of November last past, and went away without his Knowledge and Consent: This is to give Notice to all Persons in general, That if any one shall trust her either with Money or Goods, or if she shall contract Debts of any kind whatsoever, the said Mr. Haywood will not pay the same."
[6] Tatler, No. 6 and No. 40.
[7] W.R. Chetwood, A General History of the Stage, 56.
[8] Genest, III, 59.
[9] Genest, III, 73.
[10]
John Rich opened the New Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields during
December, 1714.
[11] Genest, III, 113.
[12] Genest, III, 241.
[13] Biographia Dramatica. The production is mentioned by Genest, III, 281.
[14] W.R. Chetwood, A General History of the Stage, 57.
[15] Genest, III, 408.
[16] In Kane O'Hara's later and more popular transformation of Tom Thumb into a light opera, the song put into the mouth of the dying Grizzle by the first adapters was retained with minor changes.
"My body's like a bankrupt's shop,
My creditor is cruel death,
Who puts to trade of life a stop,
And will be paid with this last breath; Oh!"
Apparently O'Hara made no further use of his predecessors.
[17] S.P. Dom. George I, Bundle 22, No. 97.
[18] In spite of the fact that "Translated from the French" appeared on the title-page, Mrs. Haywood has hitherto been accredited with the full authorship of these letters. They were really a loose translation of Lettres Nouvelles. … Avec Treize Lettres Amoureuses d'une Dame à un Cavalier (Second Edition, Paris, 1699) by Edme Boursault, and were so advertised in the public prints.
[19] Probably a misprint. When the novels appeared, Idalia was the Unfortunate Mistress, Lasselia the Self-abandon'd. Perhaps because the work outgrew its original proportions, or because short novels found a readier sale, the five were never published under the inclusive cautionary caption.
[20]
E. Gosse, Gossip in a Library,