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 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