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Haywood's later novels, we may admit at once, with few allowances for change of standard, the moral excellence of such works as "The Female Spectator" and "Epistles for the Ladies."
In both editions is advertised "Persecuted Virtue: or, the Cruel Lover. A True Secret History, Writ at the Request of a Lady of Quality," which was advertised also in the Daily Post, 28 Nov. 1728. I have not found a copy. An anonymous poem prefixed to Mrs. Haywood's reputation in the following terms: Only once did Eliza Haywood compete with Defoe upon the same ground.
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, 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. 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. 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" , 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. 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
All such find in this proviso a convenient accomplice before the fact, and a packed jury, with a ready-made verdict of 'not guilty, both gratuitously furnished by the government! The preceding law and proviso are to be found in Haywood's Manual, 530; also in Laws of Tennessee, Act of October 23, 1791; and in Stroud's Sketch, 37.
Haywood's heroines ought to be noted. Ordinarily the novelist accepted the usual conception of man the pursuer and woman the victim, but sometimes instead of letting lovely woman reap the consequences of her folly after the fashion of Goldsmith's celebrated lyric, she violated romantic tradition by making her disappointed heroines retire into self-sufficient solitude, defying society.
Haywood's contribution was probably on her part unintentional, and was due entirely to the activity of the same infamous bookseller, who was among the first to get his replies and counter-slanders into print. The "Key to the Dunciad" already mentioned ran through three editions in competition with an authorized key.
Haywood's maturity most renowned for their pious intent were not of the tribe of novels, but rather in the shape of letters or periodical essays such as "Epistles for the Ladies" and "The Female Spectator" . Each of these forms, as practiced during the eighteenth century, permitted the introduction of short romantic stories either for the purpose of illustrating a moral or to make the didacticism more palatable.
But that is anticipating. It was after Terry's return that the famous miner Haywood, just after his acquittal from the charge of murder in connection with the Idaho labour troubles, visited Chicago, and spent most of his time at the Salon with Terry and Marie and several of their friends. The Salon was temporarily revived, like the flash in the pan, under Haywood's stimulating influence.
The only one of Mrs. Haywood's scandal novels that rivaled the fame of her "Memoirs of a Certain Island" was the notorious "Secret History of the Present Intrigues of the Court of Carimania" , a feigned history on a more coherent plan than the allegorical hodge-podge of the former compilation.
Haywood's very effective and law-abiding leadership in strikes at Lawrence and elsewhere would suggest that he meant that Socialists cannot be law-abiding by principle and under all circumstances. But this statement as it was made, together with many others, justifies the above classification.
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