Eliza+Haywood,+1744


 * Eliza Haywood [[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Eliza-haywood.jpg align="right"]]**

Born around 1693, Eliza Haywood lived a life full of creativity, working as an actress, poetess, editor, translated novels, and prolific writer until her death in 1756. Haywood’s early life is a mystery, and we do not know to whom she was married to and inherited the name “Haywood” from, although it is certain that by 1714 she had claimed the name and was using it while acting in Dublin. She acted for at least 20 years, making a living off this craft and eventually wrote her own plays and a book about drama criticism. Through her writing career she wrote at least 55 fictional novels (as we now call them), and numerous political essays and non-fiction pieces. Some of her periodicals were //The Tea-Table// in 1724, //The Parrot// in 1728, and in April 1744 she began //The Female Spectator//, which ran until 17 46. One of her most popular novels, // Love in Excess, // is written in the style of formal realism, yet is described as amatory fiction because it portrays sexual love and romance. Biographer Paula Backscheider describes that in //Love in Excess//, “characters both live out and narrate life stories rife with catastrophe, love, lust, intrigue, and emotional excess…as early as this text Haywood is using mistaken identities, masquerade, and intricate schemes, all more characteristic of the southern European novella than the romance, and all devices that became signature strategies for her.” //Love in Excess// was widely received and sold extremely well.

Haywood had a mixed reputation, being both loved and hated by critics. An early fan of Haywood, David Erskine Baker, wrote, “This lady was perhaps the most voluminous female writer this kingdom ever produced.” He notes how Alexander Pope resented her and humiliated her in the //Dunciad// by making her a prize in the game for the monarch of “//Dulness//.” Baker asserts, “it cannot be denied, that there is great spirit and ingenuity in Mrs. Haywood’s manner of treating subjects, which the friends of virtue may perhaps wish she had never entered on at all…she has given proofs of great inventive powers, and a perfect knowledge of the affections of the human heart”. However, other reviews of Haywood are not so complimentary. In “Early Female Novelists,” from the 1895 issue of //Cornhill Magazine//, a harsh critic takes Baker’s quote about her voluminous writing and goes further to say, “but it cannot be said she can use her pen to any good purpose.” He says, “She is one of ‘those shameless scribbers who, in libelous memoirs and novels, reveal the faults or misfortunes of both sexes, to the ruin of public fame or disturbance or private happiness.” However, this critic does acknowledge that her book // The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless // is a, “rich illustration of life in the 18th century." Furthermore, //The Athenaeum’s//, “18th Century Letters,” assesses various authors from that time period. In this article, the narrator notes, “Mrs. Haywood often sinks to Grub Street; but when we consider her voluminous output- it is surprising how good she sometimes is. Writing to earn her daily bread…we first find her stock-in-trade largely consisting of those little amatory tales which were for a time widely popular.” This commentary shows the ways in which male authors make disapproving jabs at Haywood by linking her work to “Grub Street” and noting how “surprising” it is that she “sometimes” writes well. This critic categorizes her literary work as “amatory tales,” acknowledging the power of desire in her works, but failing to mention the political and editorial work she prolifically created as well.



In April 1744 Eliza Haywood began publishing //The Female Spectator//, the first periodical newspaper for women by a woman. This periodical does not discuss literature, but provides multiple short tales that can be read as prose. Like Mr. Spectator, Mrs. Spectator provides commentary on that which she observes- human nature. Haywood creates four different “contributors” that help edit each publication of //The Female Spectator//. The main editor, Mrs. Spectator, begins the first volume with an explanation of her life. She states the company she kept in her youth was not always the highest but their discourse afforded her, “not only with the knowledge of many occur rences, which otherwise I had been ignorant of; but also enabled me…to see into the 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 matters of the heart, and attain the dominion over reason." This shows that Mrs. Spectator became interested in publishing information to the masses because she began to reason the ways in which people act and how one can reform action in order to be a better person. Through this first series of publications, Mrs. Spectator addresses topics such as the nature and expectations of being a woman, marriage, vice, war, and most notable love and relationships. The other editors consist of Mira, a happily married lady whom, “descended from a family to which wit seems hereditary;” a “widow of quality” whom is not a bit austere; and finally a charming daughter of a merchant man whom the author fondly calls Euphrosine, after the sweet and cheerful goddess. The “existence” of these varied kinds of women working together on one publication allows the readers- other women- to find one of the characters to identify and connect with so that they may feel like they are represented in this publication.

On the topic of young women, Mrs. Spectator declares, “I am sorry to observe…some of whom are scarce entered in to their teens before they grow impatient for admiration." She recognizes that women are educated and thus “impatient” to be searching for love at a very young age. Then, Mrs. Spectator uses a series of stories that show how young women that go out in search for love end up mistreated or tricked out of their fortune after an all to quick love. For example, Martesia’s story is about a very young girl who becomes infatuated with a man that after being told not to see or speak to. She sneaks out and marries him quickly, but after a number of years, finds herself dissatisfied with this quick marriage to a man she didn’t know. She soon becomes the mistress of Clitander, soon neglecting her family and living life unhappily ever after. Mrs. Spectator also explains how women should be brought up socially with men instead of shut away from them. “A girl, who is continually hearing fine things said to her, regards them but as words of course…but she, who is a stranger to the gallant manner with which polite persons treat our sex, greedily swallows the first civil thing said to her, takes what perhaps is meant as a mere compliment, for a declaration of love…” This is explored through the story of Seomanthe, a girl with a large fortune brought up by her aunt, shut away from men. One gentleman hears about her and plots to win her love, which is easily accomplished with a few flattering letters. As soon as he marries her, he steals her fortune and leaves her to fend for herself. This story shows the worse case scenario of keeping a girl unsocialized, and through this prose reminds the reader to think twice about how to raise her own daughters.

In addition, Mrs. Spectator comments on the danger of masquerade balls and how they exclude or endanger women. Here she presents two stories: Alcales and Palmyra couldn’t be happier until one night both attend a masquerade without the other spouses knowing. A confidant tells Palmyra that Alcales is talking with another women, so she stalks her husband the entire night, following him to a stranger’s house. She barges into the home to find out that she mistakenly followed the wrong man, with the same mask as her husband, and after a long conversation falls in love with him. She goes home full of resentment toward the husband she loved only the night before. Ermenia’s story shows how a young naive girl becomes separated from her brother at her first masquerade then thinking she is leaving with him, accidentally ends up in a carriage with another man. The man takes advantage of her, and then blindfolds her and leaves her in the middle of the city completely alone. She ends up living a miserable life, refusing to leave the country or talk to men outside of her familial ties. Mrs. Spectator offers advice and some warning: “It is true, that accidents of this dreadful nature but rarely happen…yet I am afraid they are much more so than is publicly known: methinks, therefore, youth and innocence cannot be too much upon its guard, even against dangers that seem most remote."

The prolific use of stories throughout this publication intrigues the reader and keeps them wanting more. Haywood’s writing style, with lots of detail and short sentences that make the discourse seem more like speech than prose, keeps the reader’s attention. All of her stories involve some type of relationship between a man and women. Each tale proves a point she has preciously made or examines an aspect of human nature that she wants the reader to also grasp. She says, marriage, “is indeed the fountain-head of all the comforts we can enjoy ourselves, and of those we transmit to our posterity." Mrs. Spectator presents a story to show why it wouldn’t be good if a marriage were to be based solely on one person’s desire. In this tale young Celinda slides into her deathbed because Aristobolos doesn’t love her back. His father promises Celinda that he will marry her. Aristobolos refuses to and is forced to court her after his father cuts off his inheritance. He goes to her and says I don’t love you, please call this off, I will be only your husband in paper but never treat you that way, but she refuses and they get married. It is a miserable marriage as he never sleeps in her bed and they never see each other, but Mrs. Spectator uses this to show that marriage can't be all about what one person wants. There are also a multitude of examples of estranged and unhappy marriages where the man lied to the woman in order to get something, or the marriage was for quick passion versus reason, or parents forced their children into marriage, etc.

Overall, Haywood’s prose work can be seen as a meditation on human behavior. Both //Love in Excess// and //The Female Spectator// show wisdom about how people are. They remind the reader to avoid dangerous situations in order to keep their minds, emotions, and bodies safe. Haywood was called an “arbitress,” which is a fitting title because she certainly was an authority on what’s good and proper. There was much discourse on vice versus virtue during this time. Haywood defines vice through her portrayal of distaste on gambling, masquerade balls, and letting the emotional self hold authority over the reasonable self. It has been shown through //The Female Spectator// as well as //Love in Excess// that a better life outcome comes from avoiding the dangers of these vices. Both the novel and the periodical show the various ways in which people can engage with love and how to entertain a marriage. Instead of actively persuading her audiences to live in a certain way, she shows what can happen in life and lets the reader make their own judgment. She allows the experiences of her characters to show the reader how life is, and her audiences can take what they want from the story in order to better their own lives.

Haywood, Eliza Fowler. //The Female Spectator.// Vol. 1. London: H. Gardner. Accessed through: Google Books:
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Eighteenth Century Journals:
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Payn, James edt."OUR EARLY FEMALE NOVELISTS." //The Cornhill magazine// 25.150 (1895): 588-600. //ProQuest.// Web. 11 Dec. 2013. 

"EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LETTERS." //The Athenaeum//.4603 (1916): 124-5. //ProQuest.// Web. 11 Dec. 2013. 

Backscheider, Paula. “Haywood, Eliza (1693?–1756).” //Oxford Dictionary of National Biography//. Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Sept 2010 accessed 11 Dec 2013