"See next two slip-shod Muses traipse along,
In lofty madness meditating song,
With tresses staring from poetic dreams
And never wash'd, but in Castalia's streams.
H—— and I——, glories of their race!"[11]
The first initial is written in the manuscript "Heywood," and the second was doubtless intended for Mrs. Thomas. But in this case the very catholicity of Pope's malice defeated its own aim. Originally the first line stood: "See Pix and slip-shod W—— [Wortley?] traipse along." In 1729 the place of the abused Corinna was given to Mrs. Centlivre, then five years dead, in retaliation for a verse satire called "The Catholic Poet, or Protestant Barnaby's Sorrowful Lamentation: a Ballad about Homer's Iliad," (1715).[12] Evidently abuse equally applicable to any one or more of five women writers could not be either specific or strikingly personal. Nothing can be inferred from the lines except that Pope despised the whole race of female wits and bore particular malice against certain of their number. Eliza Haywood sustained the largest share of anathema, for not only was she vilified in the poem, but "Haywood's Novels" and the offensive "Court of Carimania" occupied a conspicuous position in the cargo of books carried by the "ass laden with authors" which formed the well-known vignette to the quarto edition of 1729.
In the universal howl raised against the persecutor by the afflicted dunces the treble part was but weakly sustained. Mrs. Thomas indeed produced a small sixpenny octavo, written for, and perhaps in conjunction with Curll, entitled "Codrus; or the Dunciad dissected. To which is added Farmer Pope and his Son" (1729), but Mrs. 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.[13] The "Key to the Dunciad" already mentioned ran through three editions in competition with an authorized key. "The Popiad" and "The Curliad" were rapidly huddled together and placed upon the market. Close upon the heels of these publications came "The Female Dunciad," containing beside the "Metamorphosis of P. into a Stinging Nettle" by Mr. Foxton, a novel called "Irish Artifice; or, the History of Clarina" by Mrs. Eliza Haywood. In a short introduction to the piece, Curll explained how it happened to fall into his hands.
"I am likewise to inform my Female Criticks, that they stand indebted to the entertaining Pen of Mrs. Eliza Haywood for the following History of Clarina. It was sent to me, by herself, on communicating to some of my Friends the Design I had of writing a Weekly Paper, under the title of the ROVER, the Scope of which is in some Measure explain'd in her Address to me, and this Project I may yet perhaps put in Execution."
The novelette submitted to Curll for inclusion in his projected periodical relates how an Irish housekeeper named Aglaura craftily promotes a runaway match between her son Merovius and the young heiress Clarina, who, deserted by her husband and disowned by her father, falls into the utmost misery. The story has no possible bearing either on Pope or on "The Dunciad," but was evidently seized by the shifty publisher as the nearest thing to hand when he came to patch up another pamphlet against Pope. Nothing could be more characteristic of Curll than his willingness to make capital out of his own disgrace. So hurried was the compilation of "The Female Dunciad" that he even printed the letter designed to introduce Mrs. Haywood's tale to the readers of the "Rover." Pope, who assiduously read all the libels directed against himself, hastened to use the writer's confession of her own shortcomings in a note to "The Dunciad, Variorum" of 1729.[14]
Mrs. Haywood admires at some length the Rover's intention of "laying a Foundation for a Fabrick, whose spacious Circumference shall at once display the beautiful Images of Virtue in in all her proper Shapes, and the Deformities of Vice in its various Appearances…. An Endeavour for a Reformation of Manners, (in an Age, where Folly is so much the Fashion, that to have run thro' all the courses of Debauchery, seem requisite to complete the fine Gentleman) is an Attempt as daring as it is noble; and while it engages the Admiration and Applause of the worthy and judicious Few, will certainly draw on you the Ridicule and Hatred of that unnumber'd Crowd, who justly dread the Lash of a Satire, which their own dissolute Behaviour has given sting to. But I, who am perfectly acquainted with the Sweetness of your Disposition, and that Tenderness with which you consider the Errors of your Fellow Creatures, need not be inform'd, that while you expose the Foulness of those Facts, which renders them deservedly Objects of Reproach, you will [not] forget to pity the Weakness of Humanity and Lethargy of Reason, which at some unguarded Hours, steals on the Souls of even the wisest Men; and tho' I shou'd find, in the Course of your Papers, all the little Inadvertencies of my own Life recorded, I am sensible it will be done in such a Manner as I cannot but approve."
No particular intimacy between the author and the bookseller can be inferred from this extravagant but conventional flattery. The interpretation of what Mrs. Haywood terms inadvertencies—a word almost invariably used in her writings as a euphemism—is a more difficult problem, for definite evidence of the authoress' gallantries is entirely lacking. But however damaging to herself her frankness may have been, there was little in the production to arouse the ire of Pope. The only instance in which the maligned novelist may have intended to show her resentment was in the Preface to her tragedy "Frederick, Duke of Brunswick-Lunenburgh" (1729) where with veiled sarcasm she confessed herself "below the Censure of the Gyant-Criticks of this Age."
Although Mrs. Haywood was evidently not responsible for the inclusion of her tale in "The Female Dunciad," and although the piece itself was entirely innocuous, her daring to raise her head even by accident brought down upon her another scurrilous rebuke, not this time from the poet himself, but from her former admirer, Richard Savage. In "An Author to be Let" (1732) Pope's jackal directed against the members of a supposed club of dunces, presided over by James Moore-Smith and including Theobald, Welsted, Curll, Dennis, Cooke, and Bezaleel Morris, a tirade of abuse, in which "the divine Eliza" came in for her full share of vituperation.
"When Mrs. Haywood ceas'd to be a Strolling Actress, why might not the Lady (tho' once a Theatrical Queen) have subsisted by turning Washer-woman? Has not the Fall of Greatness been a frequent Distress in all Ages? She might have caught a beautiful Bubble as it arose from the Suds of her Tub, blown it in Air, seen it glitter, and then break! Even in this low Condition, she had play'd with a Bubble, and what more, is the Vanity of human Greatness? She might also have consider'd the sullied Linnen growing white in her pretty red Hands, as an Emblem of her Soul, were it well scoured by Repentance for the Sins of her Youth: But she rather chooses starving by writing Novels of Intrigue, to teach young Heiresses the Art of running away with Fortune-hunters, and scandalizing Persons of the highest Worth and Distinction."
Savage's mention of eloping heiresses shows that he had been looking for exceptionable material in "Irish Artifice," but finding little to his purpose there, had reverted to the stock objections to the scandal novels, where he was upon safe but not original ground. In the body of the pamphlet he returned to assault the same breach. The supposed writer, Iscariot Hackney, in stating his qualifications for membership in the Dunces' Club, claims to be "very deeply read in all Pieces of Scandal, Obscenity, and Prophaneness, particularly in the Writings of Mrs. Haywood, Henley, Welsted, Morley, Foxton, Cooke, D'Foe, Norton, Woolston, Dennis, Nedward, Concanen, Journalist-Pit, and the Author of the Rival Modes. From these I propose to compile a very grand Work, which shall not be inferior to Utopia, Carimania, Guttiverania, Art of Flogging, Daily Journal, Epigrams on the Dunciad, or Oratory Transactions." … Although the author of "Utopia" and "Carimania" was pilloried in good company, she suffered more than she deserved. She was indeed a friend of Theobald's, for a copy of "The Dunciad: with Notes Variorum, and the Prolegomena of Scriblerus," bearing on the fly-leaf the following inscription: