[15]
Notes and Queries, Ser. I, X, 110. The words italicized by me refer to
Pope's description of Theobald's library, The Dunciad, (1728), Book I,
line 106.
[16] T. R. Lounsbury, The Text of Shakespeare, 275. "But the attack upon Mrs. Haywood exceeded all bounds of decency. To the credit of the English race nothing so dastardly and vulgar can be found elsewhere in English literature. If the influence of 'The Dunciad' was so all-powerful as to ruin the prospects of any one it satirized, it ought certainly to have crushed her beyond hope of any revival. As a matter of fact Mrs. Haywood's most successful and popular writings were produced after the publication of that poem, and that too at a period when Pope's predominance was far higher than it was at the time the satire itself appeared."
[17] A. Esdaile, English Tales and Romances, Introduction, xxviii.
[18]
The Mercenary Lover…. Written by the Author of Memoirs of the said
Island [Utopia] and described on the half-title as by E. H. and The
Fair Captive, a tragedy not originally written by her.
[19] Philobillon Soc. Misc., IV, 12. "Clio must be allowed to be a most complete poetess, if she really wrote those poems that bear her name; but it has of late been so abused and scandalized, that I am informed she has lately changed it for that of Myra." Quoted from the British Journal, 24 September, 1726. I am indebted to Miss Dorothy Brewster's Aaron Hill, 189, for this reference.
[20]
See Clara Reeve, The Progress of Romance (1785), I, 121.
[I have re-arranged the passage for the sake of brevity.]
"Soph. I have heard it often said that Mr. Pope was too severe in
his treatment of this lady: it was supposed that she had given some
private offence, which he resented publicly, as was too much his way.
"Euph. Mr. Pope was severe in his castigations, but let us be just to merit of every kind. Mrs. Heywood had the singular good fortune to recover a lost reputation and the yet greater honour to atone for her errors.—She devoted the remainder of her life and labours to the service of virtue…. Those works by which she is most likely to be known to posterity, are the Female Spectator, and the Invisible Spy…."