Yo'r most humble & most Obedient Serv't
ELIZA HAYWOOD.
August ye 5th 1720
Enclosed with the letter were "Proposals For Printing by Subscription A Translation from the French of the Famous Monsieur Bursault Containing Ten Letters from a Lady of Quality to a Chevalier."[18] The work thus heralded was published in the latter part of 1720 by subscription— "three shillings each Book in Quires, or five Shillings bound in Calf, Gilt Back"—a method never again employed by Mrs. Haywood, though in this case it must have succeeded fairly well. Three hundred and nine names appeared on her list of subscribers, of which one hundred and twenty-three were women's. Few subscribers of either sex were distinguished. There were, however, that universal patron of minor authors, George Bubb, Esq., later the Doddington to whom Thomson dedicated his "Summer"; Mrs. Barker, the novelist; Aaron Hill; a Mr. Osborne, possibly the bookseller whose name was afterward infamously connected with Eliza's in "The Dunciad"; Charles de La Faye, the under-secretary of state with whom Defoe corresponded; and a sprinkling of aristocratic titles.
The publisher of the letters was William Rufus Chetwood, later the prompter at Drury Lane Theatre, but then just commencing bookseller at the sign of Cato's Head, Covent Garden. He had already brought out for Mrs. Haywood the first effort of her genius, a romantic tale entitled "Love in Excess: or, the Fatal Enquiry." We have the author's testimony that the three parts "mett a Better Reception then they Deservd," and indeed the piece was extraordinarily successful, running through no less than six separate editions before its inclusion in her collected "Secret Histories, Novels and Poems" in 1725. On the last page of "Letters from a Lady of Quality to a Chevalier" Chetwood had also advertised for speedy publication "a Book entitled, The Danger of giving way to Passion, in Five Exemplary Novels: First, The British Recluse, or the Secret History of Cleomira, supposed dead. Second, The Injur'd Husband, or the Mistaken Resentment. Third, Lasselia, or the Unfortunate Mistress. Fourth, The Rash Resolve, or the Untimely Discovery. Fifth, Idalia, or the Self-abandon'd.[19] Written by Mrs. Eliza Haywood." During the next three years the five novels were issued singly by Chetwood with the help of other booksellers, usually Daniel Browne, Jr., and Samuel Chapman. This pair, or James Roberts, Chetwood's successor, published most of Mrs. Haywood's early writings. The staple of her output during the first decade of authorship was the short amatory romance like "Love in Excess" and the "exemplary novels" just mentioned. These exercises in fiction were evidently composed currente calamo, with little thought and less revision, for an eager and undiscriminating public. Possibly, as Mr. Gosse conjectures,[20] they were read chiefly by milliners and other women on the verge of literacy. But though persons of solid education avoided reading novels and eastern tales as they might the drinking of drams, it is certain that no one of scanty means could have afforded Mrs. Haywood's slender octavos at the price of one to three shillings. The Lady's Library ("Spectator" No. 37) containing beside numerous romances "A Book of Novels" and "The New Atalantis, with a Key to it," which last Lady Mary Montagu also enjoyed, and the dissolute country-gentleman's daughters ("Spectator" No. 128) who "read Volumes of Love-Letters and Romances to their Mother," a ci-devant coquette, give us perhaps a more accurate idea of the woman novelist's public. Doubtless Mrs. Haywood's wares were known to the more frothy minds of the polite world and to the daughters of middle-class trading families, such as the sisters described in Defoe's "Religious Courtship," whose taste for fashionable plays and novels was soon to call the circulating library into being.
Beside the proceeds arising from the sale of her works, Mrs. Haywood evidently expected and sometimes received the present of a guinea or so in return for a dedication. Though patrons were not lacking for her numerous works, it does not appear that her use of their names was always authorized. In putting "The Arragonian Queen" under the protection of Lady Frances Lumley, in fact, the author confessed that she had not the happiness of being known to the object of her praise, but wished to be the first to felicitate her publicly upon her nuptials. We may be sure that the offering of "Frederick, Duke of Brunswick- Lunenburgh" to the hero's namesake, Frederick, Prince of Wales, was both unsanctioned and unacknowledged. Sometimes, however, the writer's language implies that she had already experienced the bounty of her patron, while in the case of the novel dedicated to Sir Richard Steele at a time when his health and credit were fast giving way, Eliza can hardly be accused of interested motives. Apparently sincere, too, though addressed to a wealthy widow, was the tribute to Lady Elizabeth Germain prefixed to "The Fruitless Enquiry"; and at least one other of Mrs. Haywood's productions is known to have been in Lady Betty's library. But these instances are decidedly exceptional. Usually the needy novelist's dedications were made up of servile adulation and barefaced begging. With considerable skill in choosing a favorable moment she directed a stream of panegyric upon William Yonge (later Sir) within two months after his appointment as one of the commissioners of the treasury in Great Britain. Soon after Sir Thomas Lombe was made a knight, the wife of that rich silk weaver had the pleasure of seeing her virtues and her new title in print. And most remarkable of all, Lady Elizabeth Henley, who eloped with a rake early in 1728, received Mrs. Haywood's congratulations upon the event in the dedication of "The Agreeable Caledonian," published in June, though if we may trust Mrs. Delany's account of the matter, the bride must already have had time for repentance. Even grief, the specialist in the study of the passions knew, might loosen the purse strings, and accordingly she took the liberty to condole with Col. Stanley upon the loss of his wife while entreating his favor for "The Masqueraders." But of all her dedications those addressed to her own sex were the most melting, and from their frequency were evidently the most fruitful.
The income derived from patronage, however, was at best uncertain and necessitated many applications. To the public, moreover, a novel meant nothing if not something new. Eliza Haywood's productiveness, therefore, was enormous. When she had settled to her work, the authoress could produce little pieces, ranging from sixty to nearly two hundred pages in length, with extraordinary rapidity. In 1724, for instance, a year of tremendous activity, she rushed into print no less than ten original romances, beside translating half of a lengthy French work, "La Belle Assemblée" by Mme de Gomez. At this time, too, her celebrity had become so great that "The Prude, a Novel, written by a Young Lady" was dedicated to her, just as Mrs. Hearne at the beginning of her career had put a romance, "The Lover's Week," under the protection of the famous Mrs. Manley. Between 1720 and 1730 Mrs. Haywood wrote, beside plays and translations, thirty-eight works of her own composing, one in two stout volumes and several in two or more parts. If we may judge by the number and frequency of editions, most of the indefatigable scribbler's tales found a ready sale, while the best of them, such as "Idalia" (1723), "The Fatal Secret" (1724), "The Mercenary Lover" (1726), "The Fruitless Enquiry" and "Philidore and Placentia" (1727), gained for her not a little applause.
Nor was the young adventuress in letters unhailed by literary men. Aaron Hill 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:"