LXV; 236, March 1788.

CHAPTER VIII

CONCLUSION

Though Eliza Haywood produced nothing which the world has not willingly
let die, yet at least the obituary of her works deserves to be recorded
in the history of fiction. Of the many kinds of writing attempted by her
during the thirty-six years of her literary adventuring none, considered
absolutely, is superior to the novels of her last period. "Betsy
Thoughtless" contains at once her best developed characters, most
extensive plot, and most nearly realistic setting. But before it was
sent to press in 1751, Richardson, Fielding, and Sarah Fielding had
established themselves in public favor, and Smollett was already known
as their peer. Even in company with "David Simple" Eliza Haywood's most
notable effort could not hope to shine. The value, then, of what is, all
in all, her best work is greatly lessened by the obvious inferiority of
her productions to the masterpieces of the age. As a writer of amatory
romances and scandal novels, on the contrary, Mrs. Haywood was surpassed
by none of her contemporaries. The immense reputation that she acquired
in her own day has deservedly vanished, for though her tales undoubtedly
helped to frame the novel of manners, they were properly discarded as
useless lumber when once the new species of writing had taken tangible
form. Perhaps they are chiefly significant to the modern student, not as
revealing now and then the first feeble stirrings of realism, but as
showing the last throes of sensational extravagance. The very extreme to
which writers of the Haywoodian type carried breathless adventure, warm
intrigue, and soul-thrilling passion exhausted the possibilities of
their method and made progress possible only in a new direction.

On the technical development of the modern novel the _roman a clef_ can
hardly have exercised a strong influence. Nor can the lampoons in Mrs.
Haywood's anthologies of scandal be valued highly as attempts to
characterize. To draw a portrait from the life is not to create a
character, still less when the lines are distorted by satire. But the
caricaturing of fine ladies and gentlemen cannot have been without
effect as a corrective to the glittering atmosphere of courtly life that
still permeated the pages of the short, debased romances. The characters
of the scandal novels were still princes and courtiers, but their
exploits were more licentious than the lowest pothouse amours of picaros
and t