an
Education more liberal than is ordinarily allowed to Persons of my
Sex, I flatter'd myself that it might be in my Power to be in some
measure both useful and entertaining to the Publick."

A less favorable glimpse of the authoress and her activities is afforded
by a notice of a questionable publication called "A Letter from H---
G--- g, Esq." (1750), and dealing with the movements of the Young
Chevalier. It was promptly laid to her door by the "Monthly Review."[32]

"The noted Mrs. H--- d, author of four volumes of novels well known,
and other romantic performances, is the reputed author of this
pretended letter; which was privately conveyed to the shops, no
publisher caring to appear in it: but the government, less scrupulous,
took care to make the piece taken notice of, by arresting the female
veteran we have named; who has been some weeks in custody of a
messenger, who also took up several pamphlet-sellers, and about 800
copies of the book; which last will now probably be rescued from a
fate they might otherwise have undergone, that of being turned into
waste-paper, ... by the famous fiery nostrum formerly practised by the
physicians of the soul in _Smithfield_, and elsewhere; and now as
successfully used in _treasonable_, as then in _heretical_ cases."

This unceremonious handling of the "female veteran," in marked contrast
to the courteous, though not always favorable treatment of Mrs.
Haywood's legitimate novels, suggests the possibility that even the
reviewers were ignorant of the authorship of "The History of Jemmy and
Jenny Jessamy" (1753) and "The Invisible Spy" (1755). Twenty years
later, in fact, a writer in the "Critical Review" used the masculine
pronoun to refer to the author of "Betsy Thoughtless." It is quite
certain that Mrs. Haywood spent the closing years of her life in great
obscurity, for no notice of her death appeared in any one of the usual
magazines. She continued to publish until the end, and with two novels
ready for the press, died on 25 February, 1756.[33]

"In literature," writes M. Paul Morillot, "even if quality is wanting,
quantity has some significance," and though we may share Scott's
abhorrence for the whole "Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy tribe" of novels, we
cannot deny the authoress the distinction accorded her by the
"Biographia Dramatica" of being--for her time, at least--"the most
voluminous female writer this kingdom ever produced." Moreover, it i