e, therefore, which, while I make
choice to write of, frees me from the Imputation of vain or
self-sufficient:--None can tax me with having too great an Opinion of my
own Genius, when I aim at nothing but what the meanest may perform. "I
have nothing to value myself on, but a tolerable Share of Discernment."

[27]
See the Preface to _The Injur'd Husband_ quoted in Chap. IV.

[28]
Preface to _The Memoirs of the Baron de Brosse_ (1725). A similar
complaint had appeared in the Dedication of _The Fair Captive_ (1721).
"For my own part ... I suffer'd all that Apprehension could inflict, and
found I wanted many more Arguments than the little Philosophy I am
Mistress of could furnish me with, to enable me to stem that Tide of
Raillery, which all of my Sex, unless they are very excellent indeed,
must expect, when once they exchange the Needle for the Quill."

[29]
See a poem by Aaron Hill, _To Eliza upon her design'd Voyage into Spain_
(undated), Hill's _Works_, III, 363. Also _The Husband_, 59. "On a trip
I was once taking to France, an accident happen'd to detain me for some
days at Dover," etc. Mrs. Haywood's relations with Hill have been
excellently discussed by Miss Dorothy Brewster, _Aaron Hill_ (1913),
186.

[30]
The first of these was a translation of the Chevalier de Mouhy's best
known work, _La Mouche, ou les Aventures et espiegleries facetieuses de
Bigand_, (1730), and may have been done by Mrs. Haywood herself. The
second title certainly savors of a typical Haywoodian production, but I
have been unable to find a copy of these alleged publications. Neither
of them was originally published at the Sign of Fame, and they could
hardly have been pirated, since Cogan, who issued the volume wherein the
advertisement appeared, was also the original publisher of
_The Busy-Body_. The _Anti-Pamela_ had already been advertised for
Huggonson in June, 1741, and had played a small part in the series of
pamphlets, novels, plays, and poems excited by Richardson's fashionable
history. If Mrs. Haywood wrote it, she was biting the hand that fed her,
for _The Virtuous Villager_ probably owed its second translation and
what little sale it may have enjoyed to the similarity between the
victorious virgin and the popular Pamela.

[31]
B.M. (MSS. Sloane. 4059. ff. 144), undated.

[32]
_Monthly Review_, II, 167, Jan. 1750.

[33]
The _Biographia Dramatica_ gives this date. Clara Reeve, _Progress of
Romance_, I, 121, however, gives