he my Equal I should think it was Love had seized me, but Oh! far be it from me to debase myself so far—­Yet, again would she retort, what can I wish in Man that is not to be found in this too lovely Slave?...  Besides, who knows but that his Descent may be otherwise than he pretends—­I have heard of Princes who have wandered in strange disguises—­he may be in reality as far above me as he seems beneath....  The thought that there was a possibility for such a thing to be, had no sooner entered into her head than she indulged it with an infinity of rapture, she painted him in Imagination the most desperate dying Lover that ever was, represented the transports she shou’d be in when the blest discovery shou’d be made, held long discourses with him, and formed answers such as she supposed he wou’d make on such an occasion.  Thus, for some hours did she beguile her Cares, but Love, who takes delight sometimes to torment his Votarys wou’d not long permit her to enjoy this satisfaction....  Reason, with stern remonstrances checked the Romantick turn of her late thoughts, and showed her the improbability of the hope she had entertained:  Were he, cryed she, with an agony proportioned to her former transports, of any degree which you’d encourage his pretensions to my Love, he cou’d not for so long a Time have endured the servile Offices to which he has been put—­Some way his ingenious passion wou’d have found out to have revealed itself—­No, no, he is neither a Lover nor a Gentleman, and I but raise Chimera’s to distract myself ...but Ill [sic] retrieve all yet, Ill discharge him from my house and service—­he is an Enchanter, and has bewitched me from my Reason, and never, never more shall he behold my face.”

The normal character in Eliza Haywood’s tales almost invariably conformed to some conventional type borrowed from the romance or the stage.  The author’s purpose was not to paint a living portrait, but to create a vehicle for the expression of vivid emotion, and in her design she was undoubtedly successful until the reading public was educated to demand better things.

On [Transcriber’s note:  sic] exception, however, to the customary conventionality of Mrs. Haywood’s heroines ought to be noted.  Ordinarily the novelist accepted the usual conception of man the pursuer and woman the victim, but sometimes instead of letting lovely woman reap the consequences of her folly after the fashion of Goldsmith’s celebrated lyric, she violated romantic tradition by making her disappointed heroines retire into self-sufficient solitude, defying society.  In real life the author of these stories was even more uncompromising.  Far from pining in obscurity after her elopement from her husband, she continued to exist in the broad light of day, gaining an independent living by the almost unheard of occupation (as far as women were concerned) of writing.  If she was blighted, she gave no indication of the fact.  Something of the same defiant spirit actuated the unfortunate Belinda and Cleomira of “The British Recluse” (1722).