“This Tragedy was originally writ by Capt.  Hurst, and by him deliver’d to Mr. Rich, to be acted soon after the opening of the New House;[10] but the Season being a little too far elaps’d for the bringing it on then, and the Author oblig’d to leave the Kingdom, Mr. Rich became the Purchaser of it, and the Winter following order’d it into Rehearsal:  but found it so unfit for Representation, that for a long time he laid aside all thoughts of making any thing of it, till last January he gave me the History of his Bargain, and made me some Proposals concerning the new modelling it:  but however I was prevail’d upon, I cannot say my Inclination had much share in my Consent....  On Reading, I found I had much more to do than I expected; every Character I was oblig’d to find employment for, introduce one entirely new, without which it had been impossible to have guessed at the Design of the Play; and in fine, change the Diction so wholly, that, excepting in the Parts of Alphonso and Isabella, there remains not twenty lines of the Original.”

The plot, which is too involved to be analyzed, centers about the efforts of Alphonso to redeem his beloved Isabella from, the harem of the Vizier Mustapha.  Spaniards, Turks, keepers and inhabitants of the harem, and a “young lady disguis’d in the habit of an Eunuch,” mingle in inextricable intrigue.  Some of the worst absurdities and the most bathetic lines occur in the parts of the two lovers for which Mrs. Haywood disclaims responsibility, but even the best passages of the play add nothing to the credit of the reviser.  Her next dramatic venture was produced after her novels had gained some vogue with the town, as the Prologue spoken by Mr. Theophilus Cibber indicates.

  “Criticks! be dumb tonight—­no Skill display;
  A dangerous Woman-Poet wrote the Play:  ... 
  Measure her Force, by her known Novels, writ
  With manly Vigour, and with Woman’s wit. 
  Then tremble, and depend, if ye beset her,
  She, who can talk so well, may act yet better.”

The fair success achieved by “A Wife to be Lett:  A Comedy,” acted at Drury Lane three times, commencing 12 August, 1723,[11] is said to have been due largely to the curiosity of the public to see the author, who by reason of the indisposition of an actress performed in person the part of the wife, Mrs. Graspall, a character well suited to her romping disposition.  It is difficult to imagine how the play could have succeeded on its own merits, for the intricacies of the plot tax the attention even of the reader.  A certain Ann Minton, however, revived the piece in the guise of “The Comedy of a Wife to be Lett, or, the Miser Cured, compressed into Two Acts” (1802).