In the universal howl raised against the persecutor by the afflicted dunces the treble part was but weakly sustained.  Mrs. Thomas indeed produced a small sixpenny octavo, written for, and perhaps in conjunction with Curll, entitled “Codrus; or the Dunciad dissected.  To which is added Farmer Pope and his Son” (1729), but Mrs. Haywood’s contribution was probably on her part unintentional, and was due entirely to the activity of the same infamous bookseller, who was among the first to get his replies and counter-slanders into print.[13] The “Key to the Dunciad” already mentioned ran through three editions in competition with an authorized key.  “The Popiad” and “The Curliad” were rapidly huddled together and placed upon the market.  Close upon the heels of these publications came “The Female Dunciad,” containing beside the “Metamorphosis of P. into a Stinging Nettle” by Mr. Foxton, a novel called “Irish Artifice; or, the History of Clarina” by Mrs. Eliza Haywood.  In a short introduction to the piece, Curll explained how it happened to fall into his hands.

“I am likewise to inform my Female Criticks, that they stand indebted to the entertaining Pen of Mrs. Eliza Haywood for the following History of Clarina.  It was sent to me, by herself, on communicating to some of my Friends the Design I had of writing a Weekly Paper, under the title of the ROVER, the Scope of which is in some Measure explain’d in her Address to me, and this Project I may yet perhaps put in Execution.”

The novelette submitted to Curll for inclusion in his projected periodical relates how an Irish housekeeper named Aglaura craftily promotes a runaway match between her son Merovius and the young heiress Clarina, who, deserted by her husband and disowned by her father, falls into the utmost misery.  The story has no possible bearing either on Pope or on “The Dunciad,” but was evidently seized by the shifty publisher as the nearest thing to hand when he came to patch up another pamphlet against Pope.  Nothing could be more characteristic of Curll than his willingness to make capital out of his own disgrace.  So hurried was the compilation of “The Female Dunciad” that he even printed the letter designed to introduce Mrs. Haywood’s tale to the readers of the “Rover.”  Pope, who assiduously read all the libels directed against himself, hastened to use the writer’s confession of her own shortcomings in a note to “The Dunciad, Variorum” of 1729.[14]

Mrs. Haywood admires at some length the Rover’s intention of “laying a Foundation for a Fabrick, whose spacious Circumference shall at once display the beautiful Images of Virtue in in all her proper Shapes, and the Deformities of Vice in its various Appearances....  An Endeavour for a Reformation of Manners, (in an Age, where Folly is so much the Fashion, that to have run thro’ all the courses of Debauchery, seem requisite to complete the fine Gentleman) is an Attempt as daring as it is