slow to apply the new art to their proper materials.  In the present instance an experienced novelist employed the essay form to depict the follies and affectations of a beau and fine ladies, and immediately turned back to a story in which characterization is almost entirely neglected for incident.  It is interesting to find the same writer using the realistic sketch of manners and the romantic tale of intrigue and passion without any thought of combining the two elements.  In the second part of “The Tea-Table” Mrs. Haywood made no attempt to diversify the patchwork of verse and prose with any narrative, save one small incident illustrating pride.  The sole point of interest is the long and laudatory tribute to her friend Aaron Hill in “A Pastoral Dialogue, between Alexis and Clarinda; Occasioned by Hillarius’s intending a Voyage to America.”

The “Reflections on the Various Effects of Love” (1726), however, takes full advantage of the looseness of the essay form to become a mere tissue of short narratives illustrating the consequences of passion.  The stories of Celia and Evandra, one cursing her betrayer, the other wishing him always happy, exemplify revengeful and generous love.  There are two model epistles from Climene to Mirtillo, the first upon his absence, the second upon his desertion of her.  Soon the trite remarks degenerate into a scandal novel, relating the history of Sophiana, abandoned by Aranthus and sought by Martius, with many of her letters describing her gradual change of heart in favor of the beseeching lover.  In the midst of exposing Hibonio’s sudden infatuation for a gutter-nymph, the essay abruptly ends with the exclamation, “More of this in our next.”  Though there was no lack of slander at the end of Mrs. Haywood’s pen, she never attempted to continue the “Reflections.”

But almost twenty years later she made a more noteworthy excursion into the field of the periodical essay.  “The Female Spectator,” begun in April, 1744, and continued in monthly parts until May, 1746, bid fair to become the best known and most approved of her works.  The twenty-four numbers (two months being omitted) were bound in four volumes upon the completion of the series and sold with such vigor that an edition labeled the third was issued at Dublin in 1747.  In 1771 the seventh and last English edition was printed.  As in the original “Spectator” the essays are supposed to be the product of a Club, in this case composed of four women.  After drawing her own character in the terms already quoted,[9] Mrs. Haywood mentions as her coadjutors in the enterprise “Mira, a Lady descended from a Family to which Wit seems hereditary, married to a Gentleman every way worthy of so excellent a Wife....  The next is a Widow of Quality” who has not “buried her Vivacity in the Tomb of her Lord....  The Third is the Daughter of a wealthy Merchant, charming as an Angel....  This fine young Creature I shall call Euphrosine.”  The suspiciously representative