na in a
passage now canceled.

"See next two slip-shod _Muses_ traipse along,
In lofty madness meditating song,
With tresses staring from poetic dreams
And never wash'd, but in _Castalia's_ streams.
H---- and I----, glories of their race!"[11]

The first initial is written in the manuscript "Heywood," and the second
was doubtless intended for Mrs. Thomas. But in this case the very
catholicity of Pope's malice defeated its own aim. Originally the first
line stood: "See Pix and slip-shod W---- [Wortley?] traipse along." In
1729 the place of the abused Corinna was given to Mrs. Centlivre, then
five years dead, in retaliation for a verse satire called "The Catholic
Poet, or Protestant Barnaby's Sorrowful Lamentation: a Ballad about
Homer's Iliad," (1715).[12] Evidently abuse equally applicable to any
one or more of five women writers could not be either specific or
strikingly personal. Nothing can be inferred from the lines except that
Pope despised the whole race of female wits and bore particular malice
against certain of their number. Eliza Haywood sustained the largest
share of anathema, for not only was she vilified in the poem, but
"Haywood's Novels" and the offensive "Court of Carimania" occupied a
conspicuous position in the cargo of books carried by the "ass laden
with authors" which formed the well-known vignette to the quarto edition
of 1729.

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