ing away with
Fortune-hunters, and scandalizing Persons of the highest Worth and
Distinction."

Savage's mention of eloping heiresses shows that he had been looking for
exceptionable material in "Irish Artifice," but finding little to his
purpose there, had reverted to the stock objections to the scandal
novels, where he was upon safe but not original ground. In the body of
the pamphlet he returned to assault the same breach. The supposed
writer, Iscariot Hackney, in stating his qualifications for membership
in the Dunces' Club, claims to be "very deeply read in all Pieces of
Scandal, Obscenity, and Prophaneness, particularly in the Writings of
Mrs. _Haywood, Henley, Welsted, Morley, Foxton, Cooke, D'Foe, Norton,
Woolston, Dennis, Nedward, Concanen, Journalist-Pit_, and the Author of
the _Rival Modes_. From these I propose to compile a very grand Work,
which shall not be inferior to _Utopia, Carimania, Guttiverania, Art of
Flogging, Daily Journal_, Epigrams on the _Dunciad_, or _Oratory
Transactions_." ... Although the author of "Utopia" and "Carimania" was
pilloried in good company, she suffered more than she deserved. She was
indeed a friend of Theobald's, for a copy of "The Dunciad: with Notes
Variorum, and the Prolegomena of Scriblerus," bearing on the fly-leaf
the following inscription:

"Lewis Theobald to Mrs Heywood, as a testimony of his esteem, presents
this book called _The Dunciad_, and acquaints her that Mr. Pope, by
the profits of its publication, saved his library, _wherein unpawned
much learned lumber lay_."[15]

shows that the two victims of Pope's most bitter satire felt a sort of
companionship in misfortune. But there is no evidence to show that Eliza
took any part in the War of the Dunces.

But that the immortal infamy heaped upon her by "The Dunciad" injured
her prospects cannot be doubted. She was far from being a "signal
illustration of the powerlessness of this attack upon the immediate
fortunes of those assailed," as Professor Lounsbury describes her.[16]
It is true that she continued to write, though with less frequency than
before, and that some of her best-sellers were produced at a time when
Pope's influence was at its height, but that the author was obliged to
take extreme measures to avoid the ill consequences of the lampoon upon
her may be proved by comparing the title-pages of her earlier and later
novels.

Before the publication of "The Dunciad" the adventuress in lette