nce in the decoration of religion"[6] nor the best, but
along with the pious substance the author sometimes adopts an almost
Johnsonian weightiness of style, as when Ciamara gives to Sophronia an
account of the finishing of a fine building she had been at an infinite
expense in erecting, with some moral reflections on the vanity and
disappointment of all sub-lunary expectations.

In her essays, even the most serious, Mrs. Haywood was a follower of
Addison rather than Johnson. The first of them, if we disregard the
slight discourse appended to the "Letters from a Lady of Quality to a
Chevalier," was "The Tea-Table: or, A Conversation between some Polite
Persons of both Sexes, at a Lady's Visiting Day. Wherein are represented
the Various Foibles, and Affectations, which form the Character of an
Accomplish'd Beau, or Modern Fine Lady. Interspersed with several
Entertaining and Instructive Stories,"[7] (1725), which most resembles a
"day" detached from the interminable "La Belle Assemblee" of Mme de
Gomez, translated by Mrs. Haywood a few months before. There is the same
polite conversation, the debate between love and reason, the poem,[8]
and the story. But the moral reflections upon tea-tables, the
description of Amiana's, where only wit and good humor prevail, and the
satirical portraits of a titled coxcomb and a bevy of fine ladies, are
all in the manner of the "Tatler." The manuscript novel read by one of
the company savors of nothing but Mrs. Haywood, who was evidently unable
to slight her favorite theme of passion. Her comment on contemporary
manners soon gives place to "Beraldus and Celemena: or the Punishment of
Mutability," a tale of court intrigue in her warmest vein. The authors
of the "Tatler" and "Spectator" had, of course, set a precedent for the
inclusion of short romantic stories in the essay of manners, and even
the essays with no distinct element of fiction were preparing for the
novelist the powerful tool of characterization. Writers of fiction were
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 tw