ur duodecimos of "Pamela"
introduced kitchen morality into the polite world, the generosity of
prominent men and women was directed toward a charity recently
established after long agitation.[2] To furnish suitable decorations for
the Foundling Hospital in Lamb's Conduit, Hogarth contributed the unsold
lottery tickets for his "March to Finchley," and other well-known
painters lent their services. Handel, a patron of the institution, gave
the organ it still possesses, and society followed the lead of the men
of genius. The grounds of the Foundling Hospital became in Georgian days
a "fashionable morning lounge." Writers of ephemeral literature were not
slow to perceive how the wind lay and to take advantage of the interest
aroused by the new foundation. The exposed infant, one of the oldest
literary devices, was copiously revived, and during the decade when the
Hospital was being constructed mention of foundlings on title-pages
became especially common. A pamphlet called "The Political Foundling"
was followed by the well-known "Foundling Hospital for Wit and Humour"
(1743), by Mrs. Haywood's "Fortunate Foundlings" (1744), by Moore's
popular comedy, "The Foundling" (1748), and last and greatest by "The
History of Tom Jones, a Foundling" (1749), not to mention "The Female
Foundling" (1750).

Eliza Haywood's contribution to foundling literature relates the history
of twins, brother and sister, found by a benevolent gentleman named
Dorilaus in the memorable year 1688. Louisa is of the tribe of Marianne,
Pamela, and Henrietta, nor do her experiences differ materially from the
course usually run by such heroines. Reared a model of virtue, she is
obliged to fly from the house of her guardian to avoid his
importunities. After serving as a milliner's apprentice long enough to
demonstrate the inviolability of her principles, she becomes mistress of
the rules of politeness at the leading courts of Europe as the companion
of the gay Melanthe. Saved from an atrocious rake by an honorable lover,
whom she is unwilling to accept because of the humbleness of her
station, she takes refuge in a convent where she soon becomes so popular
that the abbess lays a plot to induce her to become a nun. But escaping
the religious snare, she goes back to Paris to be claimed by Dorilaus as
his real daughter. Thus every obstacle to her union with her lover is
happily removed.

Horatio, meanwhile, after leaving Westminster School to serve as a
voluntee