ard,
or read of; and flatter myself, that the reader will find many
instances, that may contribute to rectify his own conduct, by pointing
out those things which ought to be avoided, or at least most carefully
guarded against, and those which are worthy to be improved and
imitated."

The obvious and conventional moral ending and the shreds of romance that
still adhere to the story need not blind us to its unusual features.
Besides insisting upon the necessity for psychological analysis of a
sort, the author here for the first time becomes a genuine novelist in
the sense that her confessed purpose is to depict the actual conditions
of life, not to glorify or idealize them. As Fielding was to do in "Tom
Jones," Mrs. Haywood proclaims the mediocrity of her hero as his most
remarkable quality. Had she been able to make him more than a lay figure
distorted by various passions, she might have produced a real character.
Although at times he seems to be in danger of acquiring the romantic
faculty of causing every woman he meets to fall in love with him, yet
the glamor of his youth is obscured by a peaceful and ordinary old age.
Artificial in design and stilted in execution as the work is, it
nevertheless marks Eliza Haywood's emancipation from the traditions of
the romance.[3]

In "The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless" (1751) she reached the full
fruition of her powers as a novelist. Her heroine, like Natura, is
little more than a "humour" character, whose prevailing fault is denoted
by her surname.[4] Though not fundamentally vicious, her heedless
vanity, inquisitiveness, and vivacity lead her into all sorts of follies
and embarrassments upon her first entry into fashionable life in London.
Among all the suitors who strive to make an impression upon her heart
Mr. Trueworth alone succeeds, but her levity and her disregard of
appearances force him to think her unworthy of his attentions. Meanwhile
her guardian's wife, Lady Mellasin, has been turned out of the house for
an egregious infidelity, and Betsy is left to her own scant discretion.
After somewhat annoying her brothers by receiving men at her lodgings,
she elects under family pressure to marry a Mr. Munden, who quickly
shows himself all that a husband should not be. Eventually she has to
abandon him, but demonstrates her wifely devotion by going back to nurse
him through his last illness. Mr. Trueworth's mate in the interim has
conveniently managed to succumb