, his old passion revives, and exactly
upon the anniversary of Mr. Munden's death he arrives in a chariot and
six to claim the fair widow, whose youthful levity has been chastened by
the severe discipline of her unfortunate marriage. Told in an easy and
dilatory style and interspersed with the inevitable little histories and
impassioned letters, the story attained the conventional bulk of four
duodecimo volumes.

As Mr. Austin Dobson has pointed out,[5] Mrs. Haywood's novel is
remarkable for its scant allusions to actual places and persons. Once
mention is made of an appointment "at General Tatten's bench, opposite
Rosamond's pond, in St. James's Park," and once a character refers to
Cuper's Gardens, but except for an outburst of unexplained virulence
directed against Fielding,[6] there is hardly a thought of the
novelist's contemporaries. Here is a change indeed from the method of
the _chronique scandaleuse_, and a restraint to be wondered at when we
remember the worthies caricatured by so eminent a writer as Smollett.
But even more remarkable is the difference of spirit between "Betsy
Thoughtless" and Mrs. Haywood's earlier and briefer romances. The young
_romanciere_ who in 1725 could write, "Love is a Topick which I believe
few are ignorant of ... a shady Grove and purling Stream are all Things
that's necessary to give us an Idea of the tender Passion,"[7] had in a
quarter of a century learned much worldly wisdom, and her heroine
likewise is too sophisticated to be moved by the style of love-making
that warmed the susceptible bosoms of Anadea, Filenia, or Placentia. One
of Betsy's suitors, indeed, ventured upon the romantic vein with no very
favorable results.

"'The deity of soft desires,' said he, 'flies the confused glare of
pomp and public shews;--'tis in the shady bowers, or on the banks of a
sweet purling stream, he spreads his downy wings, and wafts his
thousand nameless pleasures on the fond--the innocent and the happy
pair.'

"He was going on, but she interrupted him with a loud laugh. 'Hold,
hold,' cried she; 'was there ever such a romantick description? I
wonder how such silly ideas come into your head--"shady bowers! and
purling streams!"--Heavens, how insipid! Well' (continued she), 'you
may be the Strephon of the woods, if you think fit; but I shall never
envy the happiness of the Chloe that accompanies you in these fine
recesses. What! to be cooped up like a tame dove, only