to coo, and
bill, and breed? O, it would be a delicious life, indeed!'"[8]

Thus completely metamorphosed were the heroines of Mrs. Haywood's
maturest fiction. Betsy Thoughtless is not even the innocent, lovely,
and pliable girl typified in Fielding's Sophia Western. She is eminently
hard-headed, inquisitive, and practical, and is justly described by Sir
Walter Raleigh as "own cousin to Roderick Random."[9]

Whether she may be considered also the ancestor of Evelina must briefly
be considered. Dunlop, who apparently originated the idea that "Betsy
Thoughtless" might have suggested the plan of Miss Burney's novel,
worked out an elaborate parallel between the plots and some of the chief
characters of the two compositions.[10] Both, as he pointed out, begin
with the launching of a young girl on the great and busy stage of life
in London. Each heroine has much to endure from the vulgar manners of a
Lady Mellasin or a Madam Duval, and each is annoyed by the malice and
impertinence of a Miss Flora or the Misses Branghton. Through their
inexperience in the manners of the world and their heedlessness or
ignorance of ceremony both young ladies are mortified by falling into
embarrassing and awkward predicaments. Both in the same way alarm the
delicacy and almost alienate the affections of their chosen lovers. "The
chief perplexity of Mr. Trueworth, the admirer of Miss Thoughtless,
arose from meeting her in company with Miss Forward, who had been her
companion at a boarding-school, and of whose infamous character she was
ignorant. In like manner the delicacy of Lord Orville is wounded, and
his attachment shaken, by meeting his Evelina in similar society at
Vauxhall. The subsequent visit and counsel of the lovers to their
mistresses is seen, however, in a very different point of view by the
heroines." The likeness between the plots of the two novels is indeed
sufficiently striking to attract the attention of an experienced hunter
for literary parallels, but unfortunately there is no external evidence
to show that Miss Burney ever read her predecessor's work. One need only
compare any two parallel characters, the common profligate, Lady
Mellasin, for instance, with the delightfully coarse Madam Duval, to see
how little the author of "Evelina" could have learned from the pages of
Mrs. Haywood.

But if it deserves scant credit as a model for Miss Burney's infinitely
more delicate art, "Betsy Thoughtless" should still be noticed as