ss of our information about her. The few
details recorded in the "Biographia Dramatica" can be amplified only by
a tissue of probabilities. Consequently Mrs. Haywood's one resemblance
to Shakespeare is the obscurity that covers the events of her life.

She was born in London, probably in 1693, and her father, a man by the
name of Fowler, was a small shop-keeper.[3] She speaks vaguely of having
received an education beyond that afforded to the generality of her sex.
Her marriage to Valentine Haywood,[4] a clergyman at least fifteen years
older than his spouse, took place before she was twenty, for the
Register of St. Mary Aldermary records on 3 December, 1711, the
christening of Charles, son of Valentine Haywood, clerk, and Elizabeth
his wife. Her husband held at this time a small living in Norfolk, and
had recently been appointed lecturer of St. Mathews, Friday Street.
Whether the worthy cleric resided altogether in London and discharged
his duties in the country by proxy, or whether Mrs. Haywood, like
Tristram Shandy's mother, enjoyed the privilege of coming to town only
on certain interesting occasions, are questions which curious research
fails to satisfy. At any rate, one of the two children assigned to her
by tradition was born, as we have seen, in London.

No other manifestation of their nuptial happiness appeared until 7
January, 1721, on which date the "Post Boy" contained an Advertisement
of the elopement of Mrs. Eliz. Haywood, wife of Rev. Valentine
Haywood.[5] The causes of Eliza's flight are unknown. Our only knowledge
of her temperament in her early life comes from a remark by Nichols that
the character of Sappho in the "Tatler"[6] may be "assigned
with ...probability and confidence, to Mrs. Elizabeth Heywood, who ...was
in all respects just such a character as is exhibited here." Sappho is
described by Steele as "a fine lady, who writes verses, sings, dances,
and can say and do whatever she pleases, without the imputation of any
thing that can injure her character; for she is so well known to have no
passion but self-love, or folly but affectation, that now, upon any
occasion, they only cry, 'It is her way!' and 'That is so like her!'
without farther reflection." She quotes a "wonderfully just" passage
from Milton, calls a licentious speech from Dryden's "State of
Innocence" an "odious thing," and says "a thousand good things at
random, but so strangely mixed, that you would be apt to say, all her
wit is