"It would be impossible to recount the numerous Difficulties a Woman
has to struggle through in her Approach to Fame: If her Writings are
considerable enough to make any Figure in the World, Envy pursues her
with unweary'd Diligence; and if, on the contrary, she only writes
what is forgot, as soon as read, Contempt is all the Reward, her Wish
to please, excites; and the cold Breath of Scorn chills the little
Genius she has, and which, perhaps, cherished by Encouragement, might,
in Time, grow to a Praise-worthy Height."[28]

Unfortunately the cold breath of scorn, though it may have stunted her
genius, could not prevent it from bearing unseasonable fruit. Her
contributions to the Duncan Campbell literature, "A Spy upon the
Conjurer" (1724) and "The Dumb Projector" (1725), in which the romancer
added a breath of intrigue to the atmosphere of mystery surrounding the
wizard, opened the way for more notorious appeals to the popular taste
for personal scandal. In the once well known "Memoirs of a Certain
Island adjacent to the Kingdom of Utopia" (1725-6) and the no less
infamous "Secret History of the Present Intrigues of the Court of
Carimania" (1727) Mrs. Haywood found a fit repertory for daringly
licentious gossip of the sort made fashionable reading by Mrs. Manley's
"Atalantis." But though the _romans à clef_ of Mrs. Haywood, like the
juvenile compositions of Mr. Stepney, might well have "made grey authors
blush," her chief claim to celebrity undoubtedly depends upon her
inclusion in the immortal ranks of Grubstreet. Her scandal novels did
not fail to arouse the wrath of persons in high station, and Alexander
Pope made of the writer's known, though never acknowledged connection
with pieces of the sort a pretext for showing his righteous zeal in the
cause of public morality and his resentment of a fancied personal
insult. The torrent of filthy abuse poured upon Eliza in "The Dunciad"