seems to have seriously damaged her literary reputation. During the next
decade she wrote almost nothing, and after her curious allegorical
political satire in the form of a romance, the "Adventures of Eovaai"
(1736), the authoress dropped entirely out of sight. For six years no
new work came from her pen. What she was doing during this time remains
a puzzle. She could hardly have been supported by the rewards of her
previous labors, for the gains of the most successful novelists at this
period were small. If she became a journalist or turned her energies
toward other means of making a livelihood, no evidence of the fact has
yet been discovered. It is possible that (to use the current euphemism)
'the necessity of her affairs may have obliged her to leave London and
even England until creditors became less insistent. There can be little
doubt that Mrs. Haywood visited the Continent at least once, but the
time of her going is uncertain.[29]

When she renewed her literary activity in 1742 with a translation of "La
Paysanne Parvenue" by the Chevalier de Mouhy, Mrs. Haywood did not
depend entirely upon her pen for support. A notice at the end of the
first volume of "The Virtuous Villager, or Virgin's Victory," as her
work was called, advertised "new books sold by Eliza Haywood, Publisher,
at the Sign of Fame in Covent Garden." Her list of publications was not
extensive, containing, in fact, only two items: I. "The Busy-Body; or
Successful Spy; being the entertaining History of Mons. Bigand ... The
whole containing great Variety of Adventures, equally instructive and
diverting," and II. "Anti-Pamela, or Feign'd Innocence detected, in a
Series of Syrena's Adventures: A Narrative which has really its
Foundation in Truth and Nature ... Publish'd as a necessary Caution to
all young Gentlemen. The Second Edition."[30] Mrs. Haywood's venture as
a publisher was transitory, for we hear no more of it. But taken
together with a letter from her to Sir Hans Sloane,[31] recommending