attaches to lovers separated but eternally constant. The histories of
Stenoclea and of Tellisinda contain situations of dramatic intensity.
But perhaps the story of Violathia is the most worthy of attention on
account both of its defects and of its merits. The weakest part of the
plot is the husband, who is jealous without cause, and equally without
reason suddenly reforms. But the character of Violathia is admirably
drawn. Unlike the usual heroine of Haywoodian fiction she is superior to
circumstance and does not yield her love to the most complacent adjacent
male. As a dutiful wife she resists for a long time the insinuations of
Charmillo, but when she decides to fly to her lover, her husband's tardy
change of heart cannot alter her feelings. Her character is individual,
firm, and palpable. If the story was original with Mrs. Haywood, it
shows that her powers of characterization were not slight when she
wished to exert them. The influence of the _novella_ and of the Oriental
tale produced nothing better.

From other literary forms the makers of fiction freely derived
sensational materials and technical hints. Without insisting too closely
upon the connection between novel and play, we may well remember that
nearly all the early novelists, Defoe excepted, were intimately
associated with the theatre. Mrs. Behn, Mrs. Manley, Mrs. Haywood, and
later Fielding and Mrs. Lennox were successful in both fields. The women
writers especially were familiar with dramatic technique both as actors
and playwrights, and turned their stage training to account when they
wrote prose fiction. Mrs. Haywood's first novel, "Love in Excess"
(1720), showed evidences of her apprenticeship to the theatre. Its three
parts may be compared to the three acts of a play; the principal climax
falls properly at the end of the second part, and the whole ends in
stereotyped theatrical fashion with the marriage of all the surviving
couples. The handling of incident, too, is in the fashion of the stage.