the persuasions of her wooer, the Baron D'Espernay, but as a result of a
very intricate intrigue both Alovisa and the Baron perish accidentally
on the swords of D'Elmont and his brother.

Melliora retires to a convent, and her lover goes to travel in Italy,
where his charms cause one lady to take poison for love of him, and
another to follow him disguised as the little foot-page Fidelio. In
helping Melliora's brother to elope with a beautiful Italian girl, the
Count again encounters his beloved Melliora, now pursued by the Marquis
de Sanguillier. In a dramatic _dénouement_ she deserts the Marquis at
the altar and throws herself upon the protection of her guardian. The
disappointed bridegroom is consoled by the discovery of an old flame who
has long been serving him secretly in the capacity of chambermaid.
Fidelio reveals her identity and dies of hopeless love, pitied by all.
The three surviving couples marry at once, and this time the husbands
"continue, with their fair Wives, great and lovely Examples of conjugal
Affection."

Such, with the omission of all secondary narratives, is the main plot of
Eliza Haywood's first novel.

"Love in Excess" best illustrates the similarity of sensational fiction
to clap-trap drama, but others of her early works bear traces of the
author's familiarity with the theatre. The escape of the pair of lovers
from an Oriental court, already the theme of countless plays including
Mrs. Haywood 's own "Pair Captive," was re-vamped to supply an episode
in "Idalia" (1723), and parts of the same novel are written in concealed
blank verse that echoes the heroic Orientalism of some of Dryden's
tragedies. In the character of Grubguard, the amorous alderman of "The
City Jilt" (1726), Mrs. Haywood apparently had in mind not Alderman