O'er Idalia's velvet-green The rosy-crownèd Loves are seen, On Cytherea's day, With antic Sports and blue-eyed Pleasures Frisking light in frolic measures: Now pursuing, now retreating, Now in circling troops they meet; To brisk notes in cadence beating Glance their many-twinkling feet.

Fifth, Idalia, or the Self-abandon'd.

If we may judge by the number and frequency of editions, most of the indefatigable scribbler's tales found a ready sale, while the best of them, such as "Idalia" (1723), "The Fatal Secret" (1724), "The Mercenary Lover" (1726), "The Fruitless Enquiry" and "Philidore and Placentia" (1727), gained for her not a little applause.

When the novels appeared, Idalia was the Unfortunate Mistress, Lasselia the Self-abandon'd.

-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.

The first of these is "Idalia: or, the Unfortunate Mistress" (1724), the story of a young Venetian beautylike Lasselia, her charms can only be imagined not describedwhose varied amorous adventures carry her over most of Italy.

Idalia's vanity is piqued at the loss of a single adorer, and more from perverseness than from love she continues to correspond with him.

He makes no further use of her condescension than to boast of her favors, until at the command of his patron, Don Ferdinand, he induces Idalia to make an assignation with him.

Henriquez' brother, Myrtano, next succeeds as Idalia's adorer, but learning that he is about to make an advantageous marriage, she secretly decamps.

Borne ashore on a plank, Idalia is succored by cottagers, and continues her journey in man's clothes.

Idalia leads a miserable life, persecuted by all the young gallants of Rome.

But realism vanishes when Idalia begins her romantic flight from place to place and from lover to lover.

The arbitress of the passions indeed wrote nothing to compare in popularity with "Robinson Crusoe," but before 1740 her "Love in Excess" ran through as many editions as "Moll Flanders" and its abridgments, while "Idalia: or, the Unfortunate Mistress" had been reprinted three times separately and twice with her collected novels before a reissue of Defoe's "Fortunate Mistress" was undertaken.

Between 1731 and 1741 she produced fewer books than during any single year of her activity after the publication of "Idalia" and before "The Dunciad."

Idalia, ed. 2, Letters from a Lady of Quality to a Chevalier, ed. 2; Vol.

Idalia, ed. 3, The Surprise, ed. 2, The Fatal Secret, ed.

Idalia: or, the Unfortunate Mistress.

1723 June 27 Idalia: or, the Unfortunate Mistress.

He is said to be as successful in the fields of Idalia as in those of Bellona, and the ladies whom he honours with his attentions suffer not a little in their reputations in the opinion of the compères and commères of Bruxelles.

Ann Lang bought Love in Excess, which is quite a thick volume, for two shillings; and the first volume of Idalia (for Eliza was Ouidaesque even in her titles) only cost her eighteen-pence.

Eliza Haywood assures us, in Idalia, that her object in writing is that "the Warmth and Vigour of Youth may be temper'd by a due Consideration"; yet the moralist must complain that she goes a strange way about it.

Idalia herself was "a lovely Inconsiderate" of Venice, who escaped in a "Gondula" up "the River Brent," and set all Vicenza by the ears through her "stock of Haughtiness, which nothing could surmount."

At last, after adventures which can scarcely have edified Ann Lang, Idalia abruptly "remember'd to have heard of a Monastery at Verona," and left Vicenza at break of day, taking her "unguarded languishments" out of that city and out of the novel.

It is true that Ann Lang, for 2s., bought a continuation of the career of Idalia; but we need not follow her.

He, upon whose birth each god Looks down in love, whose earliest sleep the bright Idalia cradles, whose young lips the rod Of eloquent Hermes kindlesto whose eyes, Scarce waken'd yet, Apollo steals in light, While on imperial brows Jove sets the seal of might.