From "Pretty Emulation" to "Fresh Discoveries": Entomological Observation & Female Empiricism in Eliza Haywood's The Female Spectator

Abstract

From "Pretty Emulation" to "Fresh Discoveries":Entomological Observation & Female Empiricism in Eliza Haywood's The Female Spectator Anna K. Sagal The Female Spectator (1744–46) is among the most significant periodical publications of the eighteenth century, not least for its innovative discussions of a wide range of issues pertaining to women's experiences and education. Across the two years of its publication history, Eliza Haywood penned immensely popular issues that addressed everything from romance and courtship to politics, religion, and science. One of the most remarkable of these topics is her active endorsement of female scientific practice, initially articulated through the male persona Philo-Naturae. In his dialogue, she presents a perfunctorily conservative position that the female eidolon converts to a subtly rebellious undertaking, ultimately disrupting conventional narratives about women's relationship to nature. Through her inventive portrayal of women engaging in naturalist work, Haywood cannily interrogates the relationship among women, their scientific subjects, and the spaces in which scientific labor is undertaken. In doing so, she presents a case for women's unique access to a domestically rooted form of empiricism, in which women could leverage their position as domestic subjects into one of limited scientific authority. A careful study of this dynamic also highlights her pivotal role in shaping eighteenth-century science for women. Like other essay periodicals, The Female Spectator uses the fiction of an editorial board, in this case comprised of female characters who represent various ideal models of femininity: the experienced but respectable spinster, the Female Spectator, who functions as the periodical's primary voice; the witty, young, devoted wife Mira; an unnamed "Widow of Quality"; and the charming, accomplished Euphrosine.1 The Female Spectator was a monthly publication, issued in 24 parts between April 1744 and May 1746, and was [End Page 87] popular enough to be sold as a bound volume of multiple issues as early as 1748, while single issues of the periodical were still being distributed.2 Patrick Spedding has concluded that The Female Spectator was Haywood's single best-selling publication of her career, earning her about 60 guineas per year.3 Moreover, as Lynn Marie Wright and Donald J. Newman note, "The fact that [The Female Spectator] lasted two years when many other periodicals lasted only a few weeks or months argues that Haywood had a wide and loyal readership. We know she had audiences in Germany, France, Italy, and as far away as America."4 A number of Haywood's later periodical publications, including The Parrot (1746) and Epistles to the Ladies (1749), were written "by the authors of The Female Spectator," indicating commercial interest in capitalizing on her success. Several of Haywood's other publications even used characters from The Female Spectator: Mira was the narrative persona in The Wife (1746), as was Euphrosine in The Young Lady (1756). Haywood also recycled these characters for use in Epistles for the Ladies. While critics have been divided on the subject of Haywood's intended audience, I agree with the assessment that, whatever her actual audience demographics may have been, her intended readership was largely female.5 This is not to say that Haywood expected an exclusively female audience; on the contrary, several of the correspondents were male (including Philo-Naturae, who is the primary scientific interlocutor of the periodical), and much of the Female Spectator's advice on courtship and marriage was directed at both sexes. However, a repeated tactic throughout the periodical relies upon the flexibility of a female intellectual voice that acts without seeming to disrupt male intellectual authority in order to relay a substantive critique, often of that male authority. Haywood (as the Female Spectator) writes: If therefore I have directed my Advice in a peculiar Manner to those of my own Sex, it proceeded from two Reasons, First, because, as I am a Woman, I am more interested in their Happiness…secondly, I had not a sufficient Idea of my own Capacity, to imagine, that any Thing offered by a Female Censor would have so much Weight with the Men as is requisite to make that Change in their Conduct and Oeconomy, which, I cannot help but acknowledge, a great many of them stand...