unknown. Scholars have speculated that Haywood had an affair and even a child with Richard Savage in the 1720s, in addition to a 20-year open relationship with William Hatchett, who was suspected of being the father of her second child. However, later critics have called these speculations into question as too heavily influenced by Alexander Pope's famous illustration of her in The Dunciad and too little based upon evidence. (Pope depicted Haywood as a grotesque figure with two "babes of love" at her waist, one by a poet and the other by a bookseller.) Other accounts from the period, however, suggest that her "friends" rejected Pope's scandalous depiction of her; they maintained that she had been deserted by her husband and left to raise their children alone. In fact, and despite the popular belief that she was once a woman of ill repute, Haywood seems to have had no particular scandals attached her name whatsoever. Haywood's friendship with Richard Savage is thought to have begun around 1719. Savage wrote the gushing 'puff' for the anonymous Part I of her first novel, Love in Excess. The two appear to have been close in these early years, sharing many associates in literary and theatrical circles, even sharing the same publisher, William Chetwood. By September 1725, however, Savage and Haywood had fallen out, and he anonymously attacked her as a 'cast-off Dame' desperate for acclaim in The Authors of the Town. Savage is considered the likely impetus for Pope's attack on Haywood. Haywood's association with Aaron Hill and the literary coterie known as The Hillarians seems to have followed a similar pattern as Haywood rose to fame. The Hillarians, a collection of writers and artists "committed to a progressive programme of ameliorating 'politeness'", included Savage, Hill, Martha Fowke, and for a time, Haywood. The group shared poems to and about each other, and formed a social circle of like minds. Haywood seems to have greatly admired Hill—who, though not a patron, seems to have promoted young, up-and-coming artists—and dedicated poems to him. She may have even seen him as a mentor during the earliest years of her career. William Hatchett was a long-time colleague and collaborator. The two probably met around 1728 or 1729, and recent critics have touted the pair as domestic partners or lovers, though this suggestion has now been challenged. He was a player, playwright, pamphleteer and translator (and perhaps