Perhaps encouraged by the success of "The Female Spectator" to publish more frequently, or actuated by a desire to appeal to the public interest in the political excitement of 1745-6, Mrs. Haywood next attempted to combine the periodical essay with the news-letter, but the innovation evidently failed to please. "The Parrot, with a Compendium of the Times" ran only from 2 August to 4 October, 1746. The numbers consisted commonly of two parts: the first being moralizings on life and manners by a miraculous parrot; and the second a digest of whatever happenings the author could scrape together. The news of the day was concerned chiefly with the fate of the rebels in the last Stuart uprising and with rumors of the Pretender's movements. From many indications Eliza Haywood would seem to have taken a lively interest in the Stuart cause, but certainly she had no exceptional facilities for reporting the course of events, and consequently her budget of information was often stale or filled with vague surmises. But she did not overlook the opportunity to narrate _con amore_ such pathetic incidents as the death of Jemmy Dawson's sweetheart at the moment of his execution, later the subject of Shenstone's ballad. The vaporizings of the parrot were also largely inspired by the trials of the rebels, but the sagacious bird frequently drew upon such stock subjects as the follies of the gay world, the character of women, the unreliability of venal praise and interested personal satire, and the advantages of making one's will--the latter illustrated by a story. Somewhat more unusual was a letter from an American Poll, representing how much it was to the interest of England to preserve, protect, and encourage her plantations in the New World, and complaining of the tyranny of arbitrary governors. But the essay parts of "The Parrot" are not even equal to "The Female Spectator" and deserve no lightening of the deep and speedy oblivion cast upon them.