Stuart’s Laureates I 171that newspaper pseudonyms were promiscuous. People other than
Robinson wrote as “Oberon,” “Sappho,” and even “Laura.” As it turns
out, the Tabitha Bramble pseudonym also was not exclusively hers.
Craciun attributes to Robinson an angry letter to Robert Dundas,
Lord Advocate of Scotland, regarding the conviction of the Scottish
reformers William Skirving and Maurice Margarot (British 71–4).
Davenport, however, editor of Robinson’s letters for the Pickering and
Chatto edition, has confirmed the suspicions the other editors and I
had about this letter: although signed “Tabitha Bramble,” the letter
is not Robinson’s. Comparing the letter to Dundas against the other
letters in Robinson’s handwriting, Davenport writes, “The writing is
too upright, the words too close together, and the letters are not all
formed in Robinson’s manner (for example the ‘y’ is written with a
neat hook, and the ‘g’ with a distinct loop, which is not characteris-
tic of her)” (295). Although Craciun’s general reading of Robinson’s
increasing radicalism in 1794 is correct, the letter is not hers; if it
were, it certainly would be “a daring political intervention” (Craciun
74), although I have always felt that the signature of Smollett’s comic
character undermines the severity of the protest. The final image in
the letter of Smollett’s overheated spinster as a British Corday is pure
bathos. At the very least, the choice of Smollett’s character as the sig-
nature for this letter was simply an allusion to the Brambles’ Scottish
nationality and provincialism. By contrast, Robinson’s Tabitha
Bramble poems actually have little to do with Smollett’s character.
While I cannot disprove Robinson’s authorship of the first batch, I
do f i nd t hem to be more l i ke Peter Pi nda r’s poet r y t ha n l i ke a ny of t he
poems Robinson would later write with the Tabitha Bramble signature.
Robinson wrote them in deliberate imitation of Peter Pindar—as they
frequently assert—but it is possible that Wolcot may have had a hand
in writing them, perhaps in collaboration with Robinson. Because the
Memoirs refer to them, however, I included the first batch in my edi-
tion, and I assume that she wrote these poems in the spirit of mutual
enthusiasm with which Robinson and Stuart entered into their new
relationship. The following eight poems appeared over the course of
three months:- “Tabitha Bramble Visits the Metropolis by Command of her
Departed Brother” (8 December 1797) - “A Simple Tale” (13 December 1797)
- “Tabitha Bramble, to her Cousins in Scotland” (25 December
1797) - “Ode Fourth. For New Year’s Day” (1 January 1798)
9780230100251_06_ch04.indd 1719780230100251_06_ch04.indd 171 12/28/2010 11:08:51 AM12/28/2010 11:08:51 AM
10.1057/9780230118034 - The Poetry of Mary Robinson, Daniel RobinsonCopyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to Universitetsbiblioteket iTr
omso - PalgraveConnect - 2011-04-13