Stuart’s Laureates I 189their contributions to Stuart via the post. Furthermore, Stuart does
not to seem to have printed unsolicited poetry, although he gives the
impression of accepting and rejecting certain submissions in its “To
Correspondents” column, as most other editors had done since the
days of the World. This practice likely was a ruse for promoting future
issues and for printing sardonic ripostes to would- be contributors—
again, as part of the mission of these pages to keep readers entertained
by a lively exchange of textual production and play.
Our misunderstanding of the position further results from a mis-
reading of what it means “to undertake” a “department” for the news-
paper. In 1838, James Gillman, in his Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
makes a claim similar to that in Robinson’s Memoirs, writing that “soon
after [Coleridge’s] return from Germany, the proprietor of the Morning
Post, who was also the editor, engaged Coleridge to undertake the lit-
erary department” (51). This echoes what Coleridge himself writes in
chapter 10 of the Biographia Literaria where he writes, “I was solicited
to undertake the literary and poetical department” (1: 212). Gillman
adds that “[a]s contributors to this paper, the editor had the assistance
of Mr. Wordsworth, Mr. Southey, and Mr. Lamb” (153). Gillman sin-
gles out Southey as having “powers best suited for such employment”
that “made him invaluable to the proprietor” (153). Although schol-
ars have not to my knowledge interpreted such remarks to mean that
Southey or Coleridge assumed an editorial position, scholars working
on Robinson have done so—almost as if the “poetical department”
consisted of a physical space, with cubicles perhaps, in the Morning Post
office in Catherine Street. It is, rather, a textual space in the paper itself
that is devoted to a particular genre of writing for a particular audience.
To be hired to undertake it, then, means to take responsibility for filling
that textual space, which is what Southey and Robinson consistently did
to earn their salaries. Each held positions that required the composition
of at least two original poems a week. Kenneth Curry’s list of Southey’s
contributions and conjectural attributions from January 16, 1798 until
December 20, 1799 contains more than 200 poems. Robinson served
half as long as Southey did, from his departure until her death on
December 26, 1800; her contributions number more than 100 poems
in 12 months, approximately half the number of poems Southey most
likely contributed. So, it is clear they were doing the same job.A New Line of Succession
So, Robinson’s work for Stuart consists of three periods: 1) her ini-
tial contributions in the winter of 1797–8, consisting mostly of the
first batch of Tabitha Bramble poems; (2) a series of political poems9780230100251_06_ch04.indd 1899780230100251_06_ch04.indd 189 12/28/2010 11:08:54 AM12/28/2010 11:08:54 AM
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