190 The Poetry of Mary Robinsonthat appeared in the spring of 1798, at the start of Southey’s official
appointment, and which would become her long poem in blank verse,
posthumously published as The Progress of Liberty; and (3) her year as
Stuart’s chief poetry correspondent, or contributor, from December
of 1799 to November of 1800—her annus mirabilis—during which,
despite persistent and ultimately terminal illness, she composed and
published in the Post many of her best poems, including several that
respond to Lyrical Ballads and that comprise her own volume called
Lyrical Tales, a book that she described as her “favourite offspring”
(7: 318). The first two periods are not well understood, however, and
her year as Stuart’s laureate has occasioned some misunderstanding
regarding the nature of that position. While they are not her finest
poems, the first batch of Tabitha Bramble pieces certainly focused
Robinson’s political energies for what would be her most ambitious
poetic project since Sappho and Phaon, The Progress of Liberty. So,
for several months in the winter and spring of 1797–8, Robinson’s
poetry appears in a remarkable new and highly politicized con-
text and in a significant intertextual network with other poems by
Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth. Here, Robinson’s first batch of
Tabitha Bramble poems, as well as numerous extracts from her novel
Walsingham, frame such radically inf lected poems as Wordsworth’s
“The Convict,” which he signed “Mortimer” and which appeared in
Lyrical Ballads later in the year, and Coleridge’s “Fire, Famine, and
Slaughter: A War Eclogue,” which he signed “Laberius.” As John
Barrell notes, Coleridge’s pseudonym refers to Decimus Laberius,
a writer whom Julius Caesar forced to perform for his amusement;
Laberius took the opportunity to protest Caesar’s tyranny and to
predict the dictator’s death (Imagining 652). Coleridge’s signature
points to either Pitt, who figures directly in the poem, or, more trea-
sonably, to the King and thus adds an even more radical element to
an already vituperative allegory. The first batch of Tabitha Bramble
poems, odd as these poems seem among Robinson’s other poetry,
belongs here.
This period also marks the beginning of Coleridge’s poetic cor-
respondence with Robinson, whom he would not meet in person
until December of 1799. Coleridge wrote “The Apotheosis, or the
Snow- Drop” in response to Robinson’s poem “The Snow Drop,”
from Walsingham, which Stuart reprinted in the Morning Post on 26
December 1797. Coleridge’s poem appeared in the Morning Post on
3 January 1798 with the signature “Francini.” No copies of that day’s
paper are known to exist, but it appeared in Daniel Stuart’s other9780230100251_06_ch04.indd 1909780230100251_06_ch04.indd 190 12/28/2010 11:08:54 AM12/28/2010 11:08:54 AM
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