Notes 247- Again, I am indebted to Werkmeister’s scholarship; she devotes two
lengthy chapters to the two Star newspapers and attendant contro-
versy (London 219–316). - Werkmeister’s second book on the London newspapers, A Newspaper
History of England, 1791–1793, is an exhaustive study. It shows that
the Oracle remains generally Whiggish but wildly inconsistent in its
politics. - For a substantial recovery of fancy as integral to Romantic- period
poetics, see Jeffrey C. Robinson’s book. - The juxtaposition of Laura Maria with Sappho here is tantalizing,
for no poem with the Sappho avatar appears in surviving copies of
the Oracle until Robinson’s “Sonnet to Lesbia” on 5 October 1793.
As it turns out, Bell had indeed received a sonnet signed “Sappho,”
for Bell notes on 8 August 1789 that the manuscript has met with
an accident that requires the submission of another copy. The pref-
ace to her 1791 volume does not acknowledge “Sappho” as one of
Robinson’s pseudonyms as it does of “Laura,” “Laura Maria,” and
“Oberon,” although the “&c. &c.” suggests that she may have had
others in the lost issues of the Oracle. - I learned about Reynolds’ theory of “central forms” from John
Barrell’s The Political Theory of Painting from Reynolds to Hazlitt:
“The Body of the Public”; his chapter on Reynolds explores provoca-
tively the political implications of Reynolds’ theory on his efforts to
found “a republic of taste” (140). - Pascoe does not mention Della Crusca’s ode, which would seem to
undermine her claim that Merry’s poetry is “prosodically unexcep-
tional, composed almost exclusively in rhyming couplets of iambic
tetrameter” (80). The poems exchanged between Della Crusca and
Anna Matilda are in tetrameter couplets, but a poem such as Della
Crusca’s Diversity, for example, shows Merry writing with consider-
able metrical variation. - See also Curran’s chapter on the hymn and the ode in Poetic Form
and British Romanticism. - I will discuss Merry’s Diversity in relation to Coleridge’s “Kubla
Khan” in chapter five. - A footnote in Robinson’s 1806 Poetical Works identifies Cesario as
“Miss M. Vaughan, daughter of Thomas Vaughan, Esq. of Molesy
Hurst, Surry.” Thomas Vaughan (f l. 1772–1820), poet and drama-
tist associated with the Della Crusca network. In his 1793 volume,
William Kendall claims the Ignotus pseudonym as his own (17). See
“To Cesario” and “Echo to Him Who Complains” (1: 127–9). - Serious treatments of Merry’s politics are rare: Clifford focuses
mainly on his relationship with Hester Piozzi while calling him
“a pre- Byronic Hero.” He brief ly compares Merry’s radicalism to
Shelley’s and Byron’s but generally portrays Merry as a failure.
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10.1057/9780230118034 - The Poetry of Mary Robinson, Daniel RobinsonCopyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to Universitetsbiblioteket iTr
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