The Poetry of Mary Robinson: Form and Fame

Bell’s Laureates II 67

temporarily in its assaults, as all of the quarreling Whigs (Burke, Fox,

and Sheridan) had a stake in the Prince’s aggrandizement. In oppo-

sition to Fox, Pitt supported a new bill that would severely curtail

the Prince’s authority as Regent. The shifting of the leading Whigs

to more or less the same side put the World in more direct compe-

tition with the Morning Post, the leading opposition paper for the

same West End readers. A round this time, in December of 1788, Bell

decided to sell his share in the World to Topham, while the Prince

bought control of the Morning Post, to which Sheridan immediately

defected. In response, Topham sold political control of the World to

the Treasury for the huge sum of £600 per annum, which Lucyle

Werkmeister notes is the most the government ever had paid to inf lu-

ence a newspaper (Werkmeister 105, 166). Certainly, this is a testa-

ment to the popularity of the World if not to Topham’s integrity.

Topham’s political oscillation, motivated by money, made the World

the enemy of the opposition, and his inf luence on the public was

a matter of concern to committed liberals. When Topham reneged

on his promise to continue employing Bell’s printing services, Bell

responded by establishing the pointedly entitled Oracle, or Bell’s New

World on 1 June 1789.^2 Robinson adroitly followed Bell, who also

took the Della Crusca and Anna Matilda avatars with him. Her brief

stint with the World as Laura would lead to a more substantial rela-

tionship with Bell, resulting in the creation of her Laura Maria avatar

and the publication of her first books.

Robinson’s professional associations before the Revolution contro-

versy are moderate and cautious, tending toward the government and

away from the extreme, Foxite opposition. Her Laura poems, discussed

in the previous chapter, appear in the World during the Regency Crisis,

and her direct engagement of Leonardo/Della Crusca and Anna Matilda

takes place after the paper becomes an organ of Pitt’s government. She

was willing to stay with the paper as long as Bell was printing it. The

publication of her poem “The Bee and the Butterf ly” further compli-

cates our understanding of her political allegiances. This poem, her

first publication as “Mrs. Robinson” in over a decade, appeared in the

Star and Evening Advertiser just after the paper’s owners removed edi-

tor Peter Stuart for supposedly publishing antiministerial propaganda

during the crisis and, as he claimed, for refusing to slander the Prince

and Mrs. Fitzherbert. When “The Bee and the Butterf ly” appeared,

Stuart had already established his own, nearly identical paper called

Stuart’s Star and Evening Advertiser, which began printing under that

name the week before. Robinson’s poem appears in the original Star,

however, which was unambiguous in its support of Pitt (Werkmeister,

9780230100251_04_ch02.indd 679780230100251_04_ch02.indd 67 12/28/2010 11:08:26 AM12/28/2010 11:08:26 AM

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