The Poetry of Mary Robinson: Form and Fame

88 The Poetry of Mary Robinson

France must guide England toward its renewal. Her title suggests with-

out saying it that “As France goes, so goes the world.” Obviously, the

use of French makes the point stronger. She opens by praising Merry

as a poet “Whose pen gives polish to the varying line / That blends

instruction with the song divine” (3–4). Merry and his associates fre-

quently were criticized for their stylistic extravagance, but Robinson’s

praise of Merry here asserts that what makes him a great poet is his

attention to both style and substance. She alludes to his 1787 antiwar

poem “Elegy Written on the Plain of Fontenoy,” published as Della

Crusca, praising his “fancy” for its ability to recognize the sacrifices

of those who die for their country—“the mighty slain” (1: 77; 6). She

also recalls imagery from Della Crusca’s Diversity (1789), praising the

poet’s ability to sing of happier subjects, “Blithe as the songstress of

returning day,” like the lark, as well as melancholy ones: his “liquid

notes in sweet meand’rings f low, / Mild as the murmurs of the Bird of

Woe,” the nightingale (8, 12). Her invocation and address concludes

with a reference to The Florence Miscellany: Merry, “in Italia’s groves,

with thrilling song, / Call’d mute attention from the minstrel throng”

(15–6); he thereby earned the coveted poetic laurel and “Gave proud

distinction to the Poet’s name, / And claim’d, by modest worth, the

wreath of fame” (17–8). Robinson recognizes Merry’s status as her

laureate, awarding him “the wreath of fame”—that ubiquitous phrase

in Robinson’s poetry appears first here at Merry’s coronation.

Part of Robinson’s program here is unequivocally to assert Merry’s

authority without discounting his previous work. Her tribute con-

tinues in the next verse paragraph by making it clear that Merry’s

poetic virtue is his formal versatility. His “Sacred Lyre” can “more

than mortal thoughts inspire” through the poet’s ability to modulate

between “HEROIC measures,” such as those of The Laurel of Liberty,

and “lyric numbers,” as in his love poetry (1: 78; 21–4). Robinson,

however, refrains from mentioning Della Crusca anywhere in the

poem. Moreover, Robinson echoes Pope’s praise of Dryden, in his

“First Epistle of the Second Book of Horace Imitated,” for modern-

izing English poetic meter but applies Pope’s phrase “varying verse”

to Merry’s poetic imagination (25). Robinson asserts that Merry’s

poetry bears the imprints of both “nature” and “Genius,” while “still

the verse is thine” (29–30). These are canny gestures on Robinson’s

part because her own unmasking is at hand: the key to Robinson’s use

of avatars is, as I have asserted, in the figurative refraction, even the

multiplication, of the poet’s actual self.

Robinson’s praise of Merry, however, leads to a critique of con-

temporary English culture that dominates the first half of the poem,

9780230100251_04_ch02.indd 889780230100251_04_ch02.indd 88 12/28/2010 11:08:29 AM12/28/2010 11:08:29 AM

10.1057/9780230118034 - The Poetry of Mary Robinson, Daniel Robinson

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