Bell’s Laureates II 95allusion that it resulted from a miscarriage, an imputation now widely
regarded as truth. A footnote identifies the reference to Much Ado
about Nothing but emphasizes the pun on burden as refrain and as
pregnancy: “Light o’ love! that’s a tune that goes without a burden”
(8; Gifford’s emphasis). Gifford’s attacks had the unintended effect of
garnering sympathy for Robinson. Remarking on Gifford’s treatment
of women writers, a reviewer for the Monthly Review exclaimed, “Talk
of the severity of Reviewers! Compared with this, their cruelty is ten-
der mercy” (96). Gifford’s attacks may have stung Robinson, but they
did not hinder her career.Laura Maria and the War
Unlike Merry, Robinson had no desire to abandon her avatar; instead,
she multiplied herself into several others. Her handsome first collec-
tion appeared in 1791 with well over 500 subscribers listed, chief
among them the Prince of Wales. Mrs. Robinson, the author, also
socialized within her network of avatars. Early in 1792, Bell pub-
lished her first novel, Vancenza; or, The Dangers of Credulity, which
achieved enough commercial success to warrant five editions. (Her
novels, incidentally, always appeared with her real name attached.)
In August of 1791, however, Bell published Robinson’s pamphlet
Impartial Reflections on the Present Situation of the Queen of France
signed only as “a Friend to Humanity”—a kind of avatar perhaps, but
certainly a disguise. Robinson was not as willing as Merry was to con-
tinue to publicize her political sentiments. Written in response to the
imprisonment of the French Royal Family after their attempt to f lee
the country, Robinson’s pamphlet celebrates the French Revolution as
“the most glorious achievement in the annals of Europe” and asserts
from the beginning of the essay that “Man is a Commoner of Nature,
his soul is impregnated with the spirit of independence, and revolts
at the attacks of oppression” (8: 122). Robinson’s task is a difficult
one of having to maintain this position while also expressing sympa-
thy for Marie Antoinette and indignation at her humiliation, putting
her in an uneasy alliance with Burke’s Reflections. A reviewer for the
Monthly Review admitted that this “inconsistency” made it impos-
sible to understand the argument. But Robinson, as Amy Garnai con-
tends, acknowledges a “double sense of victimhood” in the Queen’s
position—victimized first by the system of aristocratic privilege in
which she was raised, and now by the vengeance of the Revolution
(85). Robinson defends the Queen’s f light as the prerogative of her
husband and thus as her corresponding wifely duty; she appeals to9780230100251_04_ch02.indd 959780230100251_04_ch02.indd 95 12/28/2010 11:08:30 AM12/28/2010 11:08:30 AM
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