The Poetry of Mary Robinson: Form and Fame

Bell’s Laureates II 97

that Merry “would most willingly have promoted the destruction

of the British government” if he could have profited from it (387).

Robinson’s poem to Taylor is ostensibly apol it ica l, its ded icat ion refer-

ring to Taylor’s previous profession; but figuratively, the poem’s cel-

ebration of vision may have a subtext in light of Taylor’s affiliations.

As Adriana Craciun has noted, Robinson’s preface and dedication to

Taylor has a political resonance (Fatal 90); here, Robinson eschews

dedications as “too frequently calculated to feed the VANITY of HIGH

RANK” but is happy, in this instance, to “pay voluntary homage to

the first of all distinctions,—the ARISTOCRACY of GENIUS!” (1: 409)

This is obviously f lattery, too, but she qualifies it to contrast with

hereditary worth as similarly elite, implying of course that she and

Taylor belong to it. The Sight volume was Robinson’s most widely

reviewed poetic publication; none of the reviewers found any political

allusions. And even the opposition Morning Post, from which Taylor

had been dismissed as editor in 1790, praised Robinson’s genius with

approbation of its dedication to Taylor (17 July 1793).

Robinson’s political ambivalence during this time worked to her

professional advantage. Still influenced by Sheridan, the Oracle,

however, was a constant nuisance to the government, despite its con-

tinued subsidies, and frequently was unreliable in its delivery of pro-

government propaganda. As Werkmeister puts it, Bell’s paper “caused

the Government more trouble than almost any one of the Opposition

newspapers”; its extortionary expertise, consisting of the supporting

or humiliating of certain individuals, was always for hire regardless

of party (Newspaper 23). Sheridan, moreover, became increasingly

involved in the Society for the Friends of the People, a group of Whig

reformers, not quite radicals. Rumors circulated in the papers that the

Prince disapproved of Sheridan’s political affiliations and that there had

been a falling out between them. The Prince was obligated to support

Pitt’s war with France, sanctioned as it was by his father; and in 1793,

the King gave him honorary command of the Tenth Regiment of Light

Dragoons, replacing Pitt who was promoted to the colonelcy of the

King’s Dragoon Guards. Delighted by the appointment, the Prince

immediately sat for his portrait in military uniform and frequently sta-

tioned his corps in Brighton, near where Robinson lived. At least until

the Prince’s second (but f irst legal) marriage, to Caroline of Brunswick

in 1795, Robinson would not overtly contradict the political alignment

of the Prince. But Robinson’s allegiances do begin to shift around

the middle of 1793, when Bell declares bankruptcy and when Lord

Lauderdale leased the Morning Post and employed Daniel Stuart to

manage it. Her tenure as Bell’s laureate was coming to an end.

9780230100251_04_ch02.indd 979780230100251_04_ch02.indd 97 12/28/2010 11:08:30 AM12/28/2010 11:08:30 AM

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

Cop

yright material fr

om www

.palgra

veconnect.com - licensed to Univer

sitetsbib

lioteket i

Tr

omso - P

algra

veConnect - 2011-04-13