98 The Poetry of Mary RobinsonThe praise of Robinson in the Tr u e B r iton and the sudden appear-
ance of support for her in the Morning Post, conducted by Stuart,
suggests that, in addition to having friends on both sides, Robinson
was being wooed by both sides. While associated with a ministerial
paper, the Oracle, Robinson’s poetry was in 1792 and 1793 generally
consistent with the views the Treasury was paying the newspapers to
proliferate. The pro- government newspapers reciprocated with puffs,
some of which Robinson may have paid for herself, as Gifford and
others suggested.^16 It is possible, then, that Robinson herself supplied
some of the praises in the newspapers, although it also was customary
for the papers to puff their own contributors. Before the middle of
1793, except for a few snide remarks, none of the opposition papers
appears to have regarded Robinson at all as an important writer dur-
ing the first few years of her literary career. In July of 1793, the Post,
on the side of the opposition, however, suddenly began celebrating
Robinson’s literary achievements, around the time she, upon Bell’s
bankruptcy, became a free agent. By January of 1794, Robinson
was contributing to both the ministerial Oracle and the opposition
Morning Post; her second volume of Poems appeared that month, pub-
lished by Evans and Becket, not by Bell. Moreover, in January of
1794, Robinson retired Laura Maria. She would not use the avatar
again until July 1799.
The final stage of Robinson’s stint as Bell’s laureate is distinguished
by Robinson’s continued assertions of Laura Maria as an avatar of ide-
alized public virtue. After avowing the signature in the preface to her
1791 Poems, Robinson continued to use the avatar for poetry in the
Oracle. But the Laura Maria of Ainsi va le monde, in 1790, had to evolve
according to the developments in France. Robinson’s “Ode to Despair,”
which probably appeared in one of the missing issues of the Oracle in
1790 with the Laura Maria avatar, is one of the many irregular alle-
gorical odes in the 1791 Poems; it develops an allegory of Despair as
the associate of “the HUGE FIEND, DESPOTIC POW’R,” who resides in
the “loathsome cells” of the Bastille (1: 93; 33–54). Robinson’s depic-
tion of the fall of the Ancien Régime echoes Merry in its approbation
of revolutionary vengeance: under this system of oppression, Despair
prevailedTill FREEDOM spurn’d the ignominious chain,
And roused from Superstition’s night,
Exulting Nature claim’d her right,
And call’d dire Vengeance from her dark domain. (51–4)9780230100251_04_ch02.indd 989780230100251_04_ch02.indd 98 12/28/2010 11:08:30 AM12/28/2010 11:08:30 AM
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