The Poetry of Mary Robinson: Form and Fame

Stuart’s Laureates I 155

in her political views, Robinson saw an opportunity to ally herself

with a new network. This new network shows Robinson committing

to a more radical or at least oppositional political stance and interact-

ing professionally, personally, and poetically with a younger set of

writers, including Robert Southey and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Such

connections would prove crucial to Robinson’s career as it moved into

a new phase and eventually drew to a close; they show her poetry

involved in a new intertextual network that pertains directly to the

rise of Romantic poetry.

Robinson’s five years with Stuart mirror her earlier years as Bell’s

laureate at the Oracle, particularly in the political and professional

networking evident during both periods. Stuart is not the mysterious

figure Bell is, however, so many more facets of Robinson’s business

relationship with Stuart are discernible. In July of 1795, at the age of

28, Daniel Stuart bought the Morning Post and officially took over

the management of it as editor and proprietor. Prior to this, despite

his youth, he had worked intermittently with the Morning Post as its

printer and as a writer and, brief ly in 1788–9, as editor. Werkmeister

surmises that Stuart later edited the paper for two years during Lord

Lauderdale’s lease of the property before Stuart purchased it in 1795;

for, beginning on 9 July 1793, certain aspects of the paper nota-

bly changed, and it began promoting Lauderdale’s interests, which

included peace with France and reform of Parliament—interests

Stuart certainly shared (Newspaper 334–9). Stuart was an ardent

reformer, serving as deputy secretary for the Society of the Friends

of the People under his brother- in- law James Mackintosh. Stuart

also was an enthusiastic supporter of Paine (Hindle 68). Supporting

Werkmeister’s conjecture, in 22 July 1793, an editorial in the Morning

Post jabbed at “the unthinking Government Prints” and asserted the

independence of its principles: “The Public are alone our Patrons. –

We seek no favours from the Treasury.... Our own honest and inde-

pendent exertions we consider as the best claims to public favour.”

Under Stuart’s guidance, the Morning Post would go on to fiercely

oppose Pitt’s ministry, even defiantly adding “Taxed by Mr. Pitt”

to the f lag of the paper, just beneath the price. In the final issue

of the Anti- Jacobin, which was established to counter the opposi-

tion papers, George Canning’s poem “The New Morality” associated

Stuart’s Morning Post with sedition and blasphemy, and attacked in

particular his stable of poets, Coleridge, Southey, Charles Lloyd, and

Charles Lamb (328–37; 9 July 1798). Unlike the Anti- Jacobin, which

lasted less than a year, Stuart’s Morning Post became hugely success-

ful. Stuart noted years later that the paper’s circulation was as low

9780230100251_06_ch04.indd 1559780230100251_06_ch04.indd 155 12/28/2010 11:08:49 AM12/28/2010 11:08:49 AM

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