The Poetry of Mary Robinson: Form and Fame

Stuart’s Laureates I 187

and wink to Robinson (24 November 1800). I will discuss these

connections further in chapter five. But Coleridge’s correspondence

with Stuart proves that all of the above poems appeared not through

Robinson’s but through Coleridge’s agency. Stuart, moreover, likely

called upon Coleridge to supply poems in the ailing Robinson’s stead

(Letters 1: 629).

So, where does this notion of Robinson as “poetry editor” for

the Post come from? Referring to the final year of Robinson’s life,

the Memoirs state, “About this period she was induced to under-

take the poetical department for the editor of a morning paper,” the

Morning Post (7: 286). In the narrative of Robinson’s life, this state-

ment accords with the time, during the winter of 1799–1800, that

Southey quit the Post and left for his second visit to Portugal and

when an abundance of poems by Robinson begin to appear. If Samuel

Jackson Pratt is Maria Elizabeth’s collaborator on the continuation

of Robinson’s Memoirs after her death, then this remark may refer

to a surviving letter that the poet wrote to Pratt. Here, Robinson

apologizes for not providing a puff to Pratt’s own poem, “A Gleaner’s

Advertisement,” which appeared in the Morning Post of 16 August

1800 to promote the forthcoming second volume of his Gleanings in

England. She writes, “I never wish to have any introductions to my

own Poetry in the M.P. and therefore I thought of course that yours

did not require it. The merit of your lines speaking for themselves” (7:

321). This indicates that Robinson forwarded Pratt’s poem to Stuart

and implies that she had inf luence on the poetry in the Post and no

doubt on Stuart himself. Moreover, Robinson’s letter reminds Pratt

that she has “taken care, I believe twice, to announce The Gleanings

&c&c and on their publication I will do every thing that is right,

and just, and handsome about them” (7: 321). Robinson’s memory

is correct, for three short news items regarding the forthcoming sec-

ond volume of Gleanings had already appeared (10 January, 12 July,

and 16 August). Robinson, moreover, had written a tributary poem

to the first volume of Gleanings that appeared in the Post on 25 July

1799, during Southey’s tenure, and, had she lived, no doubt would

have written another. She was not averse to helping out her friends,

which is very much what working on the Post seems to have entailed.

If a friend shared a poem with her, she would send it to Stuart. As

she writes to her friend Jane Porter in June or July of 1800, “I sent

your charming lines to Stuart, and I am certain that, both he and

the public, will rejoice in my having done what your graceful dif-

fidence declined doing” (7: 312). The poem in question likely was

“The Seventh of July,” signed “Sabrina,” appearing in the Post 14

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