The Poetry of Mary Robinson: Form and Fame

194 The Poetry of Mary Robinson

announced the paper’s higher standards for poetry, which appears to

be a trumpeting of Southey’s commitment:

The POETRY of The Morning Post will in future be critically select.

None but first- rate composit ions w ill be admitted to our columns ; and

we are promised the aid of several of the most distinguished writers of

the present day. Thus powerfully supported, we request the attention

of the LITERATI to this department of our Paper; where the enlight-

ened mind will not fail to receive ample gratification.

The previous day’s paper justifies such confidence, for here we see all

three poets in juxtaposition:

We anticipate the pleasure which our readers will receive from

the Second Number of the Poetical Pictures—‘THE PROGR ESS OF

LIBERTY;’—it is drawn by the hand of a master, and conceived and

executed in the most vigorous stile of Poetry. It shall be inserted

to- morrow.

Mr. Coleridge has honoured us with an Ode, which, for justness of

thought, for strength of expression, and for poetical genius, is equal,

perhaps even superior, to any of his former productions

We wait for the conclusion of the very exquisite and romantic Poem of

St. Patrick’s Purgatory.

The second installment of Robinson’s Progress of Liberty appears the

next day; the first version of Coleridge’s “France, an Ode” appears

on April 16; and Southey’s “St. Patrick’s Purgatory” appears on

May 8. Over the next year or so, Robinson is hard at work on her

novel The False Friend, her polemical tract A Letter to the Women of

England, and her final novel, The Natural Daughter; she therefore

contributes only a couple of poems to the paper. Like Southey, she

understood that the bigger payday comes with a bigger work. This

dearth of Robinson poems, of course, coincides with an abundance

of Southey poems that appear from 16 January 1798 to 20 December

1799. Robinson begins contributing her satirical “Sylphid” essays to
      the Post in October 1799, so she is already on board when Southey
      disembarks.^19
      After his return from Germany, Coleridge contributed a few poems
      to the Post, including his popular collaboration with Southey, “The
      Devil’s Thoughts,” which appeared in September of 1799; shortly
      thereafter, Coleridge accepted Stuart’s offer to write political prose as
      a full- time staffer, moving his family to London in late November (at

9780230100251_06_ch04.indd 1949780230100251_06_ch04.indd 194 12/28/2010 11:08:54 AM12/28/2010 11:08:54 AM

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

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