64 The Poetry of Mary Robinson“Ode on the Restoration of His Majesty” appeared under his own
name in several London newspapers. This revelation comes in the
midst of the Laura–Leonardo imbroglio, but with a final volley from
Anna Matilda yet to come. On 2 June 1789, the World printed its
final poem of the exchange in which Anna Matilda writes to Della
Crusca with the ridiculous allegation that Della Crusca’s new lover,
Laura, is actually a man. The affair finally had run its course: when
the revelation of their actual identities came, the public greeted it
with a yawn.
The end comes when the two lovers bid one another farewell, not
in the columns of the World but in Bell’s new anthology, the two-
volume British Album, which appeared on New Year’s Day 1790. The
final arc of the narrative has more to do with the reconstitution of the
Della Crusca network than with either writer’s real- life attachments.
Merry may not have known that Anna Matilda was Cowley, but I see
no reason to believe Reynolds’ story that Merry seriously harbored
a romantic interest in her.^1 Indeed, Reynolds, like many of Merry’s
former associates embarrassed by his enthusiasm for the French
Revolution, turned against him; the story about Della Crusca’s dis-
appointment is recounted only years later by older, more conserva-
tive men who were interested in making Merry look foolish because
of his political views. The Della Crusca network is interrupted and
ultimately dismantled by the French Revolution, more specifically by
Merry’s and Robinson’s poetic involvement in the Revolution debate.
Obviously, the ludic impulses of the Della Crusca network could not
be sustained in the political atmosphere of the early 1790s.
In 1790, Bell published Robinson’s first volume of poetry in over
a decade, Ainsi va le monde (“so goes the world”), a tribute to Robert
Merry’s celebration of the French Revolution, The Laurel of Liberty,
which Bell also published. In so doing, Bell consolidated a literary
empire that featured two hugely successful poets: Merry, who had
since dropped the Della Crusca avatar, and Robinson, who contin-
ued to proliferate hers. Within a short time, Merry’s fortunes, how-
ever, would fall as Robinson’s would rise. As M. Ray Adams long ago
observed, Merry’s political verse amounted to the “sloughing off of
his romantic inanities” (“Robert Merry” 25). Merry certainly saw it
this way. However, the difference in the way Robinson and Merry
managed their respective avatars at this juncture accounts for their
relative success and failure. Obviously, as the environment changed,
the ludic- erotic poetry of the Della Crusca network became quaint
and superf luous. Merry, like Robinson, did have serious poetical
ambitions; as Della Crusca, his writing for the World included, for9780230100251_04_ch02.indd 649780230100251_04_ch02.indd 64 12/28/2010 11:08:26 AM12/28/2010 11:08:26 AM
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