The Poetry of Mary Robinson: Form and Fame

Bell’s Laureates II 85

to lose” and “hurried to John Bell” to publish “at once” his poem

on freedom and democracy (207). While it is conceivable that Merry

began writing the poem upon his return from France or on the first

anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, the facts of the matter are

that Pye was appointed in July and that Bell published Merry’s poem

in November, within days of Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in

France. The November publication was significant as coinciding with

the anniversary of the so- called Glorious Revolution of 1788, the cente-

nary of which prompted Reverend Richard Price’s sermon A Discourse

on the Love of Our Country, to which Burke responds. Burke’s pam-

phlet had been anticipated for months. On 3 November, the World

announced that Merry’s new poem “is said to be a counterpart to Mr.

Burke’s Pamphlet; and in its principles, to be purely democratical.” The

Laurel of Liberty was for sale by the end of the first week of November.

Moreover, Merry directly addresses Burke as “lib’ral BURKE” and

“manly MOR ALIST,” asserting that the statesman ought not to be sur-

prised “to see / Revenge lead on the steps of Liberty” (32, 33). Merry

asks rhetorically, “Could men yet smarting with the tyrant’s stroke, /

Forgive the tribe that bow’d them to the yoke” (32)? “Tribe” is, of

course, a pejorative metaphor for “class,” Merry’s main subject. Praising

eighteenth- century philosophers, presumably among them Locke and

Rousseau, for their “Wisdom,” Merry presents a thesis that ref lects the

natural law and social contract elements of the French Declaration of the

Rights of Man and Citizen and anticipates Paine’s doctrine of equality:

The drop of Wisdom sent from heav’n to earth,

Shall nourish bliss and virtue, into birth,

Till like a f lood th’ encreasing tide shall spread,

Refresh the vale, and cheer the mountain’s head;

By due degrees o’er all the globe shall roll,

Revive the heart, and fertilize the soul,

Make pure the human character, and give

A joy, a purpose, and a sense to live:

Shall teach the world, in prejudice’s scorn,

That born a Man is to be nobly born! (11)

Like Paine, but unlike Locke, Merry asserts the nobility of each indi-

vidual in the equal enfranchisement of the universal rights of man.

Not all of the poetry in The Laurel of Liberty is as direct or as free of

artificial poetic diction as the above passage. Critics censured much

of Merry’s imagery and phrasing, but none seriously complained of

its political import. The English Review, for example, charged Merry

9780230100251_04_ch02.indd 859780230100251_04_ch02.indd 85 12/28/2010 11:08:28 AM12/28/2010 11:08:28 AM

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