by Paula Byrne
At the head of the list were His Royal Highness George, Prince of Wales; His Royal Highness Frederick, Duke of York; His Royal Highness William Henry, Duke of Clarence; His Royal Highness William, Duke of Gloucester (the Prince’s three brothers); His Serene Highness the Duke of Orléans; His Serene Highness Prince Ferdinand, Duke of Württemberg. The patronage of both the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Orléans is a mark of her ability to remain on good terms with both ex-lovers and ex-suitors. The rest of the subscribers were listed alphabetically, with aristocrats preceding gentry under each letter (Dukes and Duchesses, then Earls and Countesses, then Lords and Ladies, then Baronets, Esquires, and the untitled). They included the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, the Earl of Cholmondeley, Charles Fox, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr and Mrs Richard Sheridan, newspaper editor Henry Bate and his wife. There were friends from Tarleton’s army circles, theatre people such as the actress Dora Jordan, literary figures such as Samuel Pratt and John Taylor, and ten copies for Tarleton and assorted family members, including his mother and his nephew who was a schoolboy at Eton. The family’s hostility to Mary must have mellowed by this time. The list included clergymen, many Members of Parliament (mostly on the Whig side), and a large number of students and academics from Cambridge University.
An opening dedication explains that ‘Many of the following poems having been honoured with public and repeated marks of attention from some of the most accomplished writers of the present age, when published in The Oracle, under the Signatures of LAURA, LAURA MARIA, OBERON etc. etc. the Author was induced to acknowledge, and arrange them in their present form.’ ‘MRS ROBINSON’, the dedication continues,
has the particular gratification of knowing that the efforts of her pen were warmly, and honourably patronized under FEIGNED Signatures: had she avowed them at an earlier period the pleasure she now feels would have been considerably diminished, in the idea that the partiality of friends had procured the sanction her Poems have been favoured with from the candid and enlightened – TO WHOM THEY ARE DEDICATED WITH THE MOST PROFOUND RESPECT.
The strategy of initial anonymous publication is thus revealed as a dazzling pre-emptive strike against critical carping to the effect that her poems might have been admired because she was a celebrity rather than because they were good.
Advertisements in the Oracle advised subscribers to pick up their copies from Mrs Robinson’s home in Clarges Street or at Bell’s British Library in the Strand. Vigorous puffing ensued upon publication: ‘Mrs ROBINSON’s Poems meet with such universal approbation, that the first edition is likely to be very soon disposed of.’ And a few days later: ‘Mrs ROBINSON’s Poems, so highly applauded in the Circles of Fashion and Taste, being now published, we are happy in the permission to announce for To-Morrow, one of the brightest gems in the Collection – The Monody to Poor CHATTERTON.’32 The Chatterton poem was a good choice to highlight in this way because he was a figure who served as an icon of neglected poetic genius (besides being a Bristolian, like Mary). Bell was skilfully using the paper to sell the book and vice versa.
Two weeks after publication, the Oracle published a large advertisement disguised as a review:
Mrs ROBINSON’S POEMS
The unavoidable attention to objects of great National importance, forbade us earlier to notice the elegance of this delightful Publication.
The select Volume of this Lady’s Compositions is, perhaps, as rich a banquet, as any FEMALE Votary of the Muses ever offered to the PUBLIC – Not a Poem in the collection but breathes the sweetest delicacy, and the high charm of polished cultivation.
Many exquisite, and before unpublished originals, grace the collection, and our ORACLE of Wednesday gave, by permission, a very tender and finished Monody to the Memory of CHATTERTON. The Volume possesses many others of equal, and some we may say, of superior, merit …
The author’s PORTRAIT is in resemblance classically perfect, and the TYPOGRAPHICAL execution of the Work so beautiful, that we, who may be suspected of partiality, are constrained to say no more.33
By emphasizing the handsome typography and the frontispiece portrait engraving after Sir Joshua Reynolds, Bell is seeking to provide some justification for the high price of one guinea. The next day, it was reported that ‘Mrs ROBINSON receives the most flattering Compliments upon the elegance of her late Publication – The Sale has been unexampled.’34 There is no better way of creating demand than claiming that a product has nearly sold out. The reality seems to have been that the prohibitive price meant that few copies were sold above those that had already been subscribed for. Six hundred guineas from the subscribers would have left a reasonable profit after the deduction of production costs, but the book was in no sense a bestseller. Two years after publication, Mary wrote the following letter to a bookseller in Bristol:
Sir
In consequence of Mr Bell’s bankruptcy, I have a few unsold Volumes of my Poems, in my possession. If you think proper to give them the chance of your shop, (with the customary profit on each Volume,) I will, without delay, send you a few copies. Your immediate answer will oblige.35
This request may be said to show her entrepreneurial flair in action, but the attempt to sell off remainders in her home town, presumably in the hope that there would be a market for the work of a local celebrity, suggests that demand for the Poems was never exceptionally high.
Within a few months of publication, Bell attempted to reach a broader market by licensing another publisher to produce The Beauties of Mrs Robinson, a fifty-page selection of the poems priced at a very reasonable one shilling and sixpence. There were some complaints from reviewers about the same poems appearing in two different volumes within such a short space of time.36 The prefatory advertisement to The Beauties argued that a selection of the poems could only give a partial sense of Mrs Robinson’s excellence as a poet, but that it might at least do enough to persuade those critics who regarded her as ‘a mere WOMAN OF FASHION’ rather than a ‘SUBLIME GENIUS’ to look into the original. Again, there was a defence of the cost of the subscription volume:
The mode of publishing the original Poems by Subscription, and at so seemingly extravagant a price as a GUINEA for an Octavo Volume, has served to encourage these erroneous notions. Yet the Work is deservedly patronized by the FASHIONABLE WORLD, and is executed with an elegance and taste which abundantly apologize for the expence. The PORTRAIT is admirable! It is, indeed, a chef d’oeuvre of the arts.
Should the Specimens thus rudely collected, not one of which is to be considered as a whole, induce the LEARNED WORLD to look into the ORIGINALS, and to speak of them as they merit, the first wish of the EDITOR will be accomplished: – They must obtain a speedy celebrity, without waiting the slow but sure plaudits of Posterity; and the POET, besides the emolument which she so well deserves, will receive a still higher gratification, to a mind of such exquisite sensibility and refinement, in the praises and esteem of the Wise and Good, for GENIUS which is not often equalled, and for SENTIMENT which dignifies human nature.37
This is an exceptionally interesting statement, revealing how Mary was now poised between the ‘FASHIONABLE WORLD’ and the ‘LEARNED WORLD’. She wanted to be viewed by the fashionable world in the light of her mental abilities instead of her physical charms and at the same time she wanted to achieve ‘a speedy celebrity’ in the literary world.
The ‘learned world’ of monthly magazines treated her favourably. Poems garnered positive reviews in a majority of the principal monthlies. The Analytical Review praised its ‘rich and beautiful imagery’ and ‘sweetly harmonious verse’; Mary would have been especially pleased with its emphasis on her mind above her beauty: ‘the picture of the fair writer’s mind pourtrayed [sic] in these poems, will long outlive the portrait of her person, though drawn by the pencil of a Reynolds’. The Monthly Review was extremely favourable: ‘This ingenious and celebrated lady has attracted the attention of the public, both by her personal charms, and her mental accomplishments; and who can withstand
the united powers of beauty and of wit.’ The reviewer goes on to praise Ainsi va le Monde as a remarkable effusion of FREEDOM’ and to say that those who enjoyed that poem
will deem yet higher of our English SAPPHO, after the perusal of the present volume; in which are some pieces, equal, perhaps, to the best productions … of the Lesbian Dame, in point of tenderness, feeling, poetic imagery, warmth, elegance, and above all, DELICACY OF EXPRESSION, in which our ingenious countrywoman far excels all that we know of the works of the Grecian Sappho.38
The epithet ‘English [or British] Sappho’ would stick.
The Critical Review gave a more mixed verdict, condemning Della Cruscanism (‘Rejecting the accustomed modes of description and phraseology, these fastidious writers seem fond of introducing uncommon terms and ideas, to provoke attention and to excite admiration’) while offering somewhat condescending praise to Mrs Robinson (‘It is certainly an elegant and original work, which coming from the pen of one person, and that person a woman, is entitled to singular approbation’).39 The English Review gave the most muted assessment:
The poems now before us are the elegant effusions of a mind which seems to feel too much for its own peace … There is much pathos, sensibility, and poetry, in this publication; but we cannot help regretting that this fair writer has too often imitated the new school of poets, which has lately appeared among us, and which sacrifices nature, simplicity, and passion, to luxuriant and ill-placed description, and to a load of imagery and ornament of every kind. We are suffocated by the sweets of these poets, and dazzled by the glare of their tinsel.40
Many of the poems had been previously published in the newspapers, though others were appearing in print for the first time. The reviewers singled out ‘Lines to Him Who Will Understand Them’, two ‘Odes to the Nightingale’, and some ‘Stanzas to Time’ for particular praise. Disillusionment in love is a major theme throughout (it is notable that a passionate ‘Adieu to Love’ included here was excluded from the collected works which Maria Elizabeth put together after her mother’s death). Readers and reviewers assumed that the poems contained a high degree of autobiographical content. The first ‘Ode to the Nightingale’, for instance, was written in the first person and outlined many of Mary’s personal sorrows, her travels through foreign realms, her return to Britain, and her disappointment in love. A line such as ‘And oft I’ve sought the HYGEIAN MAID’ is a Della Cruscan way of saying ‘I’ve been to many health resorts in search of a cure for my rheumatism’ (Hygeia was the classical goddess of health, hence our ‘hygiene’). ‘Till forc’d with every HOPE to part, / Resistless Pain subdued my Heart’ means ‘but I’m still suffering’. Repeated phrases along the lines of ‘And LOVE a false delusive flame’ suggest that she often wrote poems at times when her relationship with Tarleton was going badly.
The collection has considerable formal variety; there are odes, sonnets, and ballads. Two poems about Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire are included, together with one to her sister Lady Duncannon. Many of the poems explore the transience of beauty and the folly of the fashionable world. There are elegies to Lady Middleton, who died in childbed, and to Richard Boyle, who died young despite the best efforts of a Dr Moseley (who would attend Tarleton when he was sick in 1793). A selection of light verses includes the charming and funny ‘The Bee and the Butterfly’. A lovely sonnet ‘To my Beloved Daughter’ expresses the joy and comfort that Maria Elizabeth has brought to Mary’s unhappy life, her ability to ‘shed soft sunshine on my Wintry Hours’. An ‘Ode to Valour’ is inscribed to Tarleton. ‘Intrepid Tarleton chas’d the foe,’ wrote Mary, ‘And smil’d in Death’s grim face, and brav’d his with’ring blow.’ The ode comes to a rousing climax in praise of him:
Tarleton, thy mind, above the Poet's praise
Asks not the labour’d task of flatt’ry lays! …
So shall the Muse spontaneous incense give!
Th’ Historic page shall prove a lasting shrine,
Where Truth and Valour shall Thy laurels twine;
Where, with thy name, recording Fame shall blend
The Zealous Patriot, and the Faithful Friend!41
Mary’s own page did not ‘prove a lasting shrine’ to Tarleton: when she prepared the ‘Ode to Valour’ for inclusion in her Poetical Works at the end of her life, she excised all reference to him.
*Later retitled ‘Lines to him who will understand them’.
CHAPTER 19
Opium
Mentally perfect, her enlighten’d mind,
Superior to disease, springs unconfined.
James Boaden, ‘To Mrs Robinson’
Alas, how little did I then know either the fatigue or the hazard of mental occupations! How little did I foresee that the day would come when my health would be impaired, my thoughts perpetually employed, in so destructive a pursuit! At the moment that I write this page I feel in every fibre of my brain the fatal conviction that it is a destroying labour.
Memoirs of the Late Mrs Robinson, Written by Herself
On 30 May 1791, the Oracle announced that Tarleton was in Bath, after a short visit to Liverpool. ‘Mrs Robinson is also at Bath,’ the report added, ‘and extremely ill at her house in the North Parade. – The gout, with which she is troubled, has attacked her head so severely, that she is scarcely able to hold herself upright.’ Her poetry was her comfort. In her daughter’s words, ‘The mind of Mrs Robinson, beguiled by these pursuits from preying upon itself, became gradually reconciled to the calamitous state of her health: the mournful certainty of total and incurable lameness, while yet in the bloom and summer of life, was alleviated by the consciousness of intellectual resource, and by the activity of a fertile fancy.’1
A sonnet in the Oracle by James Boaden writing as ‘Arno’ was entitled ‘On Mrs Robinson’s Visiting Bath’. Beneath a subtitle that hardly seems necessary – ‘The Cause, BAD HEALTH’ – it tells of how she has flown from the ‘busy circle’ and forsaken ‘the scenes of her expanding fame’ in order to ‘renovate the anguish of her frame’. She is ‘Mentally perfect’ but ‘keen pangs oppress her lovely face’. Her poetic Muse, meanwhile, ‘Floats in the fragrance of the rubied rose’.2 That last phrase hints that it was not only ‘the consciousness of intellectual resource’ that gave Mary relief from her physical pain: the fragrant rubied rose seems to be a euphemism for the opium poppy.
Maria Elizabeth records that her mother was prescribed a rest cure by her physician, who for a time forbade her from writing altogether: ‘the perpetual exercise of the imagination and intellect, added to an uniform and sedentary life, affected the system of her nerves, and contributed to debilitate her frame’. The newspapers linked the ‘pensive tendency’ in her poetry to ‘a depression of spirits, the consequence of long indisposition’.3 It may have been at this point that she was first prescribed opium as a sedative; it would have been taken in solution with alcohol, in a tincture known as laudanum.
In July it was reported that she would soon be returning home to Clarges Street, ‘greatly benefited by the Bath waters’, but in early August she was still in Bath, ‘getting better every day’. She had apparently not been taking her doctor’s advice to stop writing. The Oracle teased its readers with the prospect of an exciting new publication: ‘Her Muse is said to be now engaged on a work of so interesting a nature, that the world may look forward to a new source of elegant gratification.’4
Bath was the most fashionable resort town in England. Invalids, imaginary and real, flocked to the spa to drink the medicinal spring water and immerse themselves, fully clothed in special robes and headgear, in the steaming baths that had been first discovered by the ancient Romans. Summer in Bath was shaped by a highly structured social life, a round of assemblies, balls, teas, promenades, concerts, theatre visits, and excursions – a world familiar to readers of the novels of Fanny Burney and Jane Austen. Architecturally it was the most splendid and modern town in the land, with showpieces of design such as Queen Square, the North and South Parades, and the
magnificent curved edifices of the Royal Crescent and Lansdown Crescent. Socially, the town offered a heady mix of aristocracy, gentry, and new money. Though Mary’s indisposition prevented her from participating in the full range of social life, Bath was an ideal location to contemplate the fashionable world and brood upon the ways in which it might provide raw material for new literary production. The ‘interesting’ work on which she began to engage herself was a novel.
She also experimented with narrative poetry. One day, as she returned from the baths in her wheelchair, she saw an elderly man being chased by a mob, who pelted him with mud and stones. The man put up no resistance, and Mary, full of pity for his stoicism, enquired about his offences. She was told that the man was a maniac, known only by the name of ‘Mad Jemmy’. As with the corpse on the beach at Brighton, which had so seized her imagination and inspired her compassion, Mary was deeply troubled by the beggar’s plight. Perhaps the encounter also brought back memories of her traumatic meeting in a London street with her beloved teacher and mentor Meribah Lorrington, who had become an impoverished alcoholic. If the Memoirs are to be believed, Mary would wait for hours for the appearance of Mad Jemmy, and, whatever her occupation, the sound of his voice would draw her to the window: ‘She would gaze upon his venerable but emaciated countenance with sensations of awe almost reverential, while the barbarous persecutions of the thoughtless crowd never failed to agonize her feelings.’5
One night after bathing, on a day when she had suffered even greater pain than usual, Mary swallowed nearly eighty drops of laudanum. She fell into a deep sleep but then awoke in a kind of reverie and called for her daughter to take up a pen and write down what she would dictate. Maria Elizabeth takes up the story herself: