by Paula Byrne
13 Memoirs, p. 56.
14 Memoirs, p. 57.
15 Memoirs, p. 58.
16 Memoirs, p. 59.
17 Memoirs, p. 60.
18 Memoirs, p. 61.
19 Memoirs, p. 63.
20 Letters from Perdita to a Certain Israelite, pp. 10–11.
21 Letters from Perdita to a Certain Israelite, p. 11.
22 Memoirs of Perdita (1784), pp. 21–3.
23 Memoirs, p. 64.
24 Memoirs, p. 64. Italicized in published text, but not in manuscript.
CHAPTER 5
1 Memoirs, p. 67. As in the journals of contemporary novelist Fanny Burney, large chunks of dialogue are recorded verbatim in the Memoirs. Mary had a prodigious memory, but the Memoirs were written so long after the events of her early life that one may assume a degree of novelist’s licence in the dramatization of memories into dialogue.
2 Memoirs, p. 68.
3 Memoirs, p. 69.
4 Memoirs, p. 71.
5 Memoirs, p. 72.
6 Memoirs, p. 76.
7 Memoirs, p. 77.
8 Memoirs, p. 78.
9 Laetitia-Matilda Hawkins, Memoirs, Facts, and Opinions, 2 vols (1824), ii, p. 25. Hawkins had this information on the authority of the man who took Robinson his weekly guinea.
10 Memoirs, pp. 79–80.
11 ‘The Nightingale, A Conversation Poem’, in Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Poems, ed. John Beer (London, 1993), p. 196.
12 Monthly Review, Sept. 1775.
13 Poems by Mrs Robinson (1775), p. 48.
14 Poems by Mrs Robinson (1775), pp. 79–82.
15 Memoirs, p. 79.
16 Letters from Perdita to a Certain Israelite, p. 13.
17 Captivity, a Poem; And Celadon and Lydia, a Tale (1777), pp. 20–1.
18 Memoirs, p. 80.
19 Memoirs, p. 81.
20 Memoirs, p. 82.
21 Memoirs, p. 83.
22 Memoirs, pp. 84–5.
CHAPTER 6
1 Memoirs, p. 86.
2 Memoirs, p. 87.
3 Poems (1791), p. 72.
4 Memoirs, p. 87.
5 Fanny Burney, Evelina (1779), vol. i, letter 20.
6 Memoirs, pp. 87–8.
7 Elizabeth Steele, Memoirs of Mrs Sophia Baddeley, 3 vols (Dublin, 1878), ii, 114.
8 Memoirs, p. 88.
9 Drury Lane pay list, Folger Shakespeare Library manuscript W.b.319.
10 Memoirs, p. 89.
11 See The London Stage 1660–1800. Part 5: 1776–1800, vol. i, ed. C. B. Hogan (Carbondale, Ill., 1968), p. 43.
12 Morning Post, 11 Dec. 1779.
13 Morning Post, 13 Dec. 1779.
14 Quotations from newspapers of 11 Dec. 1779.
15 Memoirs, p. 89.
16 Quoted Madeleine Bingham, Sheridan: The Track of a Comet (London, 1972), p. 150.
17 Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, 25 Feb. 1777. The Morning Post was more halfhearted.
18 Memoirs, p. 90.
19 Memoirs, p. 91.
20 Monthly Review, Oct. 1777.
21 Morning Chronicle, 1 Oct. 1777.
22 Morning Post, 1 May 1778; Morning Chronicle, 2 May 1778.
23 The Lucky Escape (1778), p. 11.
24 Memoirs, p. 92.
25 Morning Post, 12 Nov. 1778.
26 Memoirs, p. 94.
27 Morning Post, 11 May 1779.
28 The savagery of the original was watered down in Bickerstaffe’s adaptation.
29 The Laureate. Or, the Right Side of Colley Cibber, Esq. Not Written by Himself (1740), pp. 92–3.
30 The Letters of R. B. Sheridan, ed. Cecil Price, 3 vols (Oxford, 1966), iii, pp. 296–7.
31 Memoirs, pp. 101, 93.
32 Memoirs, p. 99.
33 Angelina, a Novel, 3 vols (1796), ii, pp. 79–80.
CHAPTER 7
1 Memoirs, p. 94.
2 Memoirs, p. 96.
3 Memoirs, p. 97.
4 Memoirs, p. 100.
5 Morning Post, 25 and 27 Aug. 1779.
6 Memoirs, pp. 98, 100.
7 Memoirs of Perdita, p. 142.
8 Memoirs, p. 93.
9 Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, 9 Nov. 1779.
10 Memoirs, pp. 100–1.
11 Morning Chronicle, 19 Sept. 1779; Morning Post, 20 Sept. 1779.
12 Morning Post, 11 Oct. 1779.
13 Morning Post, 3 Nov. 1779.
14 Morning Post, 22 Nov. 1779.
15 Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, 24 Nov. 1779.
16 Morning Post, 25 Nov. 1779.
CHAPTER 8
1 Memoirs, p. 104.
2 Court and Private Life in the Time of Queen Charlotte: Being the Journals of Mrs Papendiek, ed. Delves Broughton and Mrs Vernon, 2 vols (1887), i, p. 132.
3 Mary Hamilton at Court and at Home: From Letters and Diaries 1756–1816, ed. Elizabeth and Florence Anson (London, 1925), pp. 83–4.
4 Quoted in Saul David’s excellent biography Prince of Pleasure: The Prince of Wales and the Making of the Regency (London, 1998), p. 18.
5 Memoirs, p. 101.
6 Florizel and Perdita. A Dramatic Pastoral, in Three Acts. Alter’d from The Winter’s Tale of Shakespear. By David Garrick. As it is performed at the Theatre Royal in Drury-Lane (1758), act three.
7 Memoirs, p. 102.
8 Memoirs, p. 102.
9 Mary Hamilton, pp. 75–6.
10 Anson Papers, folder 2, Prince of Wales to Mary Hamilton, letters 73, 72.
11 Anson Papers, Prince to Mary Hamilton, letter 74.
12 Anson Papers, Mary Hamilton to Prince, letter 30.
13 Prince to Mary Hamilton, letter 76.
14 Memoirs, p. 103.
15 Prince to Mary Hamilton, letter 77.
16 Prince to Mary Hamilton, letter 78.
17 Mary Hamilton to Prince, letter 34.
18 Memoirs, p. 104.
19 Morning Post, 12 Feb. 1780.
20 Memoirs, p. 105. The original manuscript has ‘attachment adoration’.
21 Morning Chronicle, 28 Jan. 1780.
22 ‘Anecdotes concerning His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales by Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire’, in Georgiana: Extracts from the Correspondence of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, ed. Earl of Bessborough (London, 1955), p. 290.
23 Memoirs, p. 105.
24 Memoirs, p. 106.
25 Morning Post, 5 Apr. 1780.
26 Morning Post, 19 Apr. 1780.
27 Memoirs, p. 109.
28 Town and Country Magazine, June 1780, p. 235.
29 Rambler’s Magazine, Apr. 1783, pp. 159–60.
30 Town and Country Magazine, p. 236.
31 Georgiana: Extracts from the Correspondence, p. 290.
32 Memoirs of Perdita, p. 38.
33 Reported in The Last Journals of Horace Walpole during the Reign of George III, ed. A. Francis Steuart, 2 vols (London, 1910), ii, p. 361.
34 Morning Post, 3 May 1780.
35 Memoirs, p. 114.
36 Letter in ‘Continuation’ of Memoirs, p. 112.
37 Note by A. A. Barkas, Richmond librarian, quoted in M. J. Levy, The Mistresses of King George IV (London, 1996), p. 24.
38 Memoirs, p. 112.
39 Morning Chronicle, 27 May 1780. There was another rave review in the London Courant, 29 May 1780.
40 Letter of 28 May 1780, in The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence, ed. W. S. Lewis, vol. xxix (New Haven, 1955), p. 44.
41 Some sources, including the usually reliable Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800, ed. Philip H. Highfill Jr, K. A. Burnim, and E. A. Langhans, vol. xiii (Carbondale, Ill., 1991), incorrectly claim that Mary returned to the stage in 1783; this is because they confuse her with another actress named Mrs Robinson (who later became Mrs Taylor, the name under which her career is given in the Biographical Dictionary).
42 Memoirs, p. 113.
CHAPTER 9
1 Letter of 1783 in ‘Continuation’ of Memoirs, p. 116.
2 Morning Post, 18 July 1780.
3 Morning Post, 20, 22 July 1780.
4 Memoirs, p. 113.
5 Memoirs, pp. 113–14.
6 ‘Present State of the Manners, Society, etc. etc. of the Metropolis of England’, Monthly Magazine, Aug. 1800, pp. 35, 37 (published anonymously but Mary claimed authorship in a letter to R. K. Porter, Pforzheimer Misc. MS 2290).
7 Morning Post, 9 Aug. 1780.
8 The Correspondence of George, Prince of Wales 1770–1812, ed. A. Aspinall, i, p. 34.
9 Correspondence of George, Prince of Wales, i, pp. 35–6.
10 ‘Anecdotes concerning His Royal Highness’, in Georgiana: Extracts from the Correspondence, p. 289.
11 Lady Bessborough and her Family Circle, ed. Earl of Bessborough and A. Aspinall (London, 1940), p. 33.
12 Recorded by the apprentice, J. T. Smith, in A Book for a Rainy Day (1845), repr. in C. R. Leslie and T. Taylor, The Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 2 vols (1865), ii, p. 346.
13 Now in the Harvard Theatre Collection.
14 Laetitia-Matilda Hawkins, Memoirs, Facts, and Opinions, ii, p. 30.
15 Hawkins, Memoirs, Facts, and Opinions, ii, p. 31.
16 Georgiana: Extracts from the Correspondence, p. 290.
17 Elizabeth Steele, Memoirs of Mrs Sophia Baddeley, 6 vols (1787), vi, p. 175.
18 Memoirs of Mrs Sophia Baddeley, vi, pp. 178–9.
19 Morning Post, 27 Sept. 1780.
20 Morning Post, 28 Sept. 1780.
21 Morning Post, 30 Sept. 1780.
22 Morning Post, 2 Oct. 1780.
23 Morning Post, 9 Oct. 1780.
24 Morning Post, 7 Oct. 1780.
25 Morning Post, 11 Nov. 1780.
26 Morning Post, 6 Nov. 1780.
27 Memoirs, p. 117.
28 A Satire on the Present Times (1780), pp. 11–12.
29 Morning Post, 16 Nov. 1780.
30 Morning Post, 16 Dec. 1780.
31 Correspondence of George, Prince of Wales, i, p. 37.
32 Memoirs, p. 115.
33 Memoirs, p. 117.
34 Memoirs, p. 115.
35 Memoirs, p. 115.
36 Memoirs, p. 116.
37 Memoirs, p. 119.
CHAPTER 10
1 Town and Country Magazine, Jan. 1781, pp. 8–11.
2 Georgiana: Extracts from the Correspondence, p. 290.
3 Memoirs, p. 118.
4 Morning Herald, 3, 4 Apr. 1781.
5 Memoirs, p. 118.
6 Morning Herald, 30 Dec. 1780.
7 Morning Herald, 4 Jan. 1781.
8 Morning Herald, 5 Jan. 1781.
9 Morning Herald, 17 Jan. 1781.
10 Morning Herald, 4 Apr. 1781.
11 Poetical Epistle from Florizel to Perdita: with Perdita’s Answer. And a Preliminary Discourse upon the Education of Princes (1781), pp. 1–25.
12 Poetical Epistle, p. 17.
13 Morning Herald, 15 Feb. 1781.
14 Morning Herald, 22 Jan., 8 Feb. 1781.
15 Morning Herald, 19, 20 Feb. 1781.
16 Georgiana: Extracts from the Correspondence, p. 292.
17 Correspondence of George, Prince of Wales, i, p. 55.
18 Morning Post, 16 Mar. 1781.
19 Morning Herald, 16 Apr. 1781.
20 Morning Herald, 21 Mar. 1781.
21 Morning Post, 29 Mar. 1781.
22 Authentic Memoirs, Memorandums, and Confessions. Taken from the Journal of his Predatorial Majesty, the King of the Swindlers (n.d.), pp. 106–12.
23 The Budget of Love; or, Letters between Florizel and Perdita (1781), p. vi.
24 Budget of Love, pp. 18, 35.
25 Budget of Love, pp. 37–8.
26 Morning Herald, 18 Apr. 1781.
27 So described in Town and Country Magazine, Apr. 1781, p. 210.
28 Correspondence of George, Prince of Wales, i, p. 56.
29 Morning Post, 14 Apr. 1781.
30 Morning Herald, 3 May 1781.
31 Rambler’s Magazine, Jan. 1783, pp. 17–19.
32 Morning Herald, 4 May 1781.
33 Morning Herald, 21 May 1781.
34 Morning Herald, 3 May 1781.
35 Morning Herald, 11 June 1781.
36 Morning Herald, 12 June 1781.
37 Lady’s Magazine, June 1781, p. 287.
38 Morning Herald, 13 June 1781.
39 Morning Herald, 21 June 1781.
CHAPTER 11
1 Morning Herald, 21 June 1781.
2 Morning Herald, 2 July 1781.
3 Memoirs of Perdita, p. 165.
4 Morning Herald, 5 July 1781.
5 Morning Herald, 4 July 1781.
6 Correspondence of George, Prince of Wales, i, pp. 66–7.
7 Letter dated 17 July 1781.
8 Morning Herald, 12 July 1781.
9 Morning Post, 14 July 1781.
10 Morning Post, 18 July 1781.
11 Morning Post, 18 July 1781.
12 Correspondence of George, Prince of Wales, i, p. 60.
13 Colonel Hotham to Lord Malden, 31 July 1781, Capell Manuscript M274, Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies.
14 Lord Malden to the Prince of Wales, 4 Aug. 1781, Capell M275.
15 Malden to the Prince of Wales, Capell M275.
16 Hotham to Malden, Capell M280.
17 Malden to Prince, Capell M277.
18 Hotham to Malden, Capell M282.
19 Southampton to Malden, Capell M289.
20 Morning Post, 4 Aug. 1781.
21 Morning Herald, 5 Aug. 1781.
22 Mary Robinson to the Prince of Wales, Capell M280.
23 Malden to Prince, Capell M284.
24 Malden to Hotham, Capell M285.
25 Morning Herald, 14 Aug. 1781.
26 Morning Herald, 16 Aug. 1781.
27 Hotham to Malden, 23 Aug. 1781, Capell M290.
28 Hotham to Malden, 28 Aug. 1781, Capell M294.
29 Mary Robinson to Lord Malden, 29 Aug. 1781, Capell M295.
30 Correspondence of George III 1760-December 1783, ed. Sir John Fortescue, 6 vols (London, 1927–8), v, pp. 269–70.
31 Lord Glenbervie’s Diaries, quoted M. J. Levy, The Mistresses of King George IV, p. 38.
32 Hotham to Malden, Capell M295.
33 Mary Robinson to John Taylor, 5 Oct. 1794, first printed in Catalogue of the Collection of Autograph Letters and Historical Documents formed between 1865 and 1882 by Alfred Morrison, vol. v (1891), p. 286.
34 Morning Herald, 11 Sept. 1781.
35 Morning Herald, 25 Aug. 1781.
36 Jonathan Jones, ‘The Hidden Story’, Guardian Weekend, 19 Oct. 2002, p. 32, reviewing Tate Britain’s Gainsborough exhibition (in which the portrait did not appear, since the Wallace Collection cannot lend its paintings).
37 Morning Herald, 11 Sept. 1781.
38 Morning Herald, 18 Sept. 1781.
39 Morning Herald, 2 Oct. 1781.
40 Morning Herald, 9 Oct. 1781.
41 Morning Herald, 19 Oct. 1781.
42 Morning Herald, 21 Oct. 1781.
43 Morning Herald, 31 Oct. 1781.
CHAPTER 12
1 Memoirs, p. 121.
2 See Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette (London, 2001), p. 153.
3 Morning Herald, 1 Dec. 1781.
4 Memoirs, p. 122.
5 See Fraser, Marie Antoinette, pp. 137–8.
6 Memoirs, p. 123.
7 Monody to the Memory of Marie Antoinette Queen of France, written immediately after her Execution (1793).
8 Jane Porter, ‘Character of the Late Mrs Robinson’, Pforzheimer Misc. MS 2296.
9 Memoirs, p. 121.
10 Memoirs of the Duc de Lauzun, trans. C. K. Scott Moncrieff (London, 1928), p. 211.
11 Memoirs of Lauzun, p. 211.
12 M. R., ‘Memoirs of the late Duc de Biron’, Monthly Magazine, Feb. 1800, p. 45.
13 ‘Additional Anecdotes of Philip Egalité late Duke
of Orleans, by one who knew him intimately’, Monthly Magazine, Aug. 1800, p. 39.
14 Morning Herald, 6 Dec. 1781.
15 Morning Herald, 12 Dec. 1781.
16 Morning Herald, 7 Dec. 1781.
17 Reported in Morning Herald, 29 Dec. 1781.
18 Morning Herald, 1 Jan. 1782.
19 Morning Herald, 9 Jan. 1782.
20 Memoirs of Perdita, p. 105.
21 Claire Brock, ‘“Then smile and know thyself supremely great”: Mary Robinson and the “splendour of a name”’, Women’s Writing, 9 (2002), p. 112.
22 Memoirs of Perdita, p. 28.
23 Morning Herald, 18 Jan. 1781.
24 James Parton, The Life of General Andrew Jackson (1861), quoted Robert D. Bass, The Green Dragoon (New York, 1957, repr. Columbia, SC, 1973), p. 3.
CHAPTER 13
1 In Brother Tom to Brother Peter, satirical pamphlet of 1789, pp. 55–9.
2 Ainsi va le Monde, quoted from Poems (1791), pp. 200–1.
3 Letter of 18 Dec. 1790, printed in Memoirs of the Late Mrs Robinson, Written by Herself, – with some posthumous pieces, 4 vols (1801), iv, pp. 191–2.
4 James Northcote, The Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 2 vols (1818), i, p. 102. My account is heavily indebted to Nicholas Penny (ed.), Reynolds (Royal Academy exhibition catalogue, London, 1986).
5 There is a list of eighty-one images (including a handful of caricatures) at the end of the Mary Robinson entry in A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800, vol. xiii. It provides a useful starting point for study, but is incomplete and sometimes inaccurate. One especially interesting image is ‘The British Sappho’, attributed to the age’s leading female artist, Angelica Kauffmann, reproduced in Joseph Grego, ‘“Perdita” and her Painters: Portraits of Mrs Mary Robinson’, The Connoisseur, Feb. 1903, pp. 99–107, but the attribution is uncertain and it is not even clear that the sitter was Robinson.
6 Public Advertiser, 19 Apr. 1782.
7 Conversations of James Northcote R.A. with James Ward, ed. E. Fletcher (London, 1901), p. 59.
8 The Widow (1794), i, p. 158.
9 Morning Herald, 18 Jan. 1782.
10 Morning Herald, 25 Jan. 1782.
11 Morning Herald, 30 Jan. 1782.