Perdita

by Paula Byrne

  12 Morning Herald, 4 Mar. 1782.

  13 Lady’s Magazine, July 1780, p. 363.

  14 Morning Herald, 8 Mar., 9 Apr., 22 Apr. 1782.

  15 Morning Herald, 20 Apr. 1782.

  16 Morning Herald, 23 Mar. 1782.

  17 Public Advertiser, 19 Apr. 1782.

  18 Robert Huish, Memoirs of George the Fourth, 2 vols (1831), i, p. 74.

  19 Morning Herald, 29, 30 May 1782.

  20 Memoirs of Perdita, pp. 160–2.

  21 Morning Herald, 4 June 1782.

  22 Morning Herald, 7, 8, 10 June 1782.

  23 Morning Herald, 23 July 1782.

  24 Morning Herald, 31 July 1782.

  25 John Clarke, The Life and Times of George III (London, 1972), p. 106.

  26 Banastre Tarleton to Thomas Tarleton, Liverpool Record Office, 920 TAR 13 (11).

  27 Morning Post, 7 Aug. 1782.

  28 Morning Herald, 17 Aug. 1782.

  29 The Festival of Wit (1783), p. 129.

  30 Last Journals of Horace Walpole, ed. Steuart, i, p. 515.

  31 Morning Post, 29 Aug. 1782.

  32 Morning Herald, 3 Sept. 1782.

  33 Life and Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox, ed. Countess of Ilchester, 2 vols (London, 1901), ii, pp. 25–6.

  34 Morning Herald, 19 Sept. 1782.

  35 The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence, ed. W. S. Lewis, vol. xxxv (New Haven, 1973), p. 523, letter of 7 Sept. 1782.

  36 Morning Herald, 16 Sept. 1782.

  37 Morning Post, 21 Sept. 1784.

  38 Morning Post, 24 Sept. 1782.

  39 Morning Herald, 30 Sept. 1782.

  40 Morning Herald, 21 Oct. 1782.

  CHAPTER 14

  1 Lady’s Magazine, Apr. 1782, p. 195.

  2 See for example the usually reliable Aileen Ribeiro, The Art of Dress: Fashion in England and France, 1780–1820 (New Haven, 1995), p. 71.

  3 Morning Herald, 15 Oct. 1782.

  4 Morning Herald, 20 Nov. 1782.

  5 Morning Herald, 21 Nov. 1782.

  6 Claire Brock, ‘“Then smile and know thyself supremely great”: Mary Robinson and the “splendour of a name”’, p. 114 (citing Rambler’s Magazine, Jan. 1783).

  7 Morning Chronicle, 28 Nov. 1782.

  8 Lady’s Magazine, Apr. 1783, p. 187; May 1783, p. 268; July 1787, p. 331.

  9 Jane Austen’s Letters, ed. Deirdre Le Faye (Oxford, 1995), p. 70.

  10 Monthly Magazine and British Register, Sept. 1800, p. 138. See further, chapter 5 of Judith Pascoe’s excellent Romantic Theatricality: Gender, Poetry, and Spectatorship.

  11 Lady’s Magazine, Mar. 1784, p. 154.

  12 Lady’s Magazine, Apr.–Dec. 1783, pp. 187, 268, 651.

  13 Lady’s Magazine, Dec. 1783, p. 650.

  14 Morning Post, 28 Dec. 1799.

  15 Morning Post, 3 Jan. 1800.

  16 Morning Post, 23 Dec. 1782.

  17 Morning Herald, 4 Dec. 1782.

  18 Morning Herald, 5 Dec. 1782.

  19 Morning Herald, 31 Dec. 1782.

  20 Morning Herald, 23 Dec. 1782; Morning Post, 24 Dec. 1782.

  21 Morning Herald, 2 Jan. 1783.

  22 Morning Herald, 4 Jan. 1783.

  23 ‘Amorous and Bon Ton Intelligence’, 20 Jan. 1783, in Rambler’s Magazine, Feb. 1783.

  24 Morning Herald, 20 Jan. 1783.

  25 Rambler’s Magazine, May 1783.

  26 Morning Herald, 5 Feb. 1783.

  27 Morning Herald, 24 Feb. 1783.

  28 Morning Herald, 2 Feb. 1783.

  29 Morning Herald, 14 Mar. 1783.

  30 Morning Herald, 5 Mar. 1783.

  31 Morning Herald, 11 Mar. 1783.

  32 Morning Herald, 25 Mar. 1783.

  33 Rambler’s Magazine, Jan. 1783, pp. 8–9.

  34 Rambler’s Magazine, Apr. 1783, p. 134.

  35 Morning Herald, 21 May 1783.

  36 The Celestial Beds; Or, a Review of the Votaries of the Temple of Health, Adelphi, and the Temple of Hymen, Pall-Mall (1781), p. 26. See further, Tim Fulford, ‘The Electrifying Mrs Robinson’, Women’s Writing, 9 (2002), pp. 23–35.

  37 Walsingham; or, the Pupil of Nature, ed. Julie Shaffer (Peterborough, Ont., 2003), p. 222.

  38 Walsingham, p. 223.

  39 Morning Herald, 24 May 1783.

  40 Rambler’s Magazine: ‘Amorous and Bon Ton Intelligence’, 18 Mar. 1783.

  41 Tarleton Family Papers, Liverpool Record Office, 920 TAR 13 (12).

  42 Morning Herald, 9 May 1783.

  43 Morning Herald, 16 June 1783.

  44 Morning Post, 29 May 1783.

  45 The Vis-à-Vis of Berkley-Square (1783), dedication dated 14 June, pp. 19, 24n.

  46 Morning Herald, 24 June 1783.

  47 Tarleton Family Papers, Liverpool Record Office, 920 TAR 13 (9).

  48 Tarleton Family Papers, Liverpool Record Office, 920 TAR 14 (18).

  49 Tarleton Family Papers, Liverpool Record Office, 920 TAR 14 (19).

  50 Morning Herald, 12 July 1783.

  51 Hawkins, Memoirs, Facts, and Opinions, ii, p. 33.

  CHAPTER 15

  1 Eccentric Biography; or, Memoirs of Remarkable Female Characters (1803), p. 290.

  2 Memoirs, p. 123.

  3 Eccentric Biography, p. 290 (erroneously stating that the journey took place in winter).

  4 Eccentric Biography, p. 290.

  5 Memoirs, pp. 123–4.

  6 I am most grateful to Dr Chris Clark for assistance with diagnosis and information from Fundamentals of Surgical Practice.

  7 Poetical Works (1824 edn), p. 4.

  8 Pembroke Papers (1780–1794): Letters and Diaries of Henry, Tenth Earl of Pembroke and his Circle, ed. Lord Herbert, 2 vols (London, 1950), i, p. 227.

  9 Banastre Tarleton to Jane Tarleton, 25 July 1783, Liverpool Record Office, 920 TAR 13 (25).

  10 Memoirs, p. 121.

  11 The Correspondence of George, Prince of Wales 1770–1812, i, p. 305.

  12 23 Sept. 1783, Liverpool Record Office, 920 TAR 13 (26).

  13 Morning Herald, 22 Oct. 1783; ‘Amorous and Bon Ton Intelligence’, 30 Oct. 1783, in Rambler’s Magazine.

  14 ‘Amorous and Bon Ton Intelligence’, Nov. 1783, in Rambler’s Magazine.

  15 Rambler’s Magazine, Nov. 1783, p. 362.

  16 Memoirs, p. 124.

  17 Morning Herald, 21 Jan. 1784.

  18 Morning Herald, 22 Dec. 1783.

  19 Morning Herald, 26 Jan. 1784.

  20 Morning Herald, 22 Jan. 1784.

  21 Morning Herald, 27 Jan. 1784.

  22 ‘Amorous and Bon Ton Intelligence’, 4 Feb. 1784, in Rambler’s Magazine.

  23 Morning Post, 28 Mar. 1784.

  24 Oracle, 30 Nov. 1793.

  CHAPTER 16

  1 Memorials and Correspondence of Charles James Fox, ed. Lord John Russell, 3 vols (1853–4), ii, p. 347.

  2 Morning Post, 13 Apr. 1784.

  3 Morning Post, 25 Apr. 1784.

  4 Morning Post, 26 Apr. 1784.

  5 Morning Herald, 15 Apr. 1784.

  6 J. Hartley, History of the Westminster Election, containing every material occurrence, from its commencement on the first of April, to the final close (1784), p. 227.

  7 Hartley, History of the Westminster Election, p. 231.

  8 Morning Herald, 7 May 1784.

  9 Morning Herald, 17 May 1784.

  10 Morning Herald, 18 May 1784.

  11 London Chronicle, 20 May 1784.

  12 Morning Herald, 23 Apr. 1784.

  13 The Amours of Carlo Khan (1784), pp. 162–3.

  14 Morning Herald, 10 May 1784.

  15 Morning Post, 10 June 1784.

  16 Morning Post, 29 June 1784.

  17 Morning Post, 13 July 1784.

  18 Morning Post, 19 July 1784.

  19 Rambler’s Magazine, Aug. 1784, p. 281.

  20 Letter bound with MS of Memoirs (private collection).

  21 Morning Post, 13 Aug. 1784.

  22 Morning Post, 16 Aug. 1784.

  CHAPT
ER 17

  1 Tarleton Family Papers, Liverpool Record Office, 920 TAR 14 (15).

  2 Morning Post, 10 Nov. 1784.

  3 Westminster Archives, Broadley Haymarket Collection, 3, p. 187.

  4 Morning Herald, 11 Feb. 1785.

  5 Morning Herald, 15 Feb. 1785.

  6 Maria Elizabeth Robinson, The Shrine of Bertha: A Novel, 2 vols (1794), ii, pp. 127–8.

  7 Morning Herald, 23 Nov. 1785.

  8 Morning Post, 14 July 1786.

  9 Morning Post, 4 Aug. 1786.

  10 Morning Herald, 10 Jan. 1787.

  11 Memoirs, p. 130.

  12 Memoirs, pp. 130–1.

  13 Poetical Works (1824 edn), p. 189.

  14 The World, 30 Oct. 1787.

  15 Morning Herald, 24 Jan. 1788.

  16 Morning Post, 31 Jan. 1788.

  17 Morning Herald, 19 Apr. 1788.

  18 ‘The Moralist’, in The English Lyceum, or, Choice of pieces in prose and verse, selected from periodical papers, magazines, pamphlets, vol. 1 (Hamburg, 1787), p. 376.

  19 Pforzheimer Misc. MS 2296.

  20 The Promenade: or, Theatre of Beauty (Dublin, 1788), p. 24.

  21 Memorials and Correspondence of Charles James Fox, ii, pp. 299–300.

  CHAPTER 18

  1 Memoirs, p. 131.

  2 Memoirs, p. 131.

  3 Memoirs, p. 132.

  4 See W. N. Hargreaves-Mawdsley, The English Della Cruscans and their Time, 1783–1828 (The Hague, 1967), p. 57. This is the best account of the school.

  5 July 1787; repr. in The Poetry of The World, 2 vols (1788), i, p. 3.

  6 The World, 31 Oct. 1788.

  7 This sequence of poems was repr. in The British Album, 2 vols (1790), ii, pp. 137–62.

  8 For the meeting of Merry and Cowley, see The Life and Times of Frederick Reynolds written by himself, 2 vols (1826), ii, pp. 187–8.

  9 Morning Post, 15 Apr. 1789.

  10 Memoirs, pp. 136–7.

  11 Memoirs, p. 137.

  12 Oracle, 29 July 1789.

  13 Oracle, 8, 13 Aug. 1789.

  14 See Cowley, ‘Armida to Rinaldo’, Oracle, 5 Jan. 1791; Boaden, ‘To Mrs Robinson’ (‘But Laura still shall dress the lay’), repr. among ‘Tributary Poems’ in Robinson’s Poetical Works (1806); Robinson, ‘To the Muse of Poetry’ (included in Poems, 1791).

  15 Memoirs, p. 136.

  16 Memoirs, p. 132.

  17 Memoirs, p. 135.

  18 Memoirs, pp. 135–6.

  19 Morning Post, 20 Aug. 1789.

  20 Authentic Memoirs, Memorandums, and Confessions. Taken from the Journal of his Predatorial Majesty, the King of the Swindlers, pp. 215ff.

  21 Oracle, 24 Aug. 1789.

  22 Ainsi va le Monde (1790), p. 16.

  23 Oracle, 19 July 1791.

  24 Monthly Review, Apr. 1791, p. 223; Critical Review, Jan. 1791, pp. 73–5; General Magazine, 4 (1790), p. 548.

  25 The Baviad (1794), quoted from combined repr. of The Baviad and Maeviad (1811), pp. 9–10, 30.

  26 Thrale refers to a woman in her early thirties being suddenly struck with palsy: ‘A horrible Thing! And cannot be attributed as poor Lady Derby and the famous Courtesan Perdita’s Paralytick Strokes have been, to Venereal Indulgences. I do not believe the Accusation even of them: it was Lord Deerhurst told me, and his veracity is not worth much’: Thraliana, ed. K. C. Balderston, 2 vols (Oxford, 1951), ii, p. 830.

  27 Baviad and Maeviad, p. 56n.

  28 William Hazlitt, ‘Mr Gifford’, in The Spirit of the Age (1825; repr. Grasmere, 2004), p. 253.

  29 Walsingham, ed. Shaffer, pp. 228–9.

  30 Walsingham, ed. Shaffer, p. 230.

  31 ‘To Mrs Robinson’, dated 1 Feb. 1791, repr. as first of the ‘Tributary Poems’ in Robinson’s posthumous Poetical Works (1806).

  32 Oracle, 5, 9 May 1791.

  33 Oracle, 16 May 1791.

  34 Oracle, 17 May 1791.

  35 16 June 1793, Bristol Central Library (uncatalogued manuscript).

  36 Critical Review, 3 (1791), p. 353; English Review, 18 (1791), pp. 229–30.

  37 The Beauties of Mrs Robinson. Selected and Arranged from her Poetical Works (1791), pp. iii-v.

  38 Analytical Review, 10 (1791), pp. 279–83; Monthly Review, 6 (1791), pp. 448–50.

  39 Critical Review, 2 (1791), pp. 109–14.

  40 English Review, 19 (1792), pp. 42–6.

  41 Poems (1791), p. 60.

  CHAPTER 19

  1 Memoirs, pp. 137–8.

  2 Oracle, June 1791, repr. as ‘Tributary Poem’ in Robinson’s Poetical Works (1806).

  3 Memoirs, p. 138; Oracle, 12 July 1791.

  4 Oracle, 12, 13 July, 9 Aug. 1791.

  5 Memoirs, p. 138.

  6 Memoirs, p. 139.

  7 21 May 1800, Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. E. L. Griggs, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1956), p. 589.

  8 I am grateful to Adam Sisman for correcting an error at this point in the hardback edition (see TLS Letters 3 Dec, 2004).

  9 Repr. in Selected Poems, ed. Pascoe, pp. 122–6.

  10 Poems (1791), p. 14; Poems (1793), p. 52.

  11 Keats, ‘To a Nightingale’ (1819); Robinson, ‘Ode to Apathy’, Morning Post, 1 July 1800.

  12 Morning Post, 6 Sept. 1800. On Mary’s opium poems, see further M. J. Levy, ‘Coleridge, Mary Robinson and Kubla Khan’, Charles Lamb Bulletin, 77 (1992), pp. 156–66.

  13 Angelina, ii, pp. 270, 286, 107.

  14 Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, ed. Conor Cruise O’Brien (Harmondsworth, 1968), pp. 169–70.

  15 Parliamentary History of England (1806–20), xxix, p. 248.

  16 Impartial Reflections on the Present Situation of the Queen of France by a Friend to Humanity (1791), pp. 6, 14, 24.

  17 Impartial Reflections, pp. 17–18.

  18 Impartial Reflections, pp. 19, 27.

  19 Vancenza; or, the Dangers of Credulity, 2 vols (1792), i, pp. 17–18.

  20 Jane Austen’s Letters, p. 335.

  21 Vancenza, i, pp. 41–2.

  22 Vancenza, i, p. 70.

  23 Vancenza, i, pp. 70–1.

  24 Vancenza, ii, pp. 85–6.

  25 Vancenza, ii, pp. 26–7.

  26 Vancenza, ii, p. 96.

  27 Oracle, 15 Feb. 1792.

  28 ‘Stanzas written on the Fourteenth of February, 1792, to My Valentine’, Poems (1793), pp. 138–9.

  29 Vancenza, ii, p. 131.

  30 European Magazine, 21 (1792), pp. 344–8. This was the review that also compared Elvira to Mrs Robinson’s daughter.

  31 Monthly Review, 7 (1792), pp. 298–303.

  32 English Review, 20 (1792), pp. 111–13.

  33 Critical Review, 4 (1792), pp. 268–72.

  34 Oracle, 6 Mar. 1792.

  35 Letter to John Taylor, 5 Oct. 1794, repr. in Selected Poems, ed. Pascoe, p. 366.

  36 Widener Library, Harvard University (partially printed in Percy Fitzgerald, The Lives of the Sheridans, 2 vols (1886), i, p. 148n., but full text previously unpublished).

  37 Oracle, 2 Aug. 1792, repr. Poems (1793), pp. 70–3.

  38 Memoirs, p. 142.

  39 Mary Elizabeth Robinson, The Shrine of Bertha, ii, pp. 107–10, with footnote attesting ‘This anecdote is a fact.’ The monument was later destroyed along with the wall of the old pier.

  40 Oracle, 28 Aug. 1792.

  41 Memoirs, p. 142.

  42 Oracle, 30 Nov. 1792, repr. Poems (1793), pp. 62–4.

  43 Poems (1793), pp. 221–6.

  CHAPTER 20

  1 Oracle, 20 Oct. 1792.

  2 Oracle, 26 Jan. 1793.

  3 Oracle, 26 Jan. 1793.

  4 An Ode to the Harp of the late accomplished and amiable Louisa Hanway, published as a pamphlet (1793) and in Oracle on 15 Jan. 1793.

  5 Diary, 19 Jan. 1793.

  6 Oracle, 10 Jan., 23 Mar., 5 Apr., 30 Oct. 1793.

  7 James Boaden, Memoirs of Mrs Siddons, 2 vols (1827), i, p. 79.

  8 Letter from Sarah Sid
dons to John Taylor, spring 1800.

  9 John Taylor, Verses on Various Occasions (1795).

  10 Oracle, 16 July, 29 Mar., 23 July, 28 Nov. 1793.

  11 Memoirs, p. 144.

  12 Oracle, 9 Nov. 1793.

  13 Modern Manners: a Poem in two Cantos, by Horace Juvenal (1793), pp. 15–16.

  14 Monthly Review, Sept. 1794; Morning Post, 3 Aug. 1794.

  15 Joseph Farington’s diary, 1 Dec. 1793.

  16 Poems (1793), p. 205.

  17 Critical Review, 10 (1794), pp. 382–4.

  18 English Review, 23 (1794), pp. 458–62.

  19 Coleridge, Collected Letters, i, p. 562.

  20 Oracle, 8 Jan. 1794.

  21 Dated 9 Jan. 1794; among ‘Tributary Poems’ in Robinson’s Poetical Works.

  22 Morning Post, 13 Feb. 1794.

  23 The Widow, or a Picture of Modern Times: A Novel in a Series of Letters, 2 vols (1794), i, p. 161.

  24 The Widow, i, pp. 4–5.

  25 The Widow, ii, p. 76; i, pp. 92, 168.

  26 The Widow, ii, pp. 173–4.

  27 Monthly Review, May 1794, p. 38; Analytical Review, 18 (1794), p. 453.

  28 The Widow, i, p. 22.

  29 The Widow, i, pp. 151–3.

  30 Oracle, 2 May 1794; Morning Post, 14 Oct. 1794.

  31 Oracle, 26 Feb. 1794.

  32 Mary Elizabeth Robinson, The Shrine of Bertha, ii, p. 95.

  33 Mary Robinson to John Taylor, summer 1794, private collection (Robert Woof).

  34 Oracle, 22 Sept. 1794.

  35 Monthly Review, Sept. 1794, p. 108.

  36 Charles Pigott, The Whig Club; or, a Sketch of Modern Patriotism (1794), p. 208.

  37 Charles Pigott, The Female Jockey Club; or, a Sketch of the Manners of the Age (1792), p. 84.

  38 Oracle, 10 Sept. 1794.

  CHAPTER 21

  1 Robinson to Taylor, 5 Oct. 1794, in Selected Poems, ed. Pascoe, pp. 365–7.

  2 Robinson to Taylor, 13 Oct. 1794, in Catalogue of the Collection of Autograph Letters and Historical Documents formed between 1865 and 1882 by Alfred Morrison, v, p. 287.

  3 Robinson to Taylor, 14 Oct. 1794, Folger Shakespeare Library, W.b.112.

  4 William Hazlitt, Works, ed. P. P. Howe, 21 vols (London, 1930–4), v, p. 252; John Genest, Some Account of the English Stage 1660–1830, 10 vols (Bath, 1832), viii, p. 431.