Swarthmore College
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English Literature
Fall 1997
Romancing The Stone: "Perdita" Robinson In
Wordsworth's London
Betsy Bolton
Swarthmore College, [email protected]
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Recommended Citation
Betsy Bolton. (1997). "Romancing The Stone: "Perdita" Robinson In Wordsworth's London". ELH. Volume 64, Issue 3. 727-759.
http://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-english-lit/45
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Romancing the Stone: "Perdita" Robinson in Wordsworth's London
Author(s): Betsy Bolton
Source: ELH, Vol. 64, No. 3 (Fall, 1997), pp. 727-759
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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ROMANCINGTHE STONE: "PERDITA"ROBINSON IN
WORDSWORTH'SLONDON
BY BETSY BOLTON
Apart from any more general indebtedness of the romantics to Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale is particularlyapt in relation to their themes of
asforexample
orrevival,
enteringintothefigureof thesixreawakening
Intimations
odeandtheode'sideaof the
year-old
boyof Wordsworth's
asof corpses... Nowhereattheendof The
adult's
worldas"remains,"
for.
Winter's
Talea deadfive-orsix-year-old
boyremainsunaccounted
Knowledge'
-Stanley Cavell,Disowning
Twas at a theatre
ThatI beheldthispair;theboyhadbeen
Theprideandpleasureof alllookers-on
Inwhatsoever
place,butseemedin this
fromtheclouds.
A sortof alienscattered
ThePrelude,BookSeven"
-WilliamWordsworth,
From that hour
A maniac wild, the Alien Boy has been;
His garb with sea-weeds fring'd, and his wan cheek
The tablet of his mind, disorder'd, chang'd,
Fading, and worn with care.
-Mary Darby Robinson, "The Alien Boy"3
While now discussedprimarilyas a woman poet of the early Romantic period, Mary Darby Robinson was perhaps best known to eighteenth-century audiences for her doubled role as Perdita in The
Winter'sTaleand real-life mistressto the Prince of Wales. Perhapsfor
this reason, recent discussions of her poetry have tended to focus on
Robinson's magazine and newspaper verse, reading Robinson as a
producer(andfigure)of popularculture.4I want to drawon this workin
order to suggest that the relationsbetween popularculture (associated
with "feminineRomanticism")and what we now think of as canonical
writing(associatedwith "masculineRomanticism")were more fluid and
contested thanis frequentlyacknowledged."More specifically,I hope to
ELH 64 (1997) 727-759 © 1997 by The JohnsHopkinsUniversityPress
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727
further the ongoing revaluationof Robinson'swork, and of her importance to the period,by consideringthe mingledeffect of her poetry and
public persona on the work of a more canonicalmale contemporary:
WilliamWordsworth.In the pages that follow,I first sketch the general
constellationof concerns that might link Book Seven of Wordsworth's
Prelude with the late Shakespeareanromance of The Winter'sTale;I
then consider the ways Wordsworth'sportrayalof MaryRobinson, the
Maid of Buttermere,may also lead to reflectionson the public persona
of Mary Darby Robinson, actress and poet. The latter sections of the
essay focus on the kind of conversation established by the Lyrical
Ballads, MaryRobinson'sLyrical Tales,and Wordsworth'smusings (in
Book Seven) on the commodified London culture of ballads,spectacular stage shows, and prostitution.I will suggest throughoutthat each
poet respondsto and activelydisputesthe aestheticfor which the other
might be said to stand.
I.
The first two epigraphs to this essay trace an odd and eccentric
genealogy of romance, leading from the lost boy of The Winter'sTale,
through Wordsworth's"Intimations"(woven as they are around the
figure of a boy at once Pigmy-actorand a "mightyProphet!Seer blest!")
to the embalmed boy, an "alien scattered from the clouds,"frozen in
time amid the tumult of The Prelude's London. But where Cavell
suggests Mamilliusand his death are forgottenin the wonder produced
by his mother Hermione in her return to life, Wordsworth,lost in his
wonder at the lovely boy, preserves the child and forgets the mother.
Indeed, he goes to some effort to cancel her out.
The mother,too,
Waspresent,but of her I knowno more
Than hath been said, and scarcelyat this time
Do I rememberher;but I behold
The lovelyboyas I beheldhimthen,
Amongthe wretchedandthe falselygay,
Likeone of thosewhowalkedwithhairunsinged
Amid the fiery furnace.(P, 392-99)
The boy'ssurvivalin this passage depends not on the poet's knowledge
(he knowsno more of the boy than of his mother)but on his imaginative
investmentin the child'sexistence. In the poet's eyes, the boy becomes
a triumphantmartyr,survivingwith some rhetoricalinflation the torments of wretchedness and false gaiety while the mother fades from
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memory.6The poet "stop[s]"(P, 402) the boy'sexistence and decay by
repeatedly beholding him: by holding him, fixing him in a single
moment of existence.But the narrativecannotbe permanently"stopped."
The poet's still-life musings are disruptedby the (displaced)voice and
vision of a prostitutefirst met backin Cambridge,and this disruptionis
experiencedas anotherstoppage,a traumacapableof "splittingthe race
of man / In twain."7The divorce of humanityfrom the human form is
also a dismemberment,which produces,retroactively,the repeatedyet
degraded laborof rememberingLondon.8
One might read this sequence-imaginative correspondence between poet and embalmed boy, followed by the sexuallycontaminated
division of the race of man-as a gendered inversionof The Winter's
Tale. The romance, after all, ends with a kind of auto-revision:the
promise of a new seasonalstory(shiftingperhapsfromwinter to spring)
focused on preservation,to be told reciprocallyby motherand daughter.
Tell me, mine own,
Wherehastthoubeenpreserved?
Wherelived?Howfound
father's
court?
For
thou
shalt
hear
thatI,
Thy
Knowingby Paulinathatthe oracle
Gavehopethouwastin being,havepreserved
Myselfto see the issue.9
Paulina, director and stage-managerof this final scene, breaks in on
Hermione'sspeech so as to breakup this exclusivetale-tellingbetween
mother and daughter("Gotogether/ Youpreciouswinnersall")and the
father-kingLeontes closes the play by asking Paulinato stage a more
general, and more performative,storytelling:
GoodPaulina,
Lead us from hence, where we may leisurely
Each one demand and answerto his part
Performedin this wide gap of time since first
We were dissevered.Hastilylead away.(W, 5.3.151-55)
This performancepromisesto reunitethat which was dissevered,to fill
in the wide gap of time which divorced the players/familymembers
from each other and from themselves.Yet this performativereunionof
romancecan only take place elsewhere:offstage, afterthe closingof the
curtain,the clearingof the stage.The leisurelydemandand answerof the
actors can be registered on-stage only by the unleisurely command,
"Hastilylead away."The deep backwardand abysmof time becomes a
plenitude in promiseratherthan in practice.
Betsy Bolton
729
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Where The Winter'sTaleelides the boy Mamilliuswhile preserving,
againsthope, both mother and daughter,the embalmedboy episode of
The Prelude elides the mother to preserve the boy. And while The
Winter'sTale ends with what I would call the romancepromise of an
offstage reunion, the poet's efforts at preservationlead instead to the
memory of another death (that of Mary'sunnamed babe), and to the
self-division,through prostitution,of humankind.The greater cost of
preservationin The Preludemaywell result from the poem's attemptto
achieve epic plenitude by negating the feminizing effects of both
theatricalityand romance.'"The theatricalmotherand child firstappear
at the center of Book Seven, and, as MaryJacobushas argued, "what
they figure is the seduction of figurationitself, along with the error of
romance (the romance of error).""But while Jacobus,like Hartman,
invokes more specificallythe romance traditionof Spenser, I want to
suggest that the late Shakespeareanromanceof The Winter'sTaleis at
least equallyrelevanthere.'"
Book Sevenbegins quite literallywith a winter'stale-sung by a choir
of robins sent by Winter to bespeak his coming. Yet "the child / Of
summer"(P, 43-44) is also included in these opening lines, which thus
promise the reunion performed by romance:"the whole year seemed
tenderness and love" (P, 48). In this context, London appears as both
duty and distraction,"tamerargument,/ That lies before us, needful to
be told" (P, 56). Some three hundred lines later, Wordsworthwill
attempt to returnto this "argument"which is now "withsundryforms/
Mingled,that in the waywhich I must tread/ Beforeme stand"(P, 34050). Interruptedyet againby the returningimage of MaryRobinsonof
Buttermere,he turns to those "sundryforms"sixteen lines later: they
are (of course) the lovely boy and painted mother.The argument of
Book Seven, framed by the romanceof a winter'stale, remainsinextricable from this most theatrical mother and child, and the intruding
image of one MaryRobinson.In the pages that follow,I will argue that
the dangerousseductionsof theatricalromancemayhave been personified for Wordsworth in the figure of Perdita-both a figure of
Shakespeareanromance and the nickname of the notorious actressturned-royal-mistress(as well as novelist, playwrightand poet): Mary
Robinson.
II.
A very different Mary Robinson appears more immediately in the
allusionto the
backdropto this episode of the lovely boy:Wordsworth's
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Belle of Buttermere invokes the story of a woman from the Lake
Districtfooled into marryinga bigamist,a forgerand an impersonatorof
the upper classes. Her tale, like the embalmed boy himself, seems to
hover somewherebetween life and death: the dramawhich represents
her storyis one of the topicalplays,"recentthingsyet warmwith life"(P,
314), seen on the stage of Sadler's Wells. Wordsworthretells the
romanceof the "Maidof Buttermere"as if to rescue the "maid"(Mary
Robinson)and her story from the contaminationof the stage, for they
seem to him "too holy theme for such a place, / And doubtless treated
with irreverence,/ Albeit with their [the players']very best of skill"(P,
318-20). He begins by seeming to summarizethe stage production,but
even this summaryinsists on reverence for youthful innocence and
familialbonds:
howthe spoilercame,"aboldbadman"
To God unfaithful,children,wife, and home,
And wooed the artless daughterof the hills,
Andweddedher,in cruelmockery
Of love and marriagebonds. (P, 323-27)
Wordsworth melodramatizes the familiar outline of how Mary of
Buttermere was seduced and betrayed; it seems unlikely he ever saw the
play he pretends to describe.'3 In rewriting his own version of the
melodrama,Wordsworthattempts to "save"Mary of Buttermere by
"recollecting"an image of a common past:
O friend, I speak
With tender recollectionof that time
When first we saw the maiden,then a name
By us unheardof-in her cottage-inn
Were welcomed, and attended on by her.
Both strickenwith one feeling of delight,
An admirationof her modest mien
And carriage,markedby unexampledgrace. (P, 327-34)
Sight--with its power to "strike"the observer and evoke admirationprecedes and practically obviates the need for naming. Repetition (and
the double negation associated with the pleasures of theater more
generally) then serves to fix this silent image in place.'4
Not unfamiliarlywe since that time
Have seen her, her discretionhave observed,
Her just opinions, female modesty,
Her patience, and retirednessof mind. (P, 335-38)
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Mary'slack of speech in these passagesseems constitutiveof her ability
to survivethe speech of others, and to remain"Unsoiledby commendation andexcess / Of public notice"(P, 339-40). Her unsoiled silence also
provides a clear contrastto the prostitute's"open shame . .. and ...
pride of public vice" (P, 419-20).
Yetthis descriptionalsoabstractsher fromflesh andblood, makingher
instead an allegoricalfigure for female purity in the Lake District.
Wordsworthexcludes from his accountthe economicsof seduction that
the historical Mary Robinson readily and publicly acknowledged. A
newspapernotice of 24 December 1802 announcedthat
A letterhasbeenreceivedbySirRichardFord[thechiefBow-Street
froma Gentlemanat Keswick,bywhichit appears,that
magistrate],
declinesprosecuting
Hatfieldforthe
MaryRobinsonof Buttermere,
is
as
she
now
advanced
in
her
Bigamy,
althoughshe
very
pregnancy,
expressesthe greatestdetestationof his actions.She says, she
certainlymarriedhim, underan idea of his being ColonelHope,
brotherto the Earlof Hopetoun,with a viewof betteringherself;and,
thatshehasbeenconsiderably
injuredbyhimin everyway,ashe left
billforboard,lodging,&c.at her father'shouse,
a veryconsiderable
unpaid,whenhe wentoff.'5
Robinson's account of her rationale ("a view of bettering herself'
materially)supports the analysisof marriageas legalized prostitution
common in late eighteenth-centuryfeminist tracts. Yet Wordsworth's
"recollection"of the Maid of Buttermere(his claim to personal knowledge of the case) never directlycontradictsthe melodramaticterms of
the play he imagines:ratherthan acknowledgingRobinson'sattempt to
"better herself," he continues to present her as passive victim to
Hatfield's"cruelmockery/ Of love and marriagevows."Removed from
economic agency,the figureof Maryof Buttermerebecomes little more
than an allegorical symbol, a blazoned name, like those that mark
tradesmen'sshops in London (P, 174). A figureheadof innocence, she
remainsstationed,Wordsworth's
guardiansaint,not "abovethe door"(P,
178) but on some imagined boundary between the corruption of
commodified London and the refuge of the Lakes. Yet by making
Robinsonan allegoricalfigure,a meansby which to announcethe purity
of the Lakes (on which his own literary trade is largely based),
Wordsworthreplicatesthe economic degradationhe critiquesin the city
of London and in Bartholomew Fair. As Wordsworthhangs up his
shingle,he fixes the Belle of Buttermerein place-with the ironic result
that MaryRobinson "falls"into the realm of allegory,leaving the poet
implicatedin that fall, uncomfortablyalignedwith the role of seducer.16
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Indeed, in worrying over the link between city life and writing turned
to improper uses, Wordsworth may well have identified, however
reluctantly, with the figure of John Hatfield, bigamist and forger. On a
walking tour in 1803, Dorothy, William and Coleridge stopped in
Carlisle, where Hatfield was tried, convicted, and eventually executednot for his notorious bigamy with Mary Robinson, but for forgery. On 16
August 1803, Dorothy's journal reported:
Dined at Carlisle;the town in a bustle with the assizes; so many
strange faces known in former times and recognised, that it half
seemed as if I ought to know them all, and together with the noise,
the fine ladies, etc., they put me into confusion. This day Hatfield
was condemned. I stood at the door of the gaoler'shouse, where he
was;Williamentered the house, and Coleridgesaw him; ... a debtor
... told me in a drywaythat he [Hatfield]was "farover-learned"and
anothermanobservedto Williamthatwe mightlearnfrom Hatfield's
fate "notto meddle with pen and ink."17
Carlisle's bustle, half-recognized, half-strange, put Dorothy "into confusion" and may have offered a small reminder of London's "blank
confusion." More telling yet are the by-standers' suggestions that these
literary travelers consider the connections between learning, writing
and crime. From this perspective, Wordsworth's attempt to preserve
Mary Robinson from the consequences of her "seduction" might be
read in part as an attempt to protect himself from (self) condemnation
as a man who misuses writing if not exactly for forgery and seduction, at
least for economic gain, based in part on sexual differentiation.
Wordsworth's first pass at a "memorial verse" for the Belle of
Buttermere remains inadequate, perhaps because the memorial implies, and to some extent performs, Mary's death. His version of her
story is a memorial in the sense of being constructed from memories,
but it also freezes "the maid" in past time: more specifically, in
Wordsworth's past. Refusing to stay put, she comes back to haunt him:
"thy image rose again, / Mary of Buttermere!" In response to this image,
the poet attempts to repair his story:
She lives in peace
the
spot where she was born and reared;
Upon
Withoutcontaminationdoes she live
In quietness, without anxiety.
Beside the mountainchapel sleeps in earth
Her new-borninfant,fearless as a lamb
That thither comes from some unshelteredplace
To rest beneath the little rock-likepile
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Whenstormsareblowing.Happyaretheyboth,
Motherandchild!(P,351-60)
Wordsworth'scharacteristicrepetition or redundancehere seems designed to propitiatethis livingimage, to compensatefor the inappropriate memorial.In almost ritualfashion,the passagenegates the ideas of
contamination,anxietyand fear,to replacethem with peace, quiet, sleep
and happiness. Sufferingis written out of the picture.Yet this storytoo
misleads-this time in its odd resurrection of the newborn infant
(historicallystill-born or newly dead) as a lamb, freely roaming,who
comes to seek shelter in burial.If the first retellingof Mary'sstoryfroze
own past,this second version
the Belle of Buttermereinto Wordsworth's
creates an imaginarypresent for her child. Regardless of her lived
experience, Maryof Buttermerecomes close to a figure of pastoralin
Wordsworth'sverse-yet at certain moments, specific aspects of her
story (her living image, her lost child) threatento erupt from the green
pastorallandscapein which they are buried.
III.
I want to speculatethat behind the revenantfigureof MaryRobinsonof
Buttermere may lurk that of Mary Darby Robinson, the actress best
knownas Perdita,and the poet most celebratedfor her Lyrical Tales.As
a Perdita-turned-courtesan,
Darby Robinsonmarksan uneasy intersection between the worldsof romanceand prostitution-and thus circumscribes one of the centralconcerns at workwithin the London book of
The Prelude. Born in 1758, marriedreluctantlyin 1774 to a man who,
like Hatfield, misrepresented his wealth and social standing, Mary
Darby Robinson gave birth to a daughter within a year and then
accompaniedMr. Robinsoninto debtor'sprison.Accordingto her own
account, she turned to the stage in an effort to save herself and her
dissolute husband from a second bankruptcy.'8Her greatest personal
and professionaltriumphcame on 3 December 1778, in a performance
of The Winter'sTalebefore the royalfamily.In her Memoirs,Robinson
recreates the doubled dramaof this romance:
I hurriedthroughthe firstscene,notwithoutmuchembarrassment,
owing to the fixed attentionwith which the Prince of Wales
honouredme. Indeedsomeflatteringremarks
whichweremadeby
his RoyalHighnessmet my ear as I stoodnearhis box,andI was
overwhelmedwith confusion.
The Prince'sparticularattentionwas observed by everyone,
andI wasagainralliedatthe endof theplay.Onthe lastcursey[sic],
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the Royalfamilycondescendingly
returneda bowto theperformers;
butjustasthe curtainwasfalling,myeyes metthoseof the Princeof
Wales;andwitha lookthatI nevershallforget,he gentlyinclinedhis
head a secondtime; I felt the complimentand blushedmy gratitude.19
The secret of DarbyRobinson'sappealseems to have been tied partlyto
her personawithinthe play.The day afterthis performance,the Prince
of Wales sent young Lord Malden to Darby Robinson bearing love
letters from "Florizel"to "Perdita,"setting a suitablyromantictone for
the reception of their affair.Not only did the lovers cast themselves as
the slummingprinceand lost princessof romance,but the publicpicked
up on these characterizations.John Fyvie refers to a varietyof "catchpenny publications, such as the poetical epistles from Florizel to
Perdita, or the pretended copies of the letters which passed between
Mrs. Robinsonand the Prince of Walesunderthese signatures,"though
these seem to haveappealedto the "pruriencyof the public"ratherthan
to their romanticsensibilities.2"
The scene which Darby Robinsonhurriedthroughwas presumably
the sheep-shearingfestival,an event which causes the characteras well
as the actress some embarrassment.Perditathreatens to swoon at the
(imagined)sightof herself ("mostgoddess-likeprank'dup" [W, 4.4.10])
and worries over the unlikely possibilitythat the king himself might
accidentallycome upon them: "how/ Should I, in these my borrowed
flaunts,behold / The sternnessof his presence?"(W,4.4.22-24) Flirting
with the masqueradingprince, Florizel, she blames her unusuallyfree
mannerson her dress:
Come,takeyourflow'rs;
MethinksI playas I haveseen themdo
In Whitsunpastorals;
surethisrobeof mine
Doeschangemydisposition.(W,4.4.132-35)
The stress laid on costume and acting, as well as the overall model of
modest flirtation,would continue throughoutthe relationshipbegun
during this on-stage-off-stageplay between actress and prince. One of
Robinson'sneighbors,for instance, noted how extensivelyshe played at
acting differentparts,changingher dispositionwith her robe.
To-dayshewasa paysanne,withherstrawhattiedat the backof her
head,lookingas if too new to whatshe passedto knowwhatshe
lookedat. Yesterday,
she, perhaps,had been the dressedbelle of
Hyde Park,trimmed,powdered,patched,paintedto the utmost
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power of rouge and white lead; to-morrow she would be the
cravattedAmazonof the riding-house.21
Even Perdita's fear of parental disapproval is played out in the courting
of prince and actress. A "diurnal print" reported one stormy encounter:
A circumstanceof ratheran embarrassingnature happened at last
night'sOratorio.Mrs. R- , decked out in all her finery,took care
to post herself in one of the upper boxes, immediatelyopposite the
Prince's,and by those airs peculiarto herself, contrivedat last so to
basilisk a certain heir apparent that his fixed attention to the
beautiful object above became generally noticed, and soon after
astonishedtheir Majesties,who, not being able to discoverthe cause,
seemed at a loss to account for the extraordinaryeffect. No sooner,
however, were they properly informed, than a messenger was
instantly sent aloft desiring the dart-dealingactress to withdraw,
which she complied with, though not withoutexpressingthe utmost
chagrinat her mortifyingremoval.22
So too Perdita claims (after Polixenes leaves) not to have been very
frightened: "I was about to speak and tell him plainly, / The selfsame sun
that shines upon his court / Hides not his visage from our cottage, but /
Looks alike on all" (W, 4.4.445-49). But the expression of chagrin in
neither case interferes with properly submissive behavior.
If the charming trials of Perdita's first scene were played out with
exquisite and lingering care by these celebrity actors, the resolutions
and reunions of the fifth act lay beyond their reach. George III wrote to
Lord North in August of 1781 that
My eldest son got last year into an improper connection with an
actress and woman of indifferent character through the friendly
assistance of Lord Malden. He sent her letters and very foolish
promises, which undoubtedly by her conduct she has cancelled.
Colonel Hotham has settled to pay the enormoussum of £5000 for
the letters, etc., being returned.Youwill thereforesettle with him.2"
The break-up of the affair seems to have been complete by late spring of
1782. Yet even after the Prince of Wales had left her, Darby Robinson
was (at first) received with a public sympathy in tune with her role as
noble innocent. James Gillray'scaricature of "Monuments lately discovered on Salisbury Plain" (5 June 1782), for instance, foregrounds four
figures: the Prince of Wales and the Marchioness of Salisbury (his new
romantic interest), as well as the two abandoned partners, the Marquis
of Salisbury and Mary Darby Robinson.24The Prince and the Marchioness are sketched in exquisite detail, and the subscript beneath the
caricature describes them as "lately . . . animated with the Celestial
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Fire."The marquisand MaryRobinson,by contrast,are monumentalized, partlyturned to the stones that markthe historic Salisburyplain.
The jealous husband appears as "an unfinished resemblance of the
Human Form;"the observeris asked to note that "fromthe Vacancyof
Countenance,& roughnessof the Workmanship,this Figure cannot be
supposed ever to have been intended as a companionto" the marchioness. Yet Mrs. Robinson is treated more gently, described as "some
forlorn Dido, or forsakenAriadne,of Quality."In the public imagination, she remainsfor the moment a figure of romanceor nationalepic,
though this figure seems to be turningslowly to stone.
If Shakespeare'sPerditacan be thought of as "reconcil[ing]virginity
and erotic appeal,modesty and abandonment,"MaryDarby Robinson
soon lost all claim to the first half of this equationY5Even during the
height of her relationswith the Prince, a quartovolume was published
(in 1781), claiming to present letters passed between Mrs. Robinson
and "a certain Israelite"back in the 1770s. Accordingto this volume,
Darby Robinsonand her husbandtogether set out to make money out
of her sexual attractions,both from Lords like Lyttleton,Valenciaand
Northington, and from moneylenders more directly. The last letter
attributed to Darby Robinson within this collection complains to the
"Israelite"in question,
I find you have not yet answered my draft. I do not wish an
acquaintancewith any man who professes so much love, but who
gives so little proof of it. I wish I could recall those imprudent
moments when I suffered your deluding promises and seductive
tongue to betray me into sin; but unless you give me the token of
your sinceritythat I ask for, I shall take care how I trustyou again.I
am astonishedthat you shouldscrupleto lend me such a sum as £100
when it was the last I should borrow and should have repaid it
faithfully.Now you have an opportunityof showingyour love, or I
shall see that you have all along deceived me.26
This counter-narrative
of canny social prostitutiondisruptsand eventuthe
romance
of letters and epistolarypoems attributedto
ally displaces
Florizel and Perdita. Indeed, Robinson'sreputation became increasingly marginalas time went on. Abandonedby the Prince in the spring
of 1782, she spent the summer flirting (and possibly having sexual
relations) with a series of men: Charles Fox, Lord Malden, Banastre
Tarleton.By autumn,she had more or less settled down with Tarleton,
as the MorningPost announcedon the 21st of September 1782:
a messengerarrivedin Town,withtheveryinteresting
and
Yesterday
pleasingintelligenceof the Tarleton,armedship, having,after a
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James Gillray. Monuments Lately Discovered on Salisbury Plain. Courtesy of the
HuntingtonLibrary,Prints and Ephemera.
chase of some months, captured the Perdita frigate, and brought her
safe into Egham port. The Perdita is a prodigious fine cleanbottomed vessel, and had taken many prizes during her cruise,
particularly the Florizel, a most valuable ship belonging to the
Crown, but which was immediately released, after taking out the
cargo. The Perdita, was captured by the Fox, but was afterwards retaken by the Malden, and had a sumptuous suit of new rigging, when
she fell in with the Tarleton. Her manoeuvering to escape was
admirable; but the Tarleton, fully determined to take her or perish,
would not give up the chase; and at length, coming alongside the
Perdita, fully determined to board her, sword in hand, she surrendered at discretion.27
The nautical and military imagery tells the story from the perspective
of
Tarleton, a hero of the American wars, rather than that of Robinson. She
is at once objectified and sexualized as "a prodigious fine cleanbottomed vessel," while the monetary gains attributed to her connection
with Malden (a "sumptuous suit of new rigging") are shown to be
Tarleton's profit from the encounter. Tarleton's phallic "sword"appears
as (almost) the last word in the encounter, outlasted only by the lady's
supposed "discretion."
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Discretion,however,was long lost by September.Gillrayhad already
noted the alliancebetween Tarletonand Robinsonon 20 August 1782,
with a caricatureentitled "The Thunderer."28 I have suggested that
Wordsworth'saccount of Mary Robinson of Buttermere makes her a
verbal analogueof the painted signs above shops and pubs announcing
the local trade.In Gillray'scaricature,MaryDarby Robinsonappearsas
just such an allegoricalshape announcingan (un)savorylocal "trade."
Legs spread wide, and breasts uncovered, she is "sexuallyimpaled"
above "The Whirligig,"and raunchilyredefines its promise to serve
"AlamodeBeef, hot every Night."29
The very post which supportsher is
with
which
to
look
her
skirt. The two male "rivals"of
given eyes
up
soldier and prince, meanwhile,are foregroundedby the print,oblivious
to the female figurewho defines their relativesexualprowess.Tarleton
looks dashing but sounds ridiculousin Gillray'sadaptationof Jonson's
Captain Bobadil;the Prince appearsas the originalfeatherhead,mumbling, "I'd as lief as twenty crowns I could walk as fine as you."30 His
featherhead has little to say to Tarleton'splumed bragging-nor does
the droopy end of the Prince'sriding whip measure up to Tarleton's
"poorToledo."
Gillrayignoreshis earliersympathyfor a Robinsonabandonedby the
Prince;her unseemlyhaste to find a new protectormakesher sexuality
fair game, as it makesher appearthe one at fault in the break-upof the
royal affair.Indeed, Darby Robinson'sfault may lie in her refusal to
remain in the passive role of a woman abandoned by her lover: her
refusal leaves the prince looking both vaguely envious and vastly
impotent. Even as a shop-sign Robinsonis made to speak her preference for Tarleton:"Thisis the Lad I'll kiss most sweet / Who'dnot love
a soldier."Her explicit statement of preference allows a moraltranslation of "abandonment:"
first a womanabandonedby her lover,Robinson
becomes in this later print a woman, as Wordsworthputs it, "to open
shame / Abandoned,and the pride of public vice" (P, 418-19). Her
speech (the expressionof sexualchoice) defines her moralabandon,as
Wordsworth's
prostituteis defined by the blasphemyshe both uttersand
enacts
(P, 417). The Oxford English Dictionary defines
implicitly
as
blasphemy "profane speaking of God or sacred things; impious
irreverence."In Gillray'scaricature,Darby Robinson treats the manhood or virility of the crown prince with irreverence-an act which
could be considered blasphemy against the divine (and sexualized)
rights of kings and princes. Early in Book Seven of The Prelude,
Wordsworthimplies that theater itself is blasphemous,as sex is sacred:
Sadler'sWells' burletta spectacle of the Belle of Buttermeretouched
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James Gillray, The Thunderer. Courtesy of the Huntington Library,
Prints and Ephemera.
"with irreverence" on a theme "too holy ... for such a place" (P, 31819). As actress, as abandoned woman and as namesake to the Belle of
Buttermere, Mary Darby Robinson embodies and enacts the blasphemous transgressions of theater-in particular, its irreverence toward the
holy themes of (pro) creation and poetic reproduction.
IV.
At first glance, the twenty years separating the adventures of the first
Mary Robinson from those of the second make it unlikely that
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Wordsworthwouldhave thoughtof these two fallen belles together.But
Wordsworthhad other, more recent reasonsto be thinkingabout Mary
Robinson the poet. Towardthe end of 1800, Coleridge had involved
Wordsworthin a poetic flirtationby proxy.The second edition of the
Lyrical Ballads was about to go to press, though Wordsworthhad
considered changing the title of the volume to "Poems by W.
Wordsworth,"since, as DorothyWordsworthput it, "Mrs.Robinsonhas
claimed the title and is aboutpublishinga volume of Lyrical Tales.This
is a great objection to the former title, particularlyas they are both
printed at the same press and Longman is the publisher of both the
works."31 In the beginning of October, Coleridge sent four of
Wordsworth'spoems to the MorningPost for publication;three of the
poems linkedWordsworthmore or less directlyto DarbyRobinson.The
"MadMonk"recallsRobinson's"The Hermit of the Alps"in its use of a
hermit monk,a murderedmaid,a trailof blood in the snow,and so onthough all of these Gothic conventionswere also poetic commonplaces
of the time. Coleridge introduced "The Solitude of Binnorie"more
pointedlywitha deep (anddeeplyventriloquised)bow to MaryRobinson:
Sir, it would be unpardonablein the authorof the followinglines if
he omittedto acknowledge
thatthe metre(withthe exceptionof the
burthen)is borrowedfromTheHauntedBeachof MrsRobinson,a
most exquisite poem . . . . This acknowledgement will not appear
superfluousto those who have felt the bewitchingeffect of that
absolutely
originalstanza. . . andwhocallto mindthatthe invention
of a metrehas so widelydiffusedthe nameof Sappho,andalmost
constitutesthe presentcelebrityof Alcaeus.32
Finally,the brieflyric"Alcaeusto Sappho"extendsthis playon namesin
a more flirtatiousdirection, turning what was originallya Lucy poem
into a social conventionof public homage.
Coleridge's financial difficulties, his friendship for Mary Darby
Robinson, and his "griefat her illness"undoubtedlyall contributedto
this oddly elaborate gesture of flirtatious plagiarism. But it's also
temptingto see this episode as Coleridge's(passiveaggressive)response
to the decision to exclude "Christabel"from the Lyrical Ballads.
Throughthis sequence of poems, Wordsworth,generallyunappreciative
of women poets, and with particularreasonto resent the workof Mary
Darby Robinson,is made publiclysubservientto the most outrageousof
contemporaryfemale poets-yet this act of public homage remainsa
kind of privatejoke for Coleridge,since no one outside the Wordsworth
circle would know to connect the poems with Wordsworthratherthan
with Coleridge.33
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Mary Darby Robinson's Lyrical Tales move beyond the poetic
triangle established by Coleridge to challenge Wordsworthmore directly.While the Taleswere publishedon 17 December 1800, and the
Lyrical Ballads delayed until Januaryof 1801, both publicationsbore
the date of 1800. And Darby Robinson'sLyrical Tales respond in a
varietyof waysto the LyricalBallads:in particular,the Robinsonpoems
explicitlynamed "Tales"offer a model of readingwhich challengesthat
provided by the Lyrical Ballads. Both Wordsworth's"Ballads"and
Robinson's"Tales"ask readers to think actively about the process of
reading, and of storytelling.Wordsworth's1800 Preface to the Lyrical
Ballads assertsthat "the human mind is capable of excitementwithout
the applicationof gross and violent stimulants"and dedicates the poet's
He explicitly
work to "produc[ing]or enlarg[ing] this capability."34
contrasts his work to the "franticnovels, sickly and stupid German
Tragedies,and deluges of idle and extravagantstoriesin verse"which he
sees overwhelmingthe discriminatingpowersof readers'minds:"When
I think upon this degrading thirst after outrageous stimulation I am
almost ashamedto have spoken of the feeble effort with which I have
endeavouredto counteractit"(L,243). Wordsworthoffers his readersa
moral aesthetic, one designed to work upon the minds of individuals,
enabling them to respond more forcefully and thoughtfullyto "great
national events"and daily happeningsalike. Thus, he asks us to focus
not on the sensationalstory of MarthaRay,but on the garrulousseacaptain'sattempt to retell that story,and in the process, come to terms
with it himself. Not the movingaccident,but the bystander'sresponses,
comprise Wordsworth'strade.
Darby Robinson's"Tales"also demandto be read on more than one
level at a time, but ratherthan contrastingan event with the responseto
that event, she models for the reader two opposing stances: that of
hypocriticalinnocence, and that of knowingcynicism. The moralizing
conclusions of the tales repeatedlydisruptthe naivet6 they ostensibly
support, to promulgateinstead a mode of social cynicism,especially in
cases of sexual impropriety.While the drama of the Lyrical Ballads
tends to reside in the narrator'schangingresponses, Robinson'snarrators pose few dramaticquestions:the narrativevoice remains consistently knowing.The potential for change sketched within the Tales lies
instead in the reader'sresponse to a (repeated) incommensurabilityof
moral and story:to notice the mismatchis almost inevitablyto become
a more cynical reader. Acknowledgingthe gap between moral and
action in the tale mayalso lead to acknowledgingthe limitsof one'sown
presumed morality or innocence. A few examples should serve to
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demonstratehow far from Wordsworth'searnest excitement this more
cynical,social aesthetic stands.
By the end of her career, Mary Darby Robinson seems to have
become an apt judge of the composition of her audience: five (or
possibly six) of the nine tales are addressed specifically to women
readers, two (or possibly three) to a mixed audience, and one with
ceremonialindirectionto the Prince of Wales.35Of the tales addressed
to women, three attackthe conventions of sexual purity by taking for
granted women's sexual adventures, while two others mock older
women who trafficin sexual scandal.In the first category,for instance,
"The Mistletoe"tells the story of a young woman marriedto an old
farmer.The tale opens by emphasizingher marriagevows-"That she a
faithfulmate would prove, / In meekness, duty,and in love"-and then
castingdoubt upontheirvalue:"But,markthe sequel,-and attend!"(T,
10) At a Christmasparty, a young admirer repeatedly urges her to
accompanyhim beneath the mistletoe, and she betraysherself in trying
to assert both her maritalreserve and her power over him. "Resolvedto
make / An envious rival'sbosom ache,"MistressHomespun
Commanded
Hodgeto let hergo,
Norleadherto the Mistletoe;
"Whyshouldyou askit o'erando'er?
Criedshe, "we'vebeen theretwicebefore!"(T, 15-16)
Yet the moral of the tale rebukes Mistress Homespun, not for kissing
young Hodge, but ratherfor betrayingherself to her husband:
'Tisthus, to check a rival'ssway,
That Womenoft themselves betray;
WhileVanity,alone,pursuing,
They rashlyprove, their own undoing.(T, 16)
In criticizingthe young woman'sspeech rather than the kisses themselves, the poem at once "undoes" its own ostensible morality, and urges
women readersto value the materialgood of reputationover the more
intangible indulgence of vanity.(Don't cut off your nose to spite your
rival.) Cheating on one's husband is taken for granted: the arena of
moralaction restrictsitself to the questionof how a flirtationor affairis
to be managed.
"TheFortuneTeller"sketchesanotherinconstantyoungwoman(Kate)
who, despite her approachingmarriageto "honestLubin,"and the ten
pounds he has given her to buy a wedding dress, has become sexually
involved with the rakishStephen. A gypsy girl trying to win Lubin for
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herself tells him that his sweetheartis false, and that "home his bride
would bring/ A little, alien, prattlingthing/ In just six moons!"(T, 13435) Lubin,afterpiquingKate'scuriosity,masqueradesas a fortune-teller
himself, and when Kate comes to ask her fortune, scolds her for her
affair.She offers to pay him five poundsfor his silence;he demandsten.
But what was her dismay,to find
That Lubin was the gypsy bold;
The cunning, fortune-tellinghind
Who had the artfulstory toldWho thus, was cur'd of jealous pain,And got his TEN POUNDSback again! (T, 138)
By the end of the story,the ten pounds seem to loom much largerthan
Kate'splighted troth-in the minds of the narratorand Lubinalike. It's
also worth noting that "honestLubin"has suddenlybecome "cunning,"
his story more "artful"than Kate's adventures. And once again, the
moral, addressedto "gentle Maids,"advises not chastitybut reserve:
Thus, Fortune pays the LOVER
bold!
But, gentle Maids,should Fate
Have any secret yet untold,Remember,simple KATE!
(T, 138)
Lubin begins simple, but Kate ends that way, the fool of both Stephen
and Lubin: her simplicity lies in looking for trouble in her relations with
men-and letting "fate" unfold a secret over which she has lost control.
The Tales in general portray an irreverence for social roles and sexual
mores at odds with Wordsworth's idealization of the figures of humble,
rural life; they also contradict the solemn and meditative reading
process proposedby Wordsworth's1800 Preface to the Lyrical Ballads.
Indeed, if one accepts Wordsworth's aesthetics as ennobling, Darby
Robinson's "Tales" must seem, by contrast, corrupt."6 The narrative
voice of these "Tales" speaks from beyond the social pale to redefine
a specifically sexualized female morality. Yet just as
virtue-often,
Wordsworth presents his aesthetic as a partial response to "great
national events," Mary Darby Robinson uses her more equivocal
position as discarded royal mistress to address a (once and future)
Monarch. The "Old English Tale" of "The Trumpeter" undertakes to
teach a king how best to manage his business: in the process, it disposes
of a braggart who might have earned the nickname of "Thunderer"
before that of "Trumpeter" (T, 120).
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The "Monarch"of the "Old English Tale"is at first pleased to let
dissolute men of birthand wealth determinehis decisionsand guide his
rule, but when one particularlyvile braggartclaims the rightto rule the
banquet hall based on his militaryand sexual prowess-and his mistreatmentof women-the king proclaimshim a trumpeterinstead, and
promptly reformshis royal self, his court and his kingdom.This story
seems to me an uncanny replay of the Gillraycaricature,with Mary
Darby Robinsonas poet removingherself from the position of "whirligig"and debasingthe thundering,trumpetingfigureof Tarletonto offer
a different lesson to the Prince of Wales. To the braggingof a Captain
Bobadil, Darby Robinsonadds a specificallysexualcomponent.
"Ihavefoughtwithall nations,andbledin the field,
"See my lance is unshiver'd,tho' batter'dmy shield,
"Ihavecombattedlegions,yet neverwouldyield
"Andthe Enemyfled-one andall!
"I have rescued a thousandfair Donnas, in Spain,
"Ihaveleft in gayFrance,everybosomin pain,
"Ihaveconquer'dthe Russian,the Prussian,the Dane,
"Andwillreignin the Banquetting
Hall!"(T, 120)
The Monarch,hitherto oblivious to the injustices perpetratedby his
realm, suddenlyawakesto a proper sense of his own dignityand duty.
The closing lines of the poem seem markedly un-ironic, and their
promise is recalledby the final words of the collection:
From that moment the Monarchgrew sober and good,
(And nestled with Birds of a different brood,)
For he found that the pathwaywhich wisdom pursu'd
Was pleasant, safe, quiet and even!
Thatby Temperance,
Virtueandliberaldeeds,
By nursingthe flowrets,andcrushingthe weeds,
TheloftiestTravelleralwayssucceeds-
For his journey will lead him to HEAV'N.(T, 122)
Yet irony remainsin the fact that a fallen woman of dubious virtue,
whose own pathhas hardlybeen "pleasant,safe, quiet and even"should
presume thus to preach to a royal prince. Mary Darby Robinson's
"Tales"are remarkablefor an effronteryboth politicaland aesthetic,and
for their exploitationof what would seem a liability:the deminwndaine
status of their author.
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V.
In the midst of Book Seven, Wordsworthdefines his own poetic artistry
in oppositionto that providedby the stage. If he experienced"aughtof
real grandeur"at the theater,
'Twasonly then when gross realities,
The incarnationof the spiritsthat moved
Amid the poet's beauteousworld-called forth
With that distinctnesswhich a contrastgives,
Or opposition-made me recognise
As by a glimpse, the things which I had shaped
And yet not shaped, had seen and scarcelyseen,
Had felt, and thoughtof in my solitude. (P, 504-16)
The re-presentational world of the theater is thus diametrically opposed
to the poet's creative solitude; the gross realities of the stage are
subordinatedto the poet'spowersof shapingvision,feeling and thought.
MaryDarbyRobinson,by contrast,presentssolitudeas an experienceof
privation("the horror-givingchearless hour / Of TOTALSOLITUDE!" [T,
168]), often as society'sostracismof marginalfigures.37Wordsworth's
chosen and creative solitude has little to do with Robinson'srepeated
focus on the helplessness of the abandoned and neglected. Yet
Wordsworth'smodel of chosen, self-sufficient solitude and Darby
Robinson'simages of horrificisolation repeatedlyclash in the work of
both poets.
Robinson's"AllAlone,"for instance,can be read as a criticalrevision
of Wordsworth's "We are Seven." Both poems contrast an older narrator
with a young, naive speaker deprived (by death) of family members. Yet
while Wordsworth's "little maid" seems to rebuke her adult questioner
for failingto recognizethe ongoingpresence of her dead siblings,Darby
Robinson's"little boy" resists the narrator'sattempts to comfort him.
When the boy complains, "I wander'd, FRIENDLESS-andALONE!"
the
narratordescribes his or her own companionshipthroughoutthe day.
Yet the child rebukesthe narrator'swell-meant stupidity:
"0! yes, I was! and still shall be
"Awand'rer,mourningand forlorn'
"Forwhatis all the worldto me-
"Whatare the dews and buds of morn?
"Since she, who left me sad, alone
"Indarknesssleeps,beneathyon stone?"(T,8)
The mother'sdeath is the loss most irreparableand most powerfully
mourned within the poem, though the loss of the father is what closes
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the verse and clinches the boy's claim to have been "LEFT
ALONE!"
Where
Wordsworthuses the figure of a little girl to speakfor the continuityof
affection and familialcommunitybeyond death, Darby Robinson uses
that of a young boy to assert the primacyand pathos of loss.
Robinson's"AlienBoy"offers a more narrativeversion of the same
claim. St. Hubert and his son Henry flee from the persecutions of the
French Revolutionto dwell "on a Mountainnear the Western Main."
When St. Hubertperishes tryingto save the life of a shipwreckedman,
Henry loses his mind.
From that hour
A maniacwild, the Alien Boy has been;
His garbwithsea-weedsfring'd,andhis wancheek
The tablet of his mind, disorder'd,chang'd,
Fading,and worn with care. (T, 169)
Like Wordsworth'sblind beggar,this young maniacoffers a tablet to be
read by others (though with increasingdifficulty)-not by himself. Yet
while Wordsworthuses the blind beggar to stress the common indecipherabilityof life and identity,DarbyRobinsonfixesthe meaningof the
boy as tablet by makinghim a figure of social failure. Henry resists all
"gen'rous"efforts to return him to society, remaining instead: "A
melancholyproof that Man may bear / All the rude stormsof Fate, and
still suspire/ By the wide world forgotten!"
In Book Seven of The Prelude, Wordsworth presents a "lovely boy"
who seems "a sort of alien scattered from the clouds" (P, 378) as an
almost direct contrast to the figure of the blind beggar or Darby
Robinson's broad notions of social alienation. The boy and his painted
mother are introduced with a brief, perhaps coincidental echo of the
Robinson poemTwason a Mountain,near the Western Main
An Alien dwelt (Darby Robinson)
'Twasat a theatre
That I beheld this pair (Wordsworth)
but this echo merely serves to underline a more fundamental contrast.
Darby Robinson's boy is an outcast 6migrd, while Wordsworth's seems
"scattered from the clouds" (P, 378), presumably "trailing clouds of
glory" as he comes. Henry's noble, sainted and deceased father brings
into sharp relief the fading, painted mother of The Prelude. While
Wordsworth's boy occupies (with some danger) the center stage of a
theatricalgathering,Darby Robinson'ssuffers,isolatedand uncaredfor;
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the former remains embalmed in poetic memory,the latter frozen in
madness. Yet Wordsworth's"lovelyboy" also exemplifies the kinds of
forms and imagesthat accompanythe poet in his creativesolitude-just
as the girl in "Weare Seven"keeps companywith her dead siblings.In
Wordsworth'smind, the boy seems to have been "embalmed / By
Nature, ... destined to live, / To be, to have been, come, and go, a child
/ And nothing more"(P, 400-4). The boy'sexcess of beauty separates
him from his miserable surroundingsand more generally from the
"distressand guilt / Pain and abasement"of life (P, 405-6). A model of
pure beauty and "stopped"time, the boy-like one of Wordsworth's
spots of time-retains for the poet a fructifying,renovatingvirtue. The
poet feeds on this image ("So I have thought of him a thousandtimes"
(P, 408) yet the boy remainsunconsumed by memory or by the fiery
furnace(P, 399).
Ironically,consumptionseems precisely the dangerthat the passage
as a whole attempts(unsuccessfully)to hold at bay.The boy firstappears
as a consumablespectacle, part of a moveable feast:
Upona board,
Whence an attendantof the theatre
Servedout refreshments,
hadthischildbeenplaced,
Andtherehe sateenvironedwitha ring
Of chancespectators,chieflydissolutemen
And shamelesswomen-treated and caressedAte, drank,and with the fruit and glasses played,
While oaths, indecent speech, and ribaldry
Were rife about him as are songs of birds
In springtimeafter showers.(P, 383-93)
The translationof ribaldryinto bird-songsdoes little to obscurethe fear,
hinted at throughoutthis episode, that the child will lose his innocence
among these dissolute men and shameless women. Though the poet
repeatedlydenies the possibilityof the child'sfall, he finallyturnsaway
from the boy with the suggestionthat
he perhaps,
Mary,maynowhavelivedtill he couldlook
Withenvyon thynamelessbabethatsleeps
Besidethe mountainchapelundisturbed.
(P,409-12)
Embalmingthe boy cannot keep him safe: he may be better off dead.
This seems to me a ratherstrikingcase of"Wordsworthian
euphemism:"
the indirect suggestion of a "fate worse than death" for the boy is
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followed by a (displaced) reference to female prostitution.38Three years
earlier, the poet remarks, he heard for the first time
The voice of woman utter blasphemySawwoman as she is to open shame
Abandoned,and the pride of public vice.
...
a barrierseemed at once
Thrownin, that from humanitydivorced
The human form, splittingthe race of man
In twain,yet leaving the same outwardshape. (P, 417-26).
But of course prostitution has never been just a woman's profession:
child prostitution, like child molestation, seems to have been a fairly
common phenomenon at the turn of the century, while the sexuality of
"dissolute men" in the theater had been traditionally suspect.39 Most
readings of the painted mother and lovely boy emphasize the way the
fallen mother is sacrificed to maintain the purity of the boy child, with
whom Wordsworth can then (in part) identify. Yet even within this
passage, the sacrifice seems unable to keep fears of consumption and
prostitution at a distance. Wordsworth's "alien scattered from the
clouds" begins as a seeming refutation of Mary Darby Robinson's
critique of solitude; yet the poet's account of the boy ends by turning to
an uncanny approximation of her personal history-a woman "abandoned" to open shame and the pride of public vice.
VI.
A public and discarded mistress as well as a competitor-poet, Mary
Darby Robinson might also be called a fallen Perdita, a monitory figure
of stage romance gone wrong. And romance per se is the larger issue with
which Book Seven of The Prelude continually struggles. For Wordsworth,
as we have seen, the superficiality of stage romance serves to define by
contrast the healing and creative powers of solitude and communion
with nature. Indeed, the moral of Book Seven, if such a thing exists,
might be summarized in the poet's proposed antidote to the chaos of the
Fair.
Attention comes,
And comprehensivenessand memory,
From early converse with the works of God
Amongall regions, chiefly where appear
Most obviouslysimplicityand power. (P, 717-21)
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Yetwhile earlierbooks of this figurativeautobiographyshow the impact
of early converse with nature, with simplicityand power, Book Seven
explicitlylinksthe exerciseof attentionto the feminizedand feminizing
world of romance.The followingpassage associatesromanceboth with
the exercise of mental power, and with feminine changeability:
Throughthe night,
Betweenthe show,andmany-headed
mass
Of the spectators,andeachlittlenook
Thathadits frayor brawl,howeagerly
Andwithwhatflashes,as it were,the mind
Turnedthisway,thatway-sportiveandalert
Andwatchful,as a kittenwhenat play,
Whilewindsareblowingroundher,amonggrass
Andrustlingleaves.EnchantingageandsweetRomanticalmost,lookedat througha space,
Howsmall,of intervening
years!Forthen,
Though surely no mean progresshad been made
In meditations
holyandsublime,
Yet somethingof a girlishchildlike gloss
Of noveltysurvivedfor scenes like these-
Pleasurethathadbeen handeddownfromtimes
When at a countryplayhouse,havingcaught
In summerthroughthe fracturedwall a glimpse
Of daylight,at the thought of where I was
I gladdenedmorethanif I hadbeheld
Before me some bright cavern of romance,
Or thanwe do whenon ourbedswe lie
At night, in warmth,when rainsare beatinghard. (P, 466-88)
This passage, itself full of shifts and turns, at once replicatesthe larger
structureof the book and demonstratesthe kinds of watchful,sportive
motionrequiredto profitfullyfromthisworldof popularentertainment.40
Romance, in other words, becomes visible as a structuringprincipleat
the very moment it is most explicitly(and favorably)thematized.
The poet's youth, a period in which-"the senses easily pleased"(P,
441)-he remainedenamored of theater,is seen as an enchantingand
romanticage. Yetwhat remainsof romancein this period is "something
of a girlishchildlikegloss"-hardly comparableto the "meditationsholy
and sublime"which Wordsworthpresents as his more honorablelabor.
Indeed, the "girlishchildlike gloss"of romancepoints furtherback in
time and space, to the child'sworldof a countryplayhouse,with daylight
shining through cracks in the walls. The poet's mind thus plays over
three separatetimes and places: 1) the present at Grasmerein which he
writes and thinks back to 2) his attendance at the minor London
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theaters, until the memory of his "girlish"pleasurethere leads further
back, to 3) a more rural (less corrupt?) form of theater. Like the
storytellingproposed by Leontes, this passagebegins to close, though
only in the name of girlishpleasure, the "widegap of time since first /
We were dissevered"(W, 5.3.151-55).
What seems to be disseveredor disruptedin the countryplayhouse,
however, are the boundaries separating reality from the world of
romance:its fracturedwall lets in glimpses of daylight. This fracture
operates in both directions, for while light from the outside world
breaksthe illusionof the play,recallingthe spectatorto himself and his
location,the world outside remainsvisible fromwithin only in fractions
and fragments.The poet claims to have been better pleased with this
fracturing(of) illusion than he would have been with a vision of "some
bright cavern of romance."Yet the play of light within this passage
suggests that one might read the playhouse itself as a charmingly
imperfect cavern of romance, brightened by the daylight peeping
throughits walls.On yet anotherlevel, this playhousepresents an image
of the mind itself-a mental theater, "as it were," in which the mind
turns with "flashes"from the illusion on stage to the spectacle (of
spectators)which framesit. Light, naturalor mental, breaksthe frame
of romance, returningthe spectatorto himself, though in a movement
directlyopposed to the "Imagination!"
passageof Book Six:
whenthe lightof sense
Goesout in flashesthathaveshewnto us
The invisibleworld. (P, 6. 534-36)
In Book Six, these flashes mark a loss of sense perception, the
usurpationsof Imagination.In Book Seven, flashes of light returnthe
viewer to himself, and the returnto self-presencegraduallystrengthens
the poet'sindependence from the imaginativeforce of romance.In this
way, the world of stage romance serves to exercise the poet's attention
through the poet's resistance to its domination.Yet while the struggle
privileges the poet's mental theater over the literal theater which
surroundshim, it also produces (yet anotherversionof) the internalization of romance.
This internalized romance remains alarminglyfeminized and thus
potentiallydegraded.The fracturingof illusionin the countryplayhouse
is also compared to the sense of comfort and security experienced
"whenon our beds we lie / At night, in warmth,when rains are beating
hard"-and this comparisonsuggests,it seems to me, that the realword
of adventureand romance exists beyond the walls of the theater, but
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also beyond the poet's mingling of daylight and dream light. The
romancefound in the fracturedplayhouseequals girlishpleasureon the
one hand andwomb-likecomforton the other.Yetif we ventureout into
the hard rain,we find that
Scenes different there are-
Full-formed-whichtake,withsmallinternalhelp,
Possessionof the faculties:the peace
Of night,forinstance,the solemnity
Of Nature'sintermediate
hoursof rest
Whenthe greattide of humanlife standsstill,
The business of the day to come unborn,
Of thatgoneby lockedup as in the grave;
The calmness,beauty,of the spectacle,
Sky,stillness, moonshine,empty streets, and sounds
Unfrequentas in desarts;at latehours
Of winter evenings when unwholesomerains
Are fallinghard,with people yet astir,
The feeblesalutationfromthe voice
Of someunhappywomannowandthen
Heardas we pass,whenno one looksabout,
Nothing is listened to. (P, 626-42)
Here some strength of usurpation remains, and is able (with some
internalhelp, though small)to take possessionof the faculties.Yetwhat
possesses the poet here seems remarkablyemptied out of life. Three
night scenes are described:the first caughtin a limbo where womb and
grave overlap;the second both deserted and explicitlydesert-like;the
third obscured by the unwholesomewinter rain, so that voices may be
heard, but nothingis listened to. More specifically,of course, the voice
that gets no hearing is that of "some unhappywoman"-a prostitute,
looking for trade. Wordsworth repeatedly associates the romances
staged in Londonwith prostitution,yet his alternate,offstage mode of
naturalizedromanceproducesthe figureof the prostituteas a constitutive element.4' Mary Darby Robinson'srecurrent complaint that the
"feeble salutations"of marginalizedfigures remain unheard seems at
once included and occludedwithin this landscape,as the prostitute'scry
is generalizedinto an alienatedor barrenharmonywith the peace of the
night: no one looks about, nothing is listened to.42 The voice of the
woman poet as well as the womanprostituteis perhapsmost fullyelided
through this kind of incorporationin the still-life spectacle of London,
and in the off-stage (textual)rehearsalof male poetic identity.
Yeton the greatstage of London,the "suburbsof creation"are always
waitingin the wings.43The poet'scomplaintwith melodrama,afterall, is
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that despite its apparentemotionalforce, it remains,internallyspeaking,
a suburbanart:
ForthoughI wasmostpassionately
moved,
Andyieldedto the changesof the scene
Withmostobsequiousfeeling,yet all this
Passednotbeyondthe suburbsof the mind.(P,504-7)
In these lines the poet translatesthe appealof theatricalromanceinto a
(merely) suburbanform. And in what seems an oddly similargesture,
the poet turns from the "waters,walks,and gardensgreen"of London's
landscape(P, 204-11). In this
peaceful courtsto an explicitly"suburban"
lattervision, the tide of humanityslackens,the walls are dead, and the
breezes straggling,but prolific files of ballads (with tales interspersed,
perhaps?)dangle from those walls, even as giant "advertisements...
press forwardin all colourson the sight"(P, 205-11). Laterin the book,
the poet will try to dissociatehimself from the commercializedculture
of this proto-suburbiaby defininghis own creativityas its opposingterm
(P, 511-16). Yet here he focuses on "amost imposingword"-the word
That invitation,writtenout of
"Inviting"is specified in an earlierdraft.44
the poem at a place where ballads as well as advertisementsappear,
returnslater,in the midst of other writingat BartholomewFair:
the midwayregion and above
Is throngedwithstaringpicturesandhugescrolls,
Dumbproclamations
of the prodigies;
Andchatteringmonkeysdanglingfromtheirpoles,
Andchildrenwhirlingin theirroundabouts;
With those that stretch the neck, and strainthe eyes,
And crackthe voice in rivalship,the crowd
Inviting;with buffoons againstbuffoons
Grimacing,writhing,screaming.(P, 665-73; my emphasis)
Amid the proclamationsof prodigies, the writing on suburbanwalls
turnsinto the writhingof the crowd at BartholomewFair;the invitation
which links the commercializedpopular culture of fairs and ballads
remains inseparablefor Wordsworthfrom a vision of bodies strained,
excessive and transgressive.
To awakenhis imaginationbefore the writhingspectacle of the fair,
Wordsworthcalls on the help of the (prostituted)Muse:
Foronce the Muse'shelpwillwe implore
Andshe shalllodgeus-wafted on herwings
Abovethe pressanddangerof the crowdplatform.(P, 656-59)
Uponsomeshowman's
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Deposited on a showman'splatform, Wordsworthbecomes indistinguishable from the other hawkersof the fair. Indeed, I would suggest
that the catalogueof carnivalimageswhich followsseems closer in some
ways to the work of Darby Robinson (a prostitutedmuse if ever there
own standardware.Comparethe passage
was one) thanto Wordsworth's
of writhinginvitationabovewiththe listsproducedby Robinson's"Winkfield
Plain;or, a Descriptionof a Camp in the Year1800:"
Tents,marquees,andbaggage-waggons;
beer in flagons;
Suttling-houses,
Drums and trumpets,singing, firing,
Girlsseducing,beauxadmiring;
Tax'dcartsfullof farmersdaughters;
Brutescondemn'd,andmanwhoslaughters!
Public-houses,
booths,andcastles,
Belles of fashion,servingvassals;
Tradesmen
leavingshops,andseeming
Moreof warthanprofitdreaming:
Martialsoundsandbrayingasses,
Noise, that ev'rynoise surpasses!
All confusion,din, and riot,
Nothing clean-and nothing quiet.45
The two passages are linked by the general sense of chaos, din and
riot-as well as by their proliferationof gerunds. Yet Stuart Curran
remarksof "WinkfieldPlain"that "noman could havewrittenthis poem
so conscious of the place of women within the economy of war and no
woman in English society but an inhabitantof the demi-mondelike
Robinson,would havedaredto."46 Obviously,the same could not be said
of Wordsworth'sportrayalof BartholomewFair.Even the difference in
form seems suggestive:Wordsworth'scontorted blank verse sketches
the "blankconfusion"he finds in London and the Fair, while Darby
Robinson'srhymingcouplets highlightthe patternof differencesoperating (without syntaxor significance) within the chaos of a war camp.
Mary Robinson'srecognitionof the economic or commercialbasis of
war becomes in Wordswortha horrorof the marketmore generally:a
fall into the grotesquerie of commercial transactions.Wordsworth's
insistence on chaos in this closing portraitof Londonserves to maintain
the possibility of unravelling its contortions into "[c]omposureand
ennobling harmony"(P, 741)-the romance promise of resolution.
Darby Robinsonspeaksfrom a place beyond (even fallen) romance:her
verse shows the apparent contradictions of the war camp already
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resolved, throughself-delusionand culturalcontrivance-people's willingness to live out the contradictions of a gendered national and
commercialideology.
Yet just before the close of Book Seven, Wordsworthmomentarily
seems to begin movingbeyondthe frameworkof romance.At the fair,as
the writing on the wall becomes the writhingof bodies within the press
of the crowd, the wonders of romanceare crudelytravestied.
All moveablesof wonderfromall parts
Are here ...
The stone-eater,the man that swallowsfire
Giants,ventriloquists,the invisiblegirl,
The bust that speaks and moves its gogglingeyes. (P, 680-86)
If Hermione'smiraculousreturnto life has been replacedby a speaking
bust with gogglingeyes, the poet likewisebecomes ventriloquist,stoneeater, the man that swallows fire. He has incorporated(throughconsumption) not only the monumentalwomen of romanceand the stony
writingof the city,but also the figureof the boy who walkedthroughthe
and comprehensiveness and
furnace unsinged. "Attention [...]
as
the
the
(feminized,prostituted)city even as
memory"produce
poet
they recreate the city along the sight lines of poetic memory.While
these three aspects of interpretationor analysismay well come from
"earlyconversewith the worksof God"(P, 719), Book Seven also shows
them developing in response to the romanceof the stage. And the far
side of romance repeatedly appears in the figure of the prostitute, a
figure defined by Samuel Johnsonas "a woman who converses unlawfully with men."'47 MaryDarby Robinsonremainsthe closest historical
and lyricalprototypefor such an unlawfullyvoluble woman-a figureof
and yet beyond romance, in response to which the reluctantpoet of
London perverselyand romanticallytakes shape.
College
Swarthmnore
NOTES
I am very gratefulto MaryJacobusand CatherineBurroughsfor their commentson
earlier drafts of this essay and for researchassistancefrom LindsayKoval.
1
Stanley Cavell, Disowning Knowledge in Six Plays of Shakespeare(Cambridge:
CambridgeUniv. Press, 1987), 193.
2 William
Wordsworth,The Prelude (1805) in The Prelude 1799, 1805, 1850, ed.
Wordsworth
(New York:W. W. Norton and Co., 1979). Hereafterreferences
Jonathon
to this versionof ThePreludewill be cited parentheticallyin the text by line numberand
abbreviatedP; all citationsare from Book Seven unless otherwise noted.
3 Mary Robinson, Lyrical Tales (London: Longman, 1800), reprinted as Mary
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Robinson,LyricalTales(1800) (Oxford:WoodstockBooks,1989). HereafterRobinson's
Taleswill be cited parentheticallyin the text by page numberandwill be abbreviatedT.
4 See for instanceStuartCurran,"The'I' Altered"in Romanticismand Feminism,ed.
Anne Mellor (Bloomington:Indiana Univ. Press, 1988), 185-207; JudithPascoe, "The
SpectacularFlineuse: MaryRobinsonandthe City of London,"The WordsworthCircle
23 (1992): 165-71; Curran,"MaryRobinson'sLyrical Talesin Context"in Revisioning
Romanticism:British Women Writers, 1776-1837, ed. Carol Shiner Wilson and Joel
Haefner (Philadelphia:Univ. of PennsylvaniaPress, 1994); Jerome McCann, "Mary
Robinson and the Myth of Sappho,"Modern Language Quarterly56 (1995): 55-76;
Robin Micskolcze,"Snapshotsof Contradictionin Mary Robinson'sPoetical Works,"
Paperson Languageand Literature31 (1995): 206-19; Pascoe,"MaryRobinsonand the
LiteraryMarketplace"in RomanticWomenWriters,ed. PaulaR. Feldmanand Theresa
M. Kelley (Hanover:Univ. Press of New England, 1995), 252-68.
5 For an influentialdiscussion of "masculineRomanticism"and "feminineRomanticism," see Anne Mellor,Romanticismand Gender (New York:Routledge, 1994).
6LawrenceKramerarguesthat the mother"iscalled backto be strippedof her erotic
regalia;Wordsworthliterally renders her contaminatedsexualityinvisible"(629). Yet
her existence as well as her eroticism fades from view here. See Kramer,"Genderand
Sexualityin The Prelude:The Question of Book Seven,"ELH 54 (1987): 619-37.
7 See Mary Jacobus, Romanticism,Writing and Sexual Difference:Essays on The
Prelude (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1989), 206-36. It seems remarkable,given the
"overwhelmingvisibilityof prostitution"in Londonat this period (Jacobus,208, 209n)
that the only explicitvision of a prostitutein Book Seven occursoutside London. The
prostitute mentioned later in the book is not explicitly seen, but only dimly and
indirectlyheard throughthe winter rain.
' See
Jacobus(213-14) on castrationanxietyand fetishismin the prostitutionepisode.
For an example of the kind of rememberingI refer to, see lines 146 and following.
" William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale in The Riverside Shakespeare,ed. G.
Blakemore Evans (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1974), 5.3.123-28. Hereafter The
Winter'sTalewill be cited parentheticallyin the text by act, scene and line, and will be
abbreviatedW.
")For more on Romanticanxietiesabouttheaterand
femininity,see Julie Carlson,In
the Theatreof Romanticism(Cambridge:CambridgeUniv. Press, 1994), 134-75.
" Jacobus, 236.
12
Geoffrey Hartman,The Fate of Reading(Chicago:Univ. of Chicago Press, 1975),
277-78.
13CharlesDibden's"BurlettaSpectacle"of Edwardand Susan(Songs,&c. in Edward
and Susan:a burlettaspectacle [London: Glendinning,1803]) is far less faithfll to the
true story-yet the irreverence (and irrelevance)of the plot serves to save Susan, the
maid of the inn, from ever having married the adventurer Cheatall. Susan's true
sweetheart,the sailorStarboard,plays the partof the parishclerk to keep the marriage
from being performedlegally, and the two true lovers are reunited by the end of the
play in terms which, however cheesy, are not that distinct from Wordsworth'sown
celebrationof integrityand community:
Of love in disguise I've play'da long part,
But have found no disguise in the girl of my heart
So now we'll get marriedand foot it so gay,
With tol-de-rol-lol!heave-a-head!pull away!
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Let love and concord here have birth,
Friends and neighborsjoin our mirth
While the merrypiper plays;
Altho' our song with joy abound,
That joy is but an empty sound
'Till sanctionedby your praise. (4-5)
in this passage is preceded by the poet's
14 The double negative "Not unfamiliarly"
earlier responses to Sadler'sWells: "Nor was it mean delight" (296) and "Nor was it
unamusing"(310).
15Quoted in Donald Reiman, "The Beauty of Buttermere as Fact and Romantic
Symbol,"Criticism26 (1984), 144.
16I take the term "fall"from Jacobus:"Prosopopoeiagives voice to the face of
Wordsworth, inviting us to identify the autobiographicalfront of The Prelude-its
masqueradeof identity-with the figure of the poet. Figurativelyspeaking,it masquerades as a self that is 'literal and unrhetorical,'concealing the representationaland
economic structureswhich produce such a person.That these structuresshouldinvolve
reference to an allegoricalfallwhich is itself a privilegedexampleof the fall into allegory
gives special resonanceto the Maid of Buttermere sequence and the accompanying
figure of the prostitutein Book VII of The Prelude"(235).
17
Dorothy Wordsworth,Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, ed. William Knight
(London: Macmillanand Co., Ltd., 1930), 164.
's John Fyvie was highly skeptical of this account, and offers an entertaining
alternative.See his ComedyQueensof the GeorgianEra (New York:E. P. Dutton and
Company, 1907), 274-313.
19Mary Robinson,Memoirsof Mary Robinson,ed. J. Fitzgerald Molloy (London:
Gibbings and Co., 1894), 157. See also the new edition of the Memoirs:Perdita:The
Menmoirs
of MaryRobinson,ed. M. J. Levy (London:Peter Owen, 1994).
20 Fyvie, 284.
21 Laetitia-MatildaHawkins, Memoirs, Anecdotes, Facts and Opinions (London,
1824).
22 Quoted in Fyvie, 294.
23 George III, The correspondenceof King Georgethe Thirdfrom 1760 to December
1783, printedfrom the original papers in the royal archives at Windsorcastle, ed. the
Hon. Sir John Fortescue, 6 vols. (London, Macmillanand Co., Ltd., 1927-28), 5:234,
quoted in Fyvie, 303-4.
24 The caricaturecan be found in Thomas
Wright and R. H. Evans, Accountof the
CaricaturesofJamesGillray(London, 1851;New York:BenjaminBlom, 1968), 372-73,
no. 373.
25 Coppelia Kahn, "The ProvidentialTempest and the
ShakespeareanFamily"in
RepresentingShakespeare:New PsychoanalyticEssays, ed. MurrayM. Schwartzand
Coppelia Kahn(Baltimore:Johns HopkinsPress, 1980), 235.
26 Lettersfrom Perdita to a Certain Israelite, and his Answers to Them (London,
1781), 40, quoted in Fyvie, 287.
27
MorningPost, 21 September 1782, quoted in Fyvie, 287.
28 Wright and Evans, 382-84, no. 378.
29The phrase "sexuallyimpaled"is from Jan Fergus and Janice FarrarThaddeus,
"Women,Publishers,and Money, 1790-1820,"Studiesin EighteenthCenturyCulture,
25 vols. (Madison:Univ. of WisconsinColleaguesPress), 17:194.
Betsy Bolton
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:"The balloonspeech reads:"Theyhave assaultedme, some three, four, five, or six of
them together,and I have driventhem afore me like a flockof sheep;but this is nothing,
for often in a mere frolic, I have challenged twenty of them, kill'd them-challenged
twenty more, kill'dthem,-twenty more, kill'dthem,-twenty more, kill'd them too; &
thus in a day have I killed twenty score;twentyscore, that'stwo hundred-two hundred
a day; five days, that'sa thousand,-that's a-zounds, I can't number them half,-and
all civilly and fairlywith one poor Toledo."
31See Dorothy'sletter of 10 and 12 September 1800 in The Letters of Williamand
Dorothy Wordsworth,ed. Ernest de Selincourt, 2nd ed., 8 vols. (Oxford:Clarendon
Press, 1967-93), 1:297.The title "Poemsby W. Wordsworth"mayhavebeen anticipated
in October as well, when the decision was made not to include "Christabel"in the
collection, at least nominallyon the groundsthat Wordsworth"feltit indelicate to print
two Volumeswith his name in which so much of anotherman'swas included"(Samuel
TaylorColeridge,CollectedLetters,1772-1834, ed. Earl Leslie Griggs,6 vols. [Oxford,
ClarendonPress, 1956], 1:631).See also Stephen Parrish,TheArt of the Lyrical Ballads
(Cambridge:HarvardUniv. Press, 1973), 200.
32 The Greek names evoke a double-entendre,as
Darby Robinsonhad published a
of
sonnets
the
title
of
to
and so the "widelydiffused
Phaon,"
sequence
"Sappho
under
name of Sappho"could also be taken as a delicate complimentto the contemporary
poet. Alcaeus's"presentcelebrity,"could be taken in turn as a back-handedcomment
on the growingdisputebetween Coleridgeand Wordsworthoverthe question of meter.
For more on Robinson'ssonnet sequence, see McGann.For more on the relationship
between Coleridgeand Robinson,see Susan Luther,"AStrangerMinstrel:Coleridge's
Mrs. Robinson,"Studies in Romanticism33 (1994): 391-409.
33 For his part, Wordswortheither maintainedor pretended
ignoranceof the whole
affair:he claimed none of his poems, save a few political sonnets and "The Farmerof
TilsburyVale,"were ever publishedin any newspaper,either underhis name, or that of
any other man. See The Lettersof Williamand Dorothy Wordsworth;The Later Years,
ed. Ernest De Selincourt, 6 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939), 2:941-42. An
interesting lapse of memory--or act of disavowal.
34 William Wordsworth,Lyrical Ballads, ed. R. L. Brett and A. R. Jones (London:
Methuen, 1963), 242-43; hereafter cited parentheticallyin the text by page and
abbreviatedL.
35The "DomesticTale"of "MistressGurton'sCat"focuses on the actionsof a grumpy
older woman, but the moral is more general in its application.Many of Robinson's
"Tales"are written in the persona of TabithaBramble;see Curran,"MaryRobinson's
Lyrical Tales in Context"and Pascoe, "MaryRobinsonand the LiteraryMarketplace"
for discussionsof this poetic persona.The tale addressedto the Prince might also be
said to appeal to those readersintriguedby her own illicit connectionto royalty.
36 Note in particularhow manyfarmer'swives and villagewomen
get up to mischief.
37"The Lascar,"for instance, tells the story of an Indian soldier adrift in England:
"Alone, amid the race of man / The sad, the fearful alien ran!"Refused food by the
wealthy and the pious, he eventuallystarves to death. Likewise,the narratorof "The
Fugitive"urgesthe "PoorTraveller,""Oh,tell me, tell me all-- / For I, like thee, am but
a Fugitive / An alien from delight, in this darkscene" (T, 69).
38The term "Wordsworthian
euphemism"comes fromKevisGoodman,"Wordsworth's
'InvisibleWorkmanship,'The New Historicism,and the ApocalypticFallacy,"forthcoming in Studiesin Romanticism.I am gratefulfor the opportunityto have read this paper
in advanceof publication.
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39See Antony Simpson, "Vulnerabilityand the Age of Female Consent" in Sexual
Underworldsof the Enlightenment,ed. G. S. Rousseau and Roy Porter (Manchester:
Manchester Univ. Press, 1987), 181-205. Simpson'sdiscussion of rape trials between
1730 and 1830 leadsinto the relatedareasof child molestationand child prostitution;he
suggests that sex with children was popularas a means of avoiding (or, accordingto
popular myth, curing)sexuallytransmitteddiseases.
40Variouscriticshave noted (or complainedabout) the incoherence of Book Seven's
structure. Kramer,for instance, remarksthat "the narrativeillogic here, the lack of
convincing transitionsand the jumbling of ostensible topics are extreme even for
Wordsworth"(620).
41 I should perhapslimit this claim to the romanceof the city-but it's interestingto
note that in the countryfair presented as a wholesome contrastto BartholomewFair,
the poet himself comes strikinglyclose to (metaphorical)pimping:
But one is here, the loveliest of them all,
Some sweet lass of the valley, lookingout
For gains-and who that sees her would not buy?
Fruits of her father'sorchard(8.36-39)
The enjambmentmomentarilymuddlesthe question of just what is for sale here.
42 Two examplesof a general trend in Robinson'spoetry:the hermit of Mont-Blanc,
separatedfrom his true love by parentalambition,"consum'dhis days,/ Unnotic'd,and
unblest" (T, 86), remaining"an alien Man / From all the joys of social intercourse/
Alone, unpitied,by the world forgot!"(T, 89) So too, the "NegroeGirl,"Zelma,"pour'd,
unmark'd,her melancholystrain"(T, 106) of antislaveryindictment into the African
seas.
43The phraseis from EdwardYoung,The Complaint,or Night Thoughts(New York:
Johnstonand Van Norden, 1823), 296, or "Nightthe Ninth,"1. 1158.
44 William Wordsworth,The Prelude:or, Growth of a Poet's Mind, ed. Ernest De
Delincourt, rev. Helen Darbishire(London:OxfordUniv. Press, 1960), MS X, 232 crit.
app.
45 Pascoe (in
"SpectacularFlmneuse")points out that Darby Robinson'sdaughter
Mary Elizabeth Robinson claimed authorshipof this poem, but the style and even
content of "WinkfieldPlain"seem remarkablyclose to "January,1795"(acknowledged
as the work of Darby Robinson).
46 Curran, "The 'I' Altered,"191-92.
47 Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language,2 vols. (London: Strahan,
1755; New York, AMS Press, 1967), 2:129.
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