Abstract
Mary Robinson died at the end of 1800, bringing to an end an impressive poetic career that had been nurtured and developed in the pages of the fashionable newspaper. The final chapter of this book explores the poetry of sisters Charlotte King/Dacre and Sophia King, who openly claim Robinson as their poetic inspiration, and who, I argue, become the last of the Della Cruscans. The shape of Della Cruscanism itself changes significantly over the period covered by this book—from its origins in the sociable, playful and erotic exchange between Della Crusca and Anna Matilda, through to the movement’s association with women poets in the early years of the 1790s, and its dénouement in the poetics of sociability and powerful feeling associated with Mary Robinson. I suggest in this chapter that the Della Cruscanism of King and Dacre in the Tory Morning Post moves away from the sociability and heterosociality associated with the movement up until this point, to instead celebrate a poetics of passionate feeling associated with Robinson’s Sappho.
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Notes
- 1.
Villa-Real Gooch’s “Sonnet” was published on 10 December 1800, 8 days before Robinson’s final poem, “All Alone” appeared. The two women may well have met in real life as they had much in common. Like Robinson, Villa Real Gooch had married young and unwisely to an unfeeling fortune hunter. Unsurprisingly, the resulting marriage was not a success. After the birth of two sons, Villa Real Gooch was taken to France by her husband when he discovered that she was having an affair with her music teacher. Villa Real Gooch spent time in a convent while she was in France, just near St Omer, and it is possible that this inspired Charlotte Dacre’s Confessions of the Nun of St Omer (1805). Villa Real Gooch was refused a divorce by her husband, although she asked for one, and from this moment onward her life became a constant struggle. She lost access to her sons, and the creditors were never too far away from her doorstep. Indeed, her Appeal to the Public on the Conduct of Mrs. Gooch, the Wife of William Gooch esq. [1788] was written when she was in Fleet prison for debt. Despite her many conquests she found it impossible to find a man who would protect her. Villa Real Gooch was subsequently forced, like the subject of her poem, to become an author in order to support herself. For more a more detailed account of Villa Real Gooch’s life see her autobiography, The Life of Mrs Gooch.
- 2.
For a longer account of Tarleton and Robinson’s relationship see Gristwood and Byrne.
- 3.
Robinson published over 80 poems in the Morning Post for 1800. This includes poems under the names of “Tabitha Bramble,” “T.B.,” “M.R.,” “Oberon,” “Mrs. Robinson,” “Laura Maria,” and “Sappho” and is most probably an undercount.
- 4.
In keeping with contemporary criticism on the writer, and to avoid confusion, I will refer to Charlotte King by her pen name, Charlotte Dacre throughout this chapter.
- 5.
Byrne was friends with the Tory Prime Minister, William Pitt, and he named his son (whose mother was Charlotte Dacre) William Pitt Byrne, after him. When Pitt died in January 1806, the Post was flooded with poems mourning his loss. For some examples of this see 25 Jan, “Mentor,” “On the Death of Mr Pitt” and “T.E.H.,” “Extempore on the Death of Mr Pitt”; and 27 Jan, “Rosa Matilda,” “On the Death of the Right Hon. William Pitt.”
- 6.
Byron, English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers, 1. According to his obituary in the Gentleman’s Magazine, “Mr. Fitzgerald was one of the earliest and warmest supporters of the Literary fund … Mr Fitz-Gerald never omitted attending the anniversaries of the Literary Fund, and constantly favoured the Society with a poem and recitation. The spirit they infused into the company, and the consequent benefits to the funds of the Institution, were generally acknowledged” (472).
- 7.
See, for example, “Wellington’s Triumph and Portugal Relieved,” 13 April 1811 and “Liberty’s Coast!” 27 August 1811.
- 8.
Stott also published as “T.Stott,” and he was also quite possibly the “T.S” who published some seventeen poems in the Post in 1801.
- 9.
Linde Lunney, writing in the Dictionary of Irish Biography, that Stott became more conservative with age. “At first,” Lunney writes, Stott “supported the radical views of the United Irishmen; however, middle age and the friendship of such establishment figures as Bishop Thomas Percy caused him to abandon his earlier political standpoint.”
- 10.
For a detailed history of King, see Endelman.
- 11.
For a longer account of the Laras see Foster.
- 12.
Foster notes that Sarah’s marriage “on 8 May 1776, was in accordance with the Jewish scriptures, and with the same traditions as her parents before her,” 199. She also notes that Lara’s parents were strict and religious, so it is unlikely that any children were born out of wedlock. The fact that Charlotte and Sophia wrote Trifles of Helicon together suggests to me that they were indeed closer in age than critics have typically suggested.
- 13.
Charlotte was one of the witnesses to her sister’s marriage in 1801, and she signed the register in the name of Charlotte Dacre. (Foster, 218).
- 14.
Foster notes that the baptismal records for the children (they were baptized in St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden, on 8 June 1811) give each of the children’s birthdates: William’s on 12 September 1806; Charles’ on 6 November 1807; and Maria’s on 12 July 1809 (220). Craciun also observes that Dacre “is known as ‘Mrs. Byrne’ in the Longman archives” as early as 1807. See Craciun, “Charlotte Dacre: A Brief Chronology” in Craciun (ed.) Zofloya: or, the Moor, 35. I suspect that some of the poetry appearing in the Post under the initials “C.B.” may also have been Dacre’s work.
- 15.
See “Addressed to his Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales on his Birthday,” Morning Post 11 August 1808; “Ode on the Prince of Wales’ Birthday,” Morning Post 12 August 1809; “Inscribed to the Prince’s Birthday,” Morning Post, 14 August 1810.
- 16.
King is referring to the poetry of her sister Charlotte in this statement.
- 17.
I have not been able to find the issue of the Morning Herald that the poem first appears in but must assume that it was sometime before Maria Robinson’s poem was published on 1 November.
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McDayter, Ghislaine. “‘Consuming the Sublime’: Gothic Pleasure and the construction of identity.” Women’s Writing 2:1 (1995): 55–75.
McGann, Jerome. The Poetics of Sensibility: A Revolution in Literary Style. Oxford: Clarendon Press. “ ‘My brain is feminine’: Byron and the poetry of deception.” Byron And Romanticism. Ed. James Soderholm. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
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Knowles, C. (2023). Charlotte Dacre, Sophia King and the Tory Post. In: Della Cruscan Poetry, Women and the Fashionable Newspaper. Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37267-4_7
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