The eldest son of a governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, Robert Merry was educated at Harrow and tutored by Samuel Parr; he entered Christ's College Cambridge as a pensioner in 1771 and was admitted to Lincoln's Inn (1770), but upon his father's death bought a commission in the Horse Guards. Merry settled in Florence in 1784 where he was the leader of what would become the Della Cruscan movement. Returning to London in 1787 he carried on a celebrated verse correspondence with Mary Robinson and Hannah Cowley. Merry visited revolutionary Paris several times before emigrating to the United States in 1796.
TEXT RECORDS:
1785Il Viaggio.
1785La Diamora.
1785Ode to Indolence.
1785Ode to Summer.
1785Ode to Winter.
1785Sir Roland. A Fragment.
1787Elegy written on the Plain of Fontenoy.
1787Ode to Tranquility.
1787On Mr. Palmer's Recital of Collins's Ode on the Passions.
1787The Adieu and Recall to Love.
1787To Anna Matilda.
1788Diversity. A Poem.
1788Ode to Mrs. Siddons.
1789Ode on the Restoration of his Majesty.
1790Inscription, written at La Grand Chartreuse, upon visiting it a second Time, after an Absence of Eighteen Months.
1795The Wounded Soldier, a Poem.
1796The Pains of Memory. A Poem.
PUBLICATIONS:
The Arno miscellany [Merry, et. al.] 1784.
The Florence miscellany [Merry, et. al.] 1785.
Roberto Manners, poemetto [trans. Merry]. 1785.
Paulina, or the Russian daughter: a poem. 1787.
Diversity: a poem by Della Crusca. 1788.
Poetry of the world [includes verse by Merry]. 1788.
Ode on the restoration of His Majesty. 1789.
The laurel of liberty, a poem. 1790.
The airs, duetts and choruses of the pantomime the Picture of Paris. 1790.
Lorenzo: a tragedy. 1791.
Ode for the fourteenth of July. 1791.
Fenelon; or, the nuns of Cambray: a serious drama. 1795.
The wounded soldier: a poem. 1795?
The pains of memory. A poem. 1796.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
English
Anglican
Harrow
Christ's College Cambridge
Lincoln's Inn
Inns of Court
actor
poet
dramatist
European Magazine
The World
The Courier
The Oracle
The Argus
The Telegraph
Philadelphia Monthly Magazine
George Monck Berkeley
Hannah Cowley
Bertie Greatheed
Edward Jerningham
Samuel Parr
William Parsons
Hester Thrale Piozzi
Mary Robinson
Samuel Rogers
John Taylor Esq.
Richard Tickell
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL.
Catalogue of five hundred Celebrated Authors (1788); "Some Account of Robert Merry, Esq." in European Magazine 24 (December 1793) 411-12 [portrait]; "Biographical Anecdotes of Mrs. Merry" Philadelphia Magazine 1 (April 1798) 185-88; David Rivers, Literary Memoirs of Living Authors (1798); "Robert Merry" Weekly Magazine [Philadelphia] 4 (20 April 1799) 51-52 [from Rivers]; obituary in Gentleman's Magazine 69 (March 1799) 252-54; "Memoir of Mr. Robert Merry" Monthly Magazine 7 (April 1799) 255-58; Robert Southey, Specimens of Later English Poets (1807); Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); Biographia Dramatica (1812); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Blackwood's Magazine 10:696; The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most Eminent Persons (1832-34); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Roderick Marshall, in Italy in English Literature 1755-1815 (1934); Venn and Venn, Alum. Cant. (1940-54); J. L. Clifford, "Merry: a pre-Byronic Hero" Bulletin of John Rylands Library 27 (1943) 74-96; Edward E. Bostetter, "The Original Della Cruscans" Huntington Library Quarterly 19 (1956) 277-300; W. N. Hargreaves-Mawdsley, The English Della Cruscans and their Time, 1783-1828 (1967); Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995).
COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Robert Merry:
BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Robert Merry:
AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)
1. | 1787 Hannah Cowley: Robert Merry, "To Anna Matilda" The World (31 July 1787). |
2. | 1788 Richard Tickell: Robert Merry, "Monody. Addressed to Mr. Tickell" Poetry of the World (1788) 1:76-77. |
3. | 1791 Mary Robinson: Robert Merry, "Stanzas, to Mrs. Robinson on reading her Poems" New London Magazine 7 (December 1791) 580. |
4. | 1794 Samuel Rogers: Robert Merry to Samuel Rogers, January 1794; P. W. Clayden, The Early Life of Samuel Rogers (1887) 284. |