• Name: Merry, Robert
• Gender: Male
• Birth Date: April  1755
• Death Date: 24  December  1798

Merry was a poet and dramatist with radical tendencies. In August 1791, he married the actress Ann Brunton who had appeared in his 1791 tragedy Lorenzo and when she was offered an engagement in New York, they emigrated there in 1796.

It is interesting that Godwin enters Merry under 1793 in the 1796 list of first meetings. This implies that the two previous appearances of Merry did not involve Godwin meeting him:

14 July 1791: 'Crown & Anchor: Rous & Merry: B. Hollis, Shore, Barbauld, Disney, Jennings, Rees, Morgan, Lindsey, Lewis.'

28 May 1792: 'Holcroft dines with Merry & Pain{e}.'

The second clearly makes sense - Godwin is enviously recording Holcroft's dinner. Regarding the earlier entry: 'On 14 July 1791, the second anniversary of the fall of the Bastile, Godwin and nine hundred others again assembled for a celebratory dinner at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand. Robert Merry, the Della Cruscan poet, had composed an Ode with a bold metaphor drawn from Priestley's scientific discoveries which was set to music and sung.' (St Clair, p. 51). Godwin records Merry, which probably refers to his presence and his Ode, but the 1796 list suggests that he did not consider that he had met him that night.

There is one mention of Merry in 1799, the year after his death, as a topic for a conversation, but the Merry mentioned in 1814 is uncoded.

Godwin records his death

• DNB
• William St Clair, The Godwins and the Shelleys

This table lists the people this person is most frequently noted with in the diary.