SOUTHEY, ROBERT
English poet and man of letters, was born at Bristol on Aug. 12, 1774. His father, Robert Southey, an unsuccessful linendraper, married Margaret Hill in 772. When he was three, Southey passed into the care of Eliza beth Tyler, his mother's half-sister, at Bath, where most of his childhood was spent. In 1788 he was entered at Westminster school. After four years there he was privately expelled by Dr. William Vincent (1739-1815), for an essay against flogging called The Flagellant, written for a school magazine. His uncle, Her bert Hill, chaplain of the British factory at Lisbon, who had paid for his education at Westminster, determined to send him to Oxford with a view to his taking holy orders, but the news of his escapade at Westminster had preceded him, and he was refused at Christ Church. Finally he was admitted at Balliol, where he lived a life apart, and gained little or nothing except a liking for swimming and a knowledge of Epictetus.
In the vacation of 1793 Southey's enthusiasm for the French Revolution found vent in writing an epic poem, Joan of Arc, published in 1796 by Joseph Cottle, the Bristol bookseller. In 1794 Coleridge, then on a visit to Oxford, was introduced to Southey, and filled his head with dreams of an American Utopia on the banks of the Susquehanna. The members of the "pantisocracy" were to earn their living by tilling the soil, while their wives cared for the house and children. Coleridge and Southey soon met again at Bristol, and with Robert Lovell developed the emigration scheme. Lovell had married Mary Fricker, whose sister Sara married Coleridge, and Southey now became engaged to a third sister, Edith. Miss Tyler, however, would have none of "pantisocracy" and "aspheterism," and drove Southey from her house. To raise the necessary funds for the enterprise Coleridge and he turned to lecturing and journalism. Cottle generously gave Southey £50 for Joan of Arc; and, with Coleridge and Lovell, Southey had dashed off the drama, printed as the work of Coleridge, on The Fall of Robespierre. A volume of Poems by R. Southey and R. Lovell was also published by Cottle in 1795. Southey's uncle, Mr. Hill, now desired him to go with him to Portugal. Before he started for Corunna he was married secretly (Nov. 14,
to Edith Fricker. On his return to England he and his wife had lodgings for some time at Bristol. He was entered at Gray's Inn in February 1797. At
the end of 1797 his friend Wynn began an allowance of ii60 a year, which was continued until 1806, when Southey relinquished it on Wynn's marriage. His Letters written during a Short Resi dence in Spain and Portugal was printed by Cottle in 1797, and in 1797-1799 appeared two volumes of Minor Poems from the same press. In 1798 he paid a visit to Norwich, where he met Frank Sayers and William Taylor, with whose translations from the German he was already acquainted. He then took a cottage for himself and his wife at Westbury near Bristol, and afterwards at Burton in Hampshire. At Burton he was seized with a nervous fever which had been threatening for some time. He moved to Bristol, and after preparing for the press his edition of the works of Thomas Chatterton, undertaken for the relief of the poet's sister and her child, he sailed in 1800 for Portugal, where he be gan to accumulate materials for his history of Portugal. He also had brought with him the first six books of Thalaba the De stroyer (I8or), and the remaining six were completed at Cintra.
In 1801 the Southeys returned to Eng land, and at the invitation of Coleridge, who held out as an in ducement the society of Wordsworth, they visited Keswick. After a short experience as private secretary to Isaac Corry, chancellor of the exchequer for Ireland, Southey in 1803 settled at Greta Hall, Keswick, which he and his family shared thenceforward with the Coleridges and Mrs. Lovell. There he accumulated a library consisting of over 14,00o volumes, including valuable mss. and a collection of Portuguese authorities probably unique in England. After 1809, when Coleridge left his family, the whole household was dependent on Southey's exertions. His nervous temperament suffered under the strain, and he found relief in keeping different kinds of work on hand at the same time, in turning from the History of Portugal to poetry. Madoc and Metrical Tales and Other Poems appeared in 1805, The Curse of Kehama in 181o, Roderick, the last of the Goths, in
This constant application was lightened by a happy family life. Southey was devoted to his children, and was hospitable. He met Walter Savage Landor in 1808, and their affection was lasting.