SOUTHEY, RonEnT, was b. Aug. 12, 1774, at Bristol, in which city his father was a linen-draper. In 1788 he was sent to Westminster school by his maternal uncle, the rev. Herbert Hill, chaplain to the English factory at Lisbon, who undertook the charge ofyls eslueations hiss-father's pecuniary affairs having become much embarrassed. At Westminster, he much distinguished himself; but in 1792 a trivial insubordination led to his expulsion; and next year lie was entered at Rallied college, Oxford, with a view to his taking orders. This, however, lie ultimately declined to do, having been led by his sympathy with the French revolution, into a considerable departure from the ortho dox civil and religious standards. In 1794, lie left Oxford, having published the year before, in conjunction with his friend 'Robert Lovell, a small volume of poems, the first literary venture of a life thenceforward to be almost wholly devoted to literature. Shortly after. he received from Cottle, for his first poem of any length, Joan of Are, the sum of £50; and in Nov.. 1795, he was married to a Miss Fricker of Bristol; Cole•. ridge, with whom lie had become intimate, on the same day marrying a sister. After passing some little time with this uncle in Portugal, engaged in a diligent study of the laegnage arid literature of that country II lid of Spain, he became a student of law at Gray's Inn. Ilere he worked at his new poem of Madoe, and learned nothing whatever of law, a pursnit which he speedily relinquished as boneless. In 1801 he accepted a situation secretary to Mr. Corry, chancellor of the exchequer for Ireland; but finding its disSit•s distasteful to him, he very soon threw it up, and finally betook himself to literature an his sole source of livelihood.
In 1834 he settled himself at Greta ball, near Keswick Cumberland, where he spent the remainder of his life, working with the regularity of a machine, happy in his family relations and his unremitting daily round of congenial, though continuous toil. His biography thence onward for 40 years, till the pen dropped front his fingers, might be summarized in the list of his works, which of itself would till a page or two. In
adhil ion to these formal publications, he wrote largely for various periodicals, notably for the Qoa•terly Retime, to which, from its establishment in 1S09—having now become as violently conservative in his views as in youth he had been revolutionary—lie was a most constant and valued contributor.
In 1807, in consit:eration of his services to literature. a pension of £160 per annum was awarded hint; cad in 1813, on the death of Mr. Pye, he succeeded him as poet laureate. Through sir Robert Peel, in 1835, he received a further pension of £300, and along with it the offer of a baronetcy, which, however, he decided to decline. his first wife dying in 1837, he, two years after, was married to Miss Caroline Bowles. Ott March 21, 1813, he died, his few !sst years having for the most part been passed in a state of painful mental stupor, whirl: incapacitated him for literary exertion.
Southey's poetry—except in a few of his shorter ballad pieces—can at no time be said to have been popular, and is now nearly forgotten. His chief works are .31adoc, Thalaba, The Curse of Kehama, and Don Roderick, of which the last two are reckoned the best. In all of theta are to be found noble passages, in which an ample and stately rhetoric counterfeits with surprising success the pure instinct of music; but they rather skillfully illustrate the art and technic of poetry than breathe its essential life. As a prose writer he ranks high; his style is easy, lucid, agreeable, nicely modulated throughout, and readily rising into eloquence on suliszustions of sentiment and subject. But of all his multifarious writings in this kind, lits little Life of Nelson seems most likely to survive as classic. The must popular of Ids works when produced, it continues to be admired as, within the assigned limits, an almost perfect model of biography. Other very excellent biographies, 116Weye•, are those of the pact Cowper, of Runyan, and Wesley. His life andcorrespondence, edited by his son, wi,s published in 6 vols. (1840); and a selection front his letters, edited by his son-in-law, in 4 vols. (1856).