Editing Robert Southey (section)

==Life==
[[File:Wine Street 1872.jpg|thumb|left|Wine Street, Bristol (1872)]]
Robert Southey was born in Wine Street, [[Bristol]], to Robert Southey and Margaret Hill.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/bha047 Basil Cottle, ''Robert Southey and Bristol'' (Bristol Historical Association pamphlets, no. 47, 1980), p.1]</ref> He was educated at [[Westminster School]], London (where he was expelled for writing an article in ''The Flagellant'', a magazine he originated,<ref name=OCEL>[[Margaret Drabble]] ed: ''The Oxford Companion to English Literature'' (6th edition, Oxford, 2000), about criticized the school's practice of excessive whippings, pp 953-4.</ref> attributing the invention of flogging to the Devil),<ref>Geoffrey Treasure: ''Who's Who in Late Hanoverian Britain'' (2nd, enlarged edition, London: Shepheard-Walwyn, 1997), p. 143.</ref> and at [[Balliol College, Oxford]].<ref name="ODNB">{{Cite ODNB |last=Carnall |first=Geoffrey |title=Southey, Robert (1774–1843), poet and reviewer |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/26056 |edition=online |year=2004 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/26056 |access-date=26 August 2012}}</ref>

Southey went to Oxford with "a heart full of poetry and feeling, a head full of [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau|Rousseau]] and [[The Sorrows of Young Werther|Werther]], and my religious principles shaken by [[Edward Gibbon|Gibbon]]".<ref name=OCEL/> He later said of Oxford, "All I learnt was a little swimming... and a little boating". He did, however, write a play, ''Wat Tyler'' (which, in 1817, after he became Poet Laureate, was published, to embarrass him, by his enemies). Experimenting with a writing partnership with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, most notably in their joint composition of ''[[The Fall of Robespierre]]'', Southey published his first collection of poems in 1794. The same year, Southey, Coleridge, [[Robert Lovell]] and several others discussed creating an idealistic community ("[[pantisocracy]]") on the banks of the [[Susquehanna River]] in America.

In 1795 he married Edith Fricker, whose sister Sara married Coleridge. The same year, he travelled to Portugal, and wrote ''Joan of Arc'', published in 1796. He then wrote many ballads, went to Spain in 1800, and on his return settled in the [[Lake District]].<ref name=OCEL/>

In 1799, Southey and Coleridge were involved with early experiments with [[nitrous oxide]] (laughing gas), conducted by the [[Cornish people|Cornish]] scientist [[Humphry Davy]].<ref>[http://www.nndb.com/people/028/000083776/ Humphry Davy], NNDB</ref>[[File:Illustrirte Zeitung (1843) 06 016 2 Southey's Haus, Gretahof.PNG|thumb|[[Greta Hall]], [[Keswick, Cumbria|Keswick]]]][[File:Matilda Betham, Portrait of Edith May Southey, 1809.jpg|thumb|left|Mary Matilda Betham, ''Portrait of Edith May Southey'', 1809{{r|Letter 1669}}]][[File:Matilda Betham, Portrait of Herbert Southey, 1809.jpg|thumb|left|[[Mary Matilda Betham]], ''Portrait of Herbert'', 1809<ref name="Letter 1669">{{cite web |title=Letter 1669. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 12 August 1809 |url=http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/southey_letters/Part_Three/HTML/letterEEd.26.1669.html |work=The Collected Letters of Robert Southey |publisher=Romantic Circles, University of Maryland |date=12 August 1809 |access-date=6 March 2015}}</ref>]]

While writing prodigiously, he received a government pension in 1807, and in 1809 started a long association with the [[Quarterly Review]], which provided almost his only income for most of his life. He was appointed laureate in 1813, a post he came greatly to dislike. 

In 1819 Southey accompanied the Scottish civil engineer [[Thomas Telford]], whom Southey nicknamed the “Colossus of Roads”<ref>{{cite web |last1=Smith |first1=Nick |title=Late great engineers: Thomas Telford – the ‘Colossus of Roads’ |url=https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/in-depth/late-great-engineers-thomas-telford-the-colossus-of-roads/ |website=The Engineer |access-date=2024-12-15 |date=2023-05-23}}</ref> on a tour of inspection of Telford’s works in Scotland. These included the [[Caledonian Canal]] (which would open three years later) and a number of Telford's roads, bridges, and harbour works. Southey’s account of the tour, ''Journal of a Tour in Scotland in 1819,''<ref>{{cite book |last1=Southey |first1=Robert |title=Journal of a Tour in Scotland in 1819 |publisher=London, John Murray |edition=1929 |url=https://archive.org/details/journaloftourins00sout/mode/2up |access-date=2024-12-15}}</ref> gives detailed descriptions of Telford’s engineering projects and records Southey’s own impressions of the Scottish landscape and people.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Smiles |first1=Samuel |title=The life of Thomas Telford, Civil Engineer. With an introductory history of roads and travelling in Great Britain |date=1867 |publisher=London, John Murray |page=292 ff |url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924031188802/page/n331/mode/2up |access-date=2024-12-15}}</ref>

In 1821, Southey wrote ''A Vision of Judgment'', to commemorate [[George III]], in the preface to which he attacked [[Lord Byron|Byron]] who, as well as responding with a parody, ''[[The Vision of Judgment]]'' (see below), mocked him frequently in ''[[Don Juan (poem)|Don Juan]]''.<ref name=OCEL/>

[[File:Robert Southey by Sir Francis Chantrey, 1832, National Portrait Gallery, London.jpg|thumb|upright|Robert Southey, by Sir [[Francis Chantrey]], 1832, [[National Portrait Gallery, London|National Portrait Gallery]], London]]
In 1837, Edith died, and Southey remarried, to [[Caroline Anne Southey|Caroline Anne Bowles]], also a poet, on 4 June 1839.<ref>{{Cite ODNB |last=Blain |first=Virginia H. |title=Southey, Caroline Anne Bowles (1786–1854), poet and writer |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/26054 |edition=online |year=2004 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/26054}}</ref> The marriage broke down,<ref>[[Fiona Sampson]], ''Two-Way Mirror – The Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning'', Profile Books (2021), p 123</ref> not least because of his increasing dementia. His mind was giving way when he wrote a last letter to his friend [[Walter Savage Landor]] in 1839, but he continued to mention Landor's name when generally incapable of mentioning anyone. He died on 21 March 1843 and was buried in the churchyard of [[Crosthwaite Parish Church|Crosthwaite Church]], Keswick, where he had worshipped for forty years. There is a memorial to him inside the church, with an epitaph written by his friend William Wordsworth.
[[File:Robert Southey by Vandyke.jpg|thumb|[[Peter Vandyke]], ''Portrait of Robert Southey'', ''Aged 21'', 1795]]

Southey was also a prolific letter writer, literary scholar, essay writer, historian and biographer. His biographies include the life and works of [[John Bunyan]], [[John Wesley]], [[William Cowper]], [[Oliver Cromwell]] and [[Horatio Nelson]]. The last has rarely been out of print since its publication in 1813 and was adapted as the 1926 British film ''[[Nelson (1926 film)|Nelson]]''.

He was a generous man, particularly kind to Coleridge's abandoned family, but he incurred the enmity of many, including [[William Hazlitt|Hazlitt]] as well as Byron, who felt he had betrayed his principles in accepting pensions and the laureateship, and in retracting his youthful ideals.<ref name=OCEL/>