Robert Southey Robert Southey Robert Southey ( or (12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic school, one of the Lake Poets along with William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and England's Poet Laureate for 30 years from 1813 until his death in 1843. Although his fame has been eclipsed by that of Wordsworth and Coleridge, his verse still enjoys some popularity. 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
William Wordsworth work of original materialist philosophy entitled "The Apocalypse of Nature" (London, 1791), to which many of Wordsworth's philosophical sentiments may well be indebted. In 1807 Wordsworth published "Poems in Two Volumes", including "". Up to this point Wordsworth was known only for "Lyrical Ballads", and he hoped that this new collection would cement his reputation. Its reception was lukewarm, however. In 1810, Wordsworth and Coleridge were estranged over the latter's opium addiction, and in 1812, his son Thomas died at the age of 6, six months after the death of 3-year-old Catherine. The following year he received an appointment as