British literature Among Wordsworth's most important poems, are "Michael", "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey", "Resolution and Independence", "" and the long, autobiographical, epic "The Prelude". Robert Southey (1774–1843) was another of the so-called "Lake Poets", and Poet Laureate for 30 years from 1813 to his death in 1843. Although his fame has been long eclipsed by that of his contemporaries and friends William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Thomas De Quincey (1785–1859) was an English essayist, best known for his "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater" (1821), an autobiographical account of his laudanum and its effect on his life. The
To Southey name "To Robert Southey, of Baliol College, Oxford, Author of the 'Retrospect,' and Other Poems". It was the only time the poem was published. Although Coleridge and Southey continued to spend time together and collaborate on their poetic efforts, their relationship was greatly strained and their ideas for the Pantisocratic government fell apart. The change in Coleridge's opinions on both Southey and William Godwin is reflected in Coleridge's not republishing the poems on either of them within his 1796 collection of poems. However, Coleridge also omitted the poems because he did not think they were any good. The only edition