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
Robert Southey "The Doctor". He also wrote on political issues, which led to a brief, non-sitting, spell as a Tory Member of Parliament. Robert Southey was born in Wine Street, Bristol, to Robert Southey and Margaret Hill. He was educated at Westminster School, London, (where he was expelled for writing an article in "The Flagellant" attributing the invention of flogging to the Devil) and Balliol College, Oxford. Southey later said of Oxford, "All I learnt was a little swimming ... and a little boating." Experimenting with a writing partnership with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, most notably in their joint composition of "The Fall