The punning nickname "Colossus of Roads" was given to Telford by his friend, the eventual Poet Laureate, Robert Southey. Telford's reputation as a man of letters may have preceded his fame as an engineer: he had published poetry between 1779 and 1784, and an account of a tour of Scotland with Southey. His will left bequests to Southey (who would later write Telford's biography), the poet Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) and to the publishers of the "Edinburgh Encyclopædia" (to which he had been a contributor).