THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR.
[Abridged.]
ROBERT SOUTHEY.
Robert Southey was born at Bristol, England, on the 12th of August, 1774. He was a sensitive child, easily affected by even the simple tales told him in infancy by his loving mother and his faithful nurse.
Little Robert was taken by an aunt to Bath when he was about four years old. Here he led a lonely life without playmates, and guarded upon every side. He was allowed to wander about the garden by himself and made friends with the insects and flowers, often gazing wistfully toward a sham castle on Clamton Hill, two miles distant. Oh, how the little fellow longed for freedom! When he was six years old he returned to his father’s house.
He went soon after to visit his grandmother at Bedminster. This was a wonderful change for the boy. Free to roam at his own sweet will, every hour in the day was a delight to him, and the influence of this emancipation followed him throughout his entire life.
On his return home, he was sent as day scholar for a year to a Mr. Foot and then to a boys’ school at Corston, nine miles from home. The teaching was of little value, and the household arrangements were very crude. Each morning the boys washed in a brook which ran through the yard. This brook was like a jolly playfellow, bringing apples from the orchards through which it ran, and affording scope for many a game. Southey gained little learning from the two years spent here, but he had formed a taste for literature when very young. His aunt had taken him to see many of Shakespeare’s plays while he visited her, and her conversation was largely of actors and authors. Little Robert soon learned to look upon the authors with reverence. His earliest efforts at literature were associated with the drama. He began to write little plays. He read Shakespeare again and again, and had read Beaumont and Fletcher before he was eight years of age.
Southey was sent to school at Westminster when he was fourteen years old and remained there four years. He was then sent away because of a sarcastic article which he had written on flogging.