SOUTH, ROBERT (1634-1716). —Divine, s. of a London merchant, was b. at Hackney, and ed. at Westminster School and Oxf., where in 1660 he was appointed Univ. Orator. He became domestic chaplain to the Lord Chancellor Clarendon, and in 1663 the degree of D.D. was conferred upon him. After accompanying an embassy to Poland he became Rector of Islip, and a chaplain to Charles II. Thereafter he steadily declined higher preferment, including the bishopric of Rochester. He was opposed to the Romanising measures of James II., but owing to his views as to the duty of passive obedience he declined to associate himself in any way with the Revolution, to which nevertheless he submitted. He was an expert controversialist, but it is chiefly by his sermons, which are among the classics of English divinity, that he is remembered. He has the reputation of being the wittiest of English preachers, and this characteristic is sometimes present to a degree not quite suitable to the subjects treated.
SOUTHERNE, THOMAS (1660-1746). —Dramatist, b. in Dublin, and ed. at Trinity Coll. there, came to London and studied law at the Middle Temple. Afterwards he entered the army and saw service. He wrote ten plays, of which two were long acted and are still remembered, The Fatal Marriage (1694) and Oroonoko (1696), in the latter of which he appeals passionately against the slave-trade. Unlike most preceding dramatists he was a practical man, succeeded in his theatrical management, and retired on a fortune. Other plays are The Loyal Brother (1682), The Disappointment (1684), The Wives' Excuse (1692), The Spartan Dame (1719), etc.
SOUTHEY, MRS. CAROLINE ANNE (BOWLES) (1786-1854). —Poetess, dau. of a captain in the navy, submitted a poem, Ellen Fitzarthur to [Southey] (q.v.), which led to a friendship, and to a proposed joint poem on Robin Hood, not, however, carried out, and eventually to her becoming the poet's second wife. She wrote various other works, including Chapters on Churchyards and Tales of the Factories.
SOUTHEY, ROBERT (1774-1843). —Poet, biographer, etc., s. of an unsuccessful linen-draper in Bristol, where he was b., was sent to Westminster School, and in 1792 went to Oxf. His friendship with Coleridge began in 1794, and with him he joined in the scheme of a "pantisocracy" (see [Coleridge]). In 1795 he m. his first wife, Edith Fricker, and thus became the brother-in-law of Coleridge. Shortly afterwards he visited Spain, and in 1800 Portugal, and laid the foundations of his thorough knowledge of the history and literature of the Peninsula. Between these two periods of foreign travel he had attempted the study of law, which proved entirely uncongenial; and in 1803 he settled at Greta Hall, Keswick, to which neighbourhood the Coleridges had also come. Here he set himself to a course of indefatigable literary toil which only ended with his life. Thalaba had appeared in 1801, and there followed Madoc (1805), The Curse of Kehama (1810), Roderic, the Last of the Goths (1814), and A Vision of Judgment (1821); and in prose a History of Brazil, Lives of Nelson (1813), Wesley (1820), and Bunyan (1830), The Book of the Church (1824), History of the Peninsular War (1823-32), Naval History, and The Doctor (1834-37). In addition to this vast amount of work he had been from 1808 a constant contributor to the Quarterly Review. In 1839 when he was failing both in body and mind he m., as his second wife, Miss Caroline Ann Bowles, who had for 20 years been his intimate friend, and by whom his few remaining years were soothed. Though the name of S. still bulks somewhat largely in the history of our literature, his works, with a few exceptions, are now little read, and those of them (his longer poems, Thalaba and Kehama) on which he himself based his hopes of lasting fame, least of all. To this result their length, remoteness from living interests, and the impression that their often splendid diction is rather eloquence than true poetry, have contributed. Some of his shorter poems, e.g., "The Holly Tree," and "The Battle of Blenheim" still live, but his fame now rests on his vigorous prose and especially on his classic Life of Nelson. Like Wordsworth and Coleridge, S. began life as a democratic visionary, and was strongly influenced by the French Revolution, but gradually cooled down into a pronounced Tory. He was himself greater and better than any of his works, his life being a noble record of devotion to duty and unselfish benevolence. He held the office of Poet Laureate from 1813, and had a pension from Government. He declined a baronetcy.
Life and Correspondence (6 vols., 1849-50) by his younger son, Rev. C. Southey. Life by Dowden in Men of Letters (1880).
SOUTHWELL, ROBERT (1561?-1595). —Poet, b. at Horsham St. Faith's, Norfolk, of good Roman Catholic family, and ed. at Douay, Paris, and Rome, he became a Jesuit, and showed such learning and ability as to be appointed Prefect of the English Coll. In 1586 he came to England with Garnett, the superior of the English province, and became chaplain to the Countess of Arundel. His being in England for more than 40 days then rendered him liable to the punishment of death and disembowelment, and in 1592 he was apprehended and imprisoned in the Tower for three years, during which he was tortured 13 times. He was then put on trial and executed, February 22, 1595. He was the author of St. Peter's Complaint and The Burning Babe, a short poem of great imaginative power, and of several prose religious works, including St. Mary Magdalene's Teares, A Short Rule of Good Life, The Triumphs over Death, etc.