Thomas Girtin
Thomas Girtin was an English watercolourist and etcher. A friend and rival of J. M. W. Turner, Girtin played a key role in establishing watercolour as a reputable art form. Thomas Girtin was born in Southwark, the son of a wealthy brushmaker of Huguenot descent, his father died while Thomas was a child, his mother married a Mr Vaughan, a pattern-draughtsman. Girtin learnt drawing as a boy, was apprenticed to Edward Dayes, a topographical watercolourist, he is believed to have served out his seven-year term, although there are unconfirmed reports of clashes between master and apprentice, that Dayes had Girtin imprisoned as a refractory apprentice. Dayes did not appreciate his pupil's talent, he was to write dismissively of Girtin after his death. While a youth, Girtin became friends with J. M. W. Turner and the teenagers were employed to colour prints with watercolours. Girtin exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1794, his architectural and topographical sketches and drawings established his reputation, his use of watercolour for landscapes being such as to give him the credit of having created Romantic watercolour painting.
He went on several sketching tours, visiting the north of North Wales and the West Country. By 1799, he had acquired influential patrons such as Lady Sutherland, the art collector Sir George Beaumont, he was the dominant member of the Brothers, a sketching society of professional artists and talented amateurs. In 1800, Girtin married Mary Ann Borrett, the 16-year-old daughter of a well-to-do City goldsmith, set up home in St George's Row, Hyde Park, next door to the painter Paul Sandby. By 1801, he was a welcome houseguest at his patrons' country houses such as Harewood House and Mulgrave Castle, able to charge 20 guineas for a painting, but his health was deteriorating. In late 1801 to early 1802, he spent five and a half months in Paris, where he painted watercolours and made a series the pencil sketches which he engraved on his return to London, they were published as Twenty Views in its Environs after his death. In spring and summer 1802, Girtin produced a panorama of London, the "Eidometropolis", 18 feet high and 108 feet in circumference, exhibited with success that year.
It was notable for its naturalistic treatment of urban atmosphere. That November, Girtin died in his painting room. Girtin's early landscapes are akin to 18th-century topographical sketches, but in years he developed a bolder, more spacious, romantic style, which had a lasting influence on English painting; the scenery of the north encouraged him to create a new watercolour palette of warm browns, slate greys and purple. He abandoned the practice of undershadowing in grey wash and adding pastel patches of colour, in favour of broad washes of strong colour, experimented with the use of pen, brown ink and varnish to add richer tones. Girtin's early death caused Turner to remark, "Had Tom Girtin lived I should have starved." The British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum have collections of his work. The British Museum was given significant Girtin watercolours by the collector Chambers Hall. In July 2002 Tate Britain organised an exhibition, Thomas Girtin: The Art of Watercolour which aimed to "reveal his technical genius".
Chronologically: Prints & People: A Social History of Printed Pictures, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on Thomas Girtin The 261 works of Girtin at Tate Britain 25 paintings at Museum Syndicate
Cornwall
Cornwall is a county in South West England in the United Kingdom. The county is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar which forms most of the border between them. Cornwall forms the westernmost part of the South West Peninsula of the island of Great Britain; the furthest southwestern point of Great Britain is Land's End. Cornwall has a population of 563,600 and covers an area of 3,563 km2; the county has been administered since 2009 by Cornwall Council. The ceremonial county of Cornwall includes the Isles of Scilly, which are administered separately; the administrative centre of Cornwall, its only city, is Truro. Cornwall is the homeland of the Cornish people and the cultural and ethnic origin of the Cornish diaspora, it retains a distinct cultural identity that reflects its history, is recognised as one of the Celtic nations. It was a Brythonic kingdom and subsequently a royal duchy; the Cornish nationalist movement contests the present constitutional status of Cornwall and seeks greater autonomy within the United Kingdom in the form of a devolved legislative Cornish Assembly with powers similar to those in Wales and Scotland.
In 2014, Cornish people were granted minority status under the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, giving them recognition as a distinct ethnic group. First inhabited in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods, Cornwall continued to be occupied by Neolithic and Bronze Age peoples, by Brythons with strong ethnic, linguistic and cultural links to Wales and Brittany the latter of, settled by Britons from the region. Mining in Cornwall and Devon in the south-west of England began in the early Bronze Age. Few Roman remains have been found in Cornwall, there is little evidence that the Romans settled or had much military presence there. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Cornwall was a part of the Brittonic kingdom of Dumnonia, ruled by chieftains of the Cornovii who may have included figures regarded as semi-historical or legendary, such as King Mark of Cornwall and King Arthur, evidenced by folklore traditions derived from the Historia Regum Britanniae.
The Cornovii division of the Dumnonii tribe were separated from their fellow Brythons of Wales after the Battle of Deorham in 577 AD, came into conflict with the expanding English kingdom of Wessex. The regions of Dumnonia outside of Cornwall had been annexed by the English by 838 AD. King Athelstan in 936 AD set the boundary between the English and Cornish at the high water mark of the eastern bank of the River Tamar. From the early Middle Ages and culture were shared by Brythons trading across both sides of the Channel, resulting in the corresponding high medieval Breton kingdoms of Domnonée and Cornouaille and the Celtic Christianity common to both areas. Tin mining was important in the Cornish economy. In the mid-19th century, the tin and copper mines entered a period of decline. Subsequently, china clay extraction became more important, metal mining had ended by the 1990s. Traditionally and agriculture were the other important sectors of the economy. Railways led to a growth of tourism in the 20th century.
Cornwall is noted for coastal scenery. A large part of the Cornubian batholith is within Cornwall; the north coast has many cliffs. The area is noted for its wild moorland landscapes, its long and varied coastline, its attractive villages, its many place-names derived from the Cornish language, its mild climate. Extensive stretches of Cornwall's coastline, Bodmin Moor, are protected as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty; the modern English name Cornwall is a compound of two ancient demonyms coming from two different language groups: Corn- originates from the Brythonic tribe, the Cornovii. The Celtic word "kernou" is cognate with the English word "horn". -wall derives from the Old English exonym walh, meaning "foreigner" or "Roman". In the Cornish language, Cornwall is known as Kernow which stems from a similar linguistic background; the present human history of Cornwall begins with the reoccupation of Britain after the last Ice Age. The area now known as Cornwall was first inhabited in the Mesolithic periods.
It continued to be occupied by Neolithic and Bronze Age people. According to John T. Koch and others, Cornwall in the Late Bronze Age was part of a maritime trading-networked culture called the Atlantic Bronze Age, in modern-day Ireland, Wales, France and Portugal. During the British Iron Age, like all of Britain, was inhabited by a Celtic people known as the Britons with distinctive cultural relations to neighbouring Brittany; the Common Brittonic spoken at the time developed into several distinct tongues, including Cornish, Breton and Pictish. The first account of Cornwall comes from the 1st-century BC Sicilian Greek historian Diodorus Siculus quoting or paraphrasing the 4th-century BCE geographer P
Diego Velázquez
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV, one of the most important painters of the Spanish Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period. In addition to numerous renditions of scenes of historical and cultural significance, he painted scores of portraits of the Spanish royal family, other notable European figures, commoners, culminating in the production of his masterpiece Las Meninas. From the first quarter of the nineteenth century, Velázquez's artwork was a model for the realist and impressionist painters, in particular Édouard Manet. Since that time, famous modern artists, including Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Francis Bacon, have paid tribute to Velázquez by recreating several of his most famous works. Velázquez was born in Seville, the first child of João Rodrigues de Silva and Jerónima Velázquez, was baptized at the church of St. Peter in Seville on Sunday, June 6, 1599; the baptism most occurred a few days or weeks after his birth.
His paternal grandparents, Diogo da Silva and Maria Rodrigues, had moved to Seville from their native Portugal decades earlier. When Velázquez was offered knighthood in 1658, he claimed descent from the lesser nobility in order to qualify. Velázquez was educated by his parents to fear God and, intended for a learned profession, received good training in languages and philosophy. Influenced by many artists, he showed an early gift for art. Velázquez remained with him for one year, it was from Herrera that he learned to use brushes with long bristles. After leaving Herrera's studio when he was 12 years old, Velázquez began to serve as an apprentice under Francisco Pacheco, an artist and teacher in Seville. Though considered a dull, undistinguished painter, Pacheco sometimes expressed a simple, direct realism in contradiction to the style of Raphael that he was taught. Velázquez remained in Pacheco's school for five years, studying proportion and perspective and witnessing the trends in the literary and artistic circles of Seville.
By the early 1620s, his position and reputation were assured in Seville. On April 23, 1618, Velázquez married the daughter of his teacher, she bore him two daughters—his only known family. The elder, Francisca de Silva Velázquez y Pacheco, married painter Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo at the Church of Santiago in Madrid on August 21, 1633. Velázquez produced notable works during this time. Known for his compositions of amusing genre scenes called bodegones, such as Old Woman Frying Eggs. Christ in the House of Martha combines this bodegón type in a religious scene, his sacred subjects include Adoración de los Reyes and Jesús y los peregrinos de Emaús, both of which begin to express his more pointed and careful realism. Velázquez went to Madrid in the first half of April 1622, with letters of introduction to Don Juan de Fonseca, himself from Seville, chaplain to the King. At the request of Pacheco, Velázquez painted the portrait of the famous poet Luis de Góngora. Velázquez painted Góngora crowned with a laurel wreath, but painted over it at some unknown date.
It is possible that Velázquez stopped in Toledo on his way from Seville, on the advice of Pacheco, or back from Madrid on that of Góngora, a great admirer of El Greco, having composed a poem on the occasion of his death. In December 1622, Rodrigo de Villandrando, the king's favorite court painter, died. Don Juan de Fonseca conveyed to Velázquez the command to come to the court from the Count-Duke of Olivares, the powerful minister of Philip IV, he was offered 50 ducats to defray his expenses, he was accompanied by his father-in-law. Fonseca lodged the young painter in his own home and sat for a portrait himself, when completed, was conveyed to the royal palace. A portrait of the king was commissioned. On August 16, 1623, Philip IV sat for Velázquez. Completed in one day, the portrait was to have been no more than a head sketch, but both the king and Olivares were pleased. Olivares commanded Velázquez to move to Madrid, promising that no other painter would paint Philip's portrait and all other portraits of the king would be withdrawn from circulation.
In the following year, 1624, he received 300 ducats from the king to pay the cost of moving his family to Madrid, which became his home for the remainder of his life. Through the bust portrait of the king, painted in 1623, Velázquez secured admission to the royal service, with a salary of 20 ducats per month, besides medical attendance and payment for the pictures he might paint; the portrait was received with enthusiasm. It is now lost; the Museo del Prado, has two of Velázquez's portraits of the king in which the severity of the Seville period has disappeared and the tones are more delicate. The modeling is firm, recalling that of Antonio Mor, the Dutch portrait painter of Philip II, who exercised a considerable influence on the Spanish school. In the same year, the Prince of Wales arrived at the court of Spain. Records indicate that he sat for Velázquez. In September 1628, Peter Paul Rubens came to Madrid as an emissary from th
George III of the United Kingdom
George III was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death in 1820. He was concurrently Duke and prince-elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg in the Holy Roman Empire before becoming King of Hanover on 12 October 1814, he was the third British monarch of the House of Hanover, but unlike his two predecessors, he was born in Great Britain, spoke English as his first language, never visited Hanover. His life and with it his reign, which were longer than those of any of his predecessors, were marked by a series of military conflicts involving his kingdoms, much of the rest of Europe, places farther afield in Africa, the Americas and Asia. Early in his reign, Great Britain defeated France in the Seven Years' War, becoming the dominant European power in North America and India. However, many of Britain's American colonies were soon lost in the American War of Independence.
Further wars against revolutionary and Napoleonic France from 1793 concluded in the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. In the part of his life, George III had recurrent, permanent, mental illness. Although it has since been suggested that he had bipolar disorder or the blood disease porphyria, the cause of his illness remains unknown. After a final relapse in 1810, a regency was established. George III's eldest son, Prince of Wales, ruled as Prince Regent until his father's death, when he succeeded as George IV. Historical analysis of George III's life has gone through a "kaleidoscope of changing views" that have depended on the prejudices of his biographers and the sources available to them; until it was reassessed in the second half of the 20th century, his reputation in the United States was one of a tyrant. George was born in London at Norfolk House in St James's Square, he was the grandson of King George II, the eldest son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, Augusta of Saxe-Gotha.
As he was born two months prematurely and thought unlikely to survive, he was baptised the same day by Thomas Secker, both Rector of St James's and Bishop of Oxford. One month he was publicly baptised at Norfolk House, again by Secker, his godparents were the King of Sweden, his uncle the Duke of Saxe-Gotha and his great-aunt the Queen of Prussia. Prince George grew into a healthy but shy child; the family moved to Leicester Square, where George and his younger brother Prince Edward, Duke of York and Albany, were educated together by private tutors. Family letters show that he could read and write in both English and German, as well as comment on political events of the time, by the age of eight, he was the first British monarch to study science systematically. Apart from chemistry and physics, his lessons included astronomy, French, history, geography, commerce and constitutional law, along with sporting and social accomplishments such as dancing and riding, his religious education was wholly Anglican.
At age 10, George took part in a family production of Joseph Addison's play Cato and said in the new prologue: "What, tho' a boy! It may with truth be said, A boy in England born, in England bred." Historian Romney Sedgwick argued that these lines appear "to be the source of the only historical phrase with which he is associated". George's grandfather, King George II, disliked the Prince of Wales, took little interest in his grandchildren. However, in 1751 the Prince of Wales died unexpectedly from a lung injury at the age of 44, George became heir apparent to the throne, he inherited his father's title of Duke of Edinburgh. Now more interested in his grandson, three weeks the King created George Prince of Wales. In the spring of 1756, as George approached his eighteenth birthday, the King offered him a grand establishment at St James's Palace, but George refused the offer, guided by his mother and her confidant, Lord Bute, who would serve as Prime Minister. George's mother, now the Dowager Princess of Wales, preferred to keep George at home where she could imbue him with her strict moral values.
In 1759, George was smitten with Lady Sarah Lennox, sister of the Duke of Richmond, but Lord Bute advised against the match and George abandoned his thoughts of marriage. "I am born for the happiness or misery of a great nation," he wrote, "and must act contrary to my passions." Attempts by the King to marry George to Princess Sophie Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel were resisted by him and his mother. The following year, at the age of 22, George succeeded to the throne when his grandfather, George II, died on 25 October 1760, two weeks before his 77th birthday; the search for a suitable wife intensified. On 8 September 1761 in the Chapel Royal, St James's Palace, the King married Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, whom he met on their wedding day. A fortnight on 22 September both were crowned at Westminster Abbey. George remarkably never took a mistress, the couple enjoyed a genuinely happy marriage until his mental illness struck, they had 15 children -- six daughters. In 1762, George purchased Buckingham House for use as a family retreat.
His other residences were Windsor Castle. St James's Palace was retained for
Master Betty
William Henry West Betty was a popular child actor of the nineteenth century, known as "the Young Roscius." Both of William's parents were wealthy due to inheritance. His mother inherited money from Shropshire and his father inherited money from the north of Ireland. According to legend, Betty's father frivolously spent his money on anything, which resulted in his losing a large portion of his inheritance; this loss might have contributed to the extreme exploitation of William. William Betty first showed his desire for the stage at the age of eleven when, in 1802, his father took the young boy to Belfast to watch Sheridan's Pizarro, starring Sarah Siddons in the role of Elvira, her performance inspired him so much that William stated, "I shall die if I may not be a player." Betty's father introduced William to manager of the Belfast Theatre. After meeting the child, Atkins said, "I never dared to indulge in the hope of seeing another Garrick, but I have seen an infant Garrick in Betty."Not long after meeting Atkins, Betty was introduced to the theatrical prompter Thomas Hough, so he could direct and mentor young William in the role of Osman in Voltaire's Zair.
While this was going on, there was an insurrection in Ireland which resulted in the closing of the Belfast theatre. Atkins knew he needed a huge attraction to bring in the crowds and he thought of William. After some hard planning, it was settled, on 11 August 1803, the eleven-year-old William Henry West Betty debuted professionally as the well-known Osman, his appearance brought in a large crowd, reports stated that his performance was flawless and well received. He next took on the role of Young Norval in John Home's Douglas; this role fit him much better since he was playing a child and, once again, he astonished people in the theatre. News of Master Betty soon began spreading across Europe. Master Betty's fame extended beyond just Belfast to Dublin, where Betty's father talked to Frederick Edward Jones, manager of the Crow Street Theatre, they were able to reach an agreement for Betty to appear again in Home's Douglas at the Theatre Royal, where he debuted on 28 November 1803. There he played Frederick in Elizabeth Inchbald's Lovers' Vows, the title role in Tancred, in William Shakespeare's Hamlet.
It was said. The citizens of Dublin became so excited over Betty that the civil authorities extended the curfew an hour for those attending the theatre, his parents had Betty tour in Scotland and England in 1804, where he was treated with thunderous applause as he reprised past roles such as Young Norval in Douglas. His performances earned nearly 850 pounds the last six nights. Home, the author of Douglas, came to watch Betty and claimed that he "considered it the only performance where Young Norval was played according to his conception of the character." Having become the biggest sensation in Dublin and Belfast, Master Betty was ready for London. On 1 December 1804, guards were hired to handle the anxious crowd at the doors of the Covent Garden Theatre waiting to get a glimpse of the child sensation; some waited in line for hours. Constables stood inside the theatre. Once the doors were open, people flooded inside creating a huge disorder. Clark Russell described the event: Shrieks and screams of choking, trampled people were terrible.
Fights for places grew. The heat was so fearful that men all but lifeless were lifted and dragged through the boxes into the lobbies which had windows. Master Betty played Selim in Brown's Barbarossa or the Freedom of Algiers, an imitation of Voltaire's Mérope; the boy did not come on stage until half-way through the show, but he was still grandly received by his audience, including the prince of Wales. The second night, the patrons started a small riot, injuring many of the audience members and damaging the theatre. At Drury Lane, the house was packed, he played for the unprecedented salary of over 75 guineas a night. Betty quit the stage in 1808 to attend Christ's College in Cambridge. After graduation, he lived with his family in the country, he was invited back to Covent Garden in 1812. The critics derided his performance, talking more about his former career as a child actor than his performance at the age of 21. Betty never returned to perform in London again. Nine years he once again tried to mount a comeback and failed.
He tried to commit suicide, which failed. He gave up acting in 1824. Betty devoted the remainder of his life to theatrical charities, he died on 24 August 1874 in London. Attribution Chisholm, Hugh, ed.. "Betty, William Henry West". Encyclopædia Britannica. 3. Cambridge University Press. Kent, William Charles Mark. "Betty, William Henry West". In Stephen, Leslie. Dictionary of National Biography. 4. London: Smith, Elder & Co
Francesco Bartolozzi
Francesco Bartolozzi was an Italian engraver, whose most productive period was spent in London. He is noted for popularising the "crayon" method of engraving. Bartolozzi was born in Florence in 1727, he was destined to follow the profession of his father, a gold- and silver-smith, but he manifested so much skill and taste in designing that he was placed under the supervision of two Florentine artists, including Ignazio Hugford and Giovanni Domenico Ferretti who instructed him in painting. After devoting three years to that art, he went to Venice and studied engraving, he admired the work of Joseph Wagner. His first productions in Venice were plates in the style of Marco Ricci and others, while working for Wagner, which began to draw attention, he moved for a short time to Rome, where he completed a set of engravings representing frescoes at Grottaferrata by Domenichino depicting the life of St Nilus. He soon returned to Venice and left for London in 1764, he lived in London for nearly forty years.
He produced an enormous number of engravings, including Clytie after Annibale Carracci, of the Virgin and Child, after Carlo Dolci. A large proportion of them are from the works of Angelica Kauffman. Bartolozzi contributed a number of plates to Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery, he drew sketches of his own in red chalk. Soon after arriving in London, he was appointed'Engraver to the King' with an annual salary of £300, he was elected a founding member of the Royal Academy in 1768, in 1802 became the founding President of the short-lived Society of Engravers. His pupils were Michele Benedetti, Ignatius Joseph van den Berghe, Thomas Cheesman, Lambertus Antonius Claessens, Daniel Gardner, Christiaan Josi, Johan Fredrik Martin, Conrad Martin Metz, Luigi Schiavonetti, John Keyse Sherwin, Heinrich Sintzenich, Peltro William Tomkins, Domenico Bernardo Zilotti, Gabriel Scorodomoff. Bartolozzi was not the inventor of the so-called crayon manner of engraving, which imitated the subtleties of chalk drawings, but he made it the fashion.
In 1802, Bartolozzi accepted the post of director of the National Academy of Lisbon, the city where he died. His son Gaetano Stefano Bartolozzi, born in 1757, was an engraver, the father of Madame Vestris. Ticozzi and Bryan both published lists of his output, including: the Angels; the Miracle of the Manna. Job abandoned by his Friends. Charity, an oval; the Origin of Painting. The Virgin and Infant. St. Francis of Sales triumphs over Heresy. St. Luke paints the Portrait of the Virgin; the Adulteress before Christ. Roland and Olympia and other drawings in the Royal Collection after Annibale Carracci. A set of eight subjects; the Parting of Achilles and Briseis. Hector takes leave of Andromache. Chryseis restored to her Father; the Death of Dido. Jupiter and Juno on Mount Ida. Venus presenting the Cestus to Juno. Venus attired by the Graces. Tancred and Herminia and Tancred and Clorinda. Shakespeare crowned by Immortality. Morning for the Death of lord Rufsell. Socrates in Prison. Penelope lamenting Ulysses. Telemachus and Mentor in the Isle of Calypso.
Paulus Emilias educating his Children. Coriolanus appeased by his Family The Beautiful Rhodope in love with Aesope Rachel hiding Idols from her Father and Laocoon attacked by Serpents; the Death of Lord Chatham. The Virgin and Infant. A set of thirteen plates from the frescoes of Domenichino at Grottaferrata A set of 33 drawings by Guercino in the Royal Collection. A set of Portraits by Hans Holbein the Younger, including two portraits of Henry and Charles Brandon, sons of Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, Thomas More, Lady Meutas and Lord Mansfield; the Interview of Edgar and Elfrida after her Marriage with Athelwold. Portraits of Cignani and Pietro da Cortona; the Fair Moralist and her Pupil. Bust of Michelangelo. King John ratifying Magna Charta. Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi. A Collection of Gems, designed by various artists, engraved by Bartolozzi. Mary, Queen of Scots, her Son; the Hours. Chisholm, Hugh, ed.. "Bartolozzi, Francesco". Encyclopædia Britannica. Cambridge University Press. Ticozzi, Stefano.
Dizionario degli architetti, pittori, intagliatori in rame ed in pietra, coniatori di medaglie, niellatori, intarsiatori d’ogni etá e d’ogni nazione'. Gaetano Schiepatti. Pp. 117–120. Bryan, Michael. Robert Edmund Graves, ed. Dictionary of Painters and Engravers and Critical. York St. #4, Covent Garden, London. Pp. 89–90. Media related to Francesco Bartolozzi at Wikimedia Commons "Bartolozzi, Francesco". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. 1 painting by or after Francesco Bartolozzi at the Art UK site
Robert Southey
Robert Southey was an English poet of the Romantic school, one of the Lake Poets along with William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, England's Poet Laureate for 30 years from 1813 until his death in 1843. Although his fame has been eclipsed by that of Wordsworth and Coleridge, his verse still enjoys some popularity. Southey was a prolific letter writer, literary scholar, essay writer and biographer, his biographies include the life and works of John Bunyan, John Wesley, William Cowper, Oliver Cromwell and Horatio Nelson. The last has been out of print since its publication in 1813 and was adapted as the 1926 British film, Nelson, he was a renowned scholar of Portuguese and Spanish literature and history, translating a number of works from those two languages into English and writing a History of Brazil and a History of the Peninsular War. His most enduring contribution to literary history is the children's classic The Story of the Three Bears, the original Goldilocks story, first published in Southey's prose collection The Doctor.
He wrote on political issues, which led to a brief, non-sitting, spell as a Tory Member of Parliament. Robert Southey was born in Bristol, to Robert Southey and Margaret Hill, he was educated at Westminster School, at Balliol College, Oxford. Southey 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 of Robespierre, Southey published his first collection of poems in 1794. The same year, Coleridge, Robert Lovell and several others discussed creating an idealistic community on the banks of the Susquehanna River in America: Their wants would be simple and natural; each young man should take to himself a lovely woman for his wife. Southey was the first to reject the idea as unworkable, suggesting that they move the intended location to Wales, but when they failed to agree, the plan was abandoned. In 1799 Southey and Coleridge were involved with early experiments with nitrous oxide, conducted by the Cornish scientist Humphry Davy.
Southey married Edith Fricker, Coleridge's sister-in-law, at St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, on 14 November 1795; the Southeys made their home at Greta Hall, Keswick, in the Lake District, living on his tiny income. Living at Greta Hall and supported by him were Sara Coleridge and her three children and the widow of poet Robert Lovell and her son. In 1808 Southey met Walter Savage Landor, whose work he admired, they became close friends; that same year he wrote Letters from England under the pseudonym Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella, an account of a tour from a foreigner's viewpoint. Through the mouth of his pseudonym Southey is critical of the disparity between the haves and have-nots in English society, arguing that a change in taxation policy would be needed to foster a greater degree of equity. From 1809 Southey contributed to the Quarterly Review, he had become so well known by 1813 that he was appointed Poet Laureate after Walter Scott refused the post. In 1819, through a mutual friend, Southey met the leading civil engineer Thomas Telford and struck up a friendship.
From mid-August to 1 October 1819, Southey accompanied Telford on an extensive tour of his engineering projects in the Scottish Highlands, keeping a diary of his observations. This was published in 1929 as Journal of a Tour in Scotland in 1819, he was a friend of the Dutch poet Willem Bilderdijk, whom he met twice, in 1824 and 1826, at Bilderdijk's home in Leiden. He expressed appreciation of the work of the English novelist Ann Doherty. In 1837 Southey received a letter from Charlotte Brontë, he wrote back praising her talents, but discouraging her from writing professionally: "Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life," he argued. Years Brontë remarked to a friend that the letter was "kind and admirable. In 1838 Edith died and Southey remarried, to Caroline Anne Bowles a poet, on 4 June 1839. Southey's mind was giving way when he wrote a last letter to his friend Landor in 1839, but he continued to mention Landor's name when incapable of mentioning any one, he died on 21 March 1843 and was buried in the churchyard of Crosthwaite Church, where he had worshipped for forty years.
There is a memorial to him inside the church, with an epitaph written by his friend, William Wordsworth. Many of his poems are still read by British schoolchildren, the best-known being The Inchcape Rock, God's Judgement on a Wicked Bishop, After Blenheim and Cataract of Lodore; as a prolific writer and commentator, Southey introduced or popularised a number of words into the English language. The term autobiography, for example, was used by Southey in 1809 in the Quarterly Review, in which he predicted an "epidemical rage for autobiography", which indeed has continued to the present day. Although a radical supporter of the French Revolution, Southey followed the tra
