contributor to the chief organ of English conservatism in church

and state, conducted, too, by William Gifford, the former editor of the Anti-Jacobin, in which Southey's early poems and opinions had been mercilessly ridiculed. Five or six years before this, Southey's political and religious sentiments had undergone a change which became a complete transformation; and nothing daunted by the cry of renegade with which he was assailed, he stepped forth a conscientious and even an impassioned champion of the constitution in church and state, although still displaying, in his peculiar views on social and political economy, traces of his earlier opinions. From the ministry of "all the talents" he received in 1807, through the influence of Mr. Wynn, a pension virtually of £160 a year, which enabled him to surrender the allowance formerly made him by that kind friend. In 1813, a later but not a less steady friend, Sir Walter Scott, procured him the poet-laureateship, so orthodox in every respect was he now considered; Oxford made her truant son an LL.D.; and during a visit to Holland in 1825 he was elected, through the influence of Lord Radnor, M.P. for Downton, but declined the honour from a want of the legal property-qualification. On the plea of an insufficient income, he also declined the offer of a baronetcy made to him in 1835 by the late Sir Robert Peel, who then bestowed on him a pension of £300 a year. In 1837 he lost his wife, the faithful companion of so many years, but found another helpmate in Caroline Bowles the poetess, whom he married in 1839, and who tended him during the period of mental alienation and decay in which his life came to a close. He died on the 21st of March, 1843. Southey was not only unsullied in his private character; he combined all the virtues which are allied to industry, prudence, and morality, with the warmer qualities of a generous and imaginative nature. In our limits it is impossible to catalogue his numerous writings, and still less possible to criticise them in detail. His more elaborate verse with all its picturesqueness and conscientious artistic effect, wants the mens divinior which inspires true poetry, and seems a kind of highly artificial rhythmic prose. The imaginative power which he evokes in "Thalaba" and the "Curse of Kehama," the varied shapes of Mahometan superstition and Hindoo mythology is, however, great and sustained. "Madoc" is simply dull; but in "Roderick the last of the Goths," the poet's strenuous exertion is rewarded by an approach to the tone of the epic. Of his minor poems, there are some, such as "The Holly Tree," which will always figure in collections of popular verse. Southey's prose is excellent in style, flowing, lucid, idiomatic, and unaffected; his chief fault as a prose writer is diffuseness. In one of the best of his books, his "Life of Nelson," he was happily restricted by his commission to definite limits. In his elaborate histories, such as those of Brazil and of the Peninsular War, he is diffuse to tediousness. His "Life of John Wesley" has merits of its own, beside the interest of the subject, to keep it alive; and some of his minor biographies, such as those of Cowper and Bunyan, are very generally admired. In the "Doctor" he essayed, not without success, the manner of a subdued and purified Sterne. In his "Essays Moral and Political," and in his "Colloquies on the Progress of Society," are to be found his speculations on social economy, which, often wayward and vehement, contain much valuable truth, and have contributed, perhaps with unsuspected power, to aid the practical solution of some of the chief social problems of the age. His Life and Correspondence, edited by his son, was published in six volumes in 1849; and a selection from his letters, edited by his son-in-law, in four volumes, in 1856.—F. E. SOUTHGATE, Richard, a divine and antiquary, was born at Alwalton, Huntingdonshire, March 16, 1729. He was educated at Peterborough free grammar school, and at St. John's college, Cambridge. He became rector of Woolley in Huntingdonshire, and afterwards settled in London, where after some hard struggles, he obtained preferment, and officiated as assistant librarian of the British museum. He bestowed considerable attention upon antiquarian subjects; made a valuable collection of books, coins, medals, &c.; prepared a history of the Danes and Saxons, to be illustrated by their coins; and published two volumes of sermons. He died in January, 1795.—F. SOUTHWELL or SOTWELL (in Latin Sotwellus), Nathaniel, an English Jesuit of the seventeenth century. He continued the series of memoirs commenced by Peter Ribadeneira, and carried on by Philip Alegambe down to the century in which he himself lived. His work was published at Rome in 1676, under the title of "Bibliotheca Scriptorum Societatis Jesu, opus inchoatum à R.P. Petro Ribadeneira et productum ad annum 1609, continuatum à Philippo Alegambe ad annum 1643, recognitum et productum ad annum 1675, à Nathanielo Sotwello."—F. SOUTHWELL, Robert, an English poet, was born of an ancient Norfolk or Suffolk family in 1560. Having been sent to be educated on the continent, he went to Rome, and became a jesuit in 1578. He was appointed head of the English college there, and was subsequently sent as a missionary to England. After following out his purpose in this country for some time, during which he resided with Anne, countess of Arundel, his designs became suspected, and he was apprehended, imprisoned, and tortured, until he confessed the object of his mission. He affirmed his readiness to lay down his life in support of his religion, and was tried at Westminster, February, 1595, for high treason (his being a Jesuit was considered treasonable), and condemned, and executed at Tyburn. The titles of Southwell's principal works are—"A Consolation for Catholics imprisoned on account of Religion;" "A Supplication to Queen Elizabeth;" "St. Peter's Complaint, with other poems;" "Mæoniæ, or certain excellent poems and spiritual hymns;" "The Triumphs of Death;" "Rules of a Good Life," with a letter to his father; "Mary Magdalen's Funeral Tears," reprinted in 1772 by the Rev. W. Tooke.—F. SOUVESTRE, Emile, a popular and pleasing French writer, was born in 1806 at Morlaix in Brittany, where his father, an engineer officer, was stationed in charge of the roads and bridges of the district. Souvestre was to have gone to the bar, and in 1826 proceeded to Paris to complete his legal studies. There he produced a tragedy, and would have chosen literature as a profession. His father's death, however, had been followed by that of a brother, the captain of a merchantman, in which his family had invested their all, and which was lost at sea. To aid them in their struggle he returned to his native province, and accepted the humble position of a shopman to a bookseller. His talents, information, and character attracted notice and respect, and a liberal deputy made him one of the managers of a school, established on some new principle at Nantes. He left this employment to become an editor of a paper at Brest, having meanwhile begun, since 1830, to contribute tales and sketches to the Magasin Pittoresque. He now contributed to the Revue des deux Mondes, and with marked success, his "Etudes sur la Bretagne" (the basis of his "Derniers Bretons"), illustrative of the customs and traditions of his native Brittany. After having been twice professor in provincial colleges, he removed to Paris in 1836, to devote himself to literature. With the revolution of 1848, he was one of the group of liberal thinkers and workers collected by Carnot when minister of public instruction, and he was appointed a paid lecturer in the school established for the training of young men for the civil service. He also gave his gratuitous aid, under the auspices of Carnot, as an evening lecturer to the working men of Paris. He had passed a pleasant summer in 1853, lecturing successfully on his own account in some of the principal towns of Switzerland, when his health, never strong, gave way; he died in July, 1854. Souvestre is, ethically, one of the purest of modern French writers. His "Confessions d'un ouvrier" may be cited as a specimen of his efforts to improve the moral tone of the French working classes, and to combat utopian theories by truthful pictures of the conditions of modern life and labour. In a lighter style, "Un philosophe sous les toits," which has been translated into English, and which was crowned by the French Academy, is very graceful and pleasing. Some of his picturesque and interesting sketches of his native province have also been translated into English, and were published, with a memoir of Souvestre, at Edinburgh, in 1855, with the title "Brittany and La Vendée."—F. E. SOUZA BOTELHO, José Maria, a Portuguese statesman, was born in 1758, and entered the army in 1778, in which he served till 1791, and was then made ambassador plenipotentiary to Stockholm and Copenhagen successively. In 1800 he was sent on a mission to England, but the French government refused to admit him to the congress at Amiens; and on the general peace of 1802 he retired from politics, and devoted himself to an edition of the works of Camoens, which is a model of literary accuracy. It was published in 1818, and the author died in 1819.—F. M. W. SOUZA or SOUSA. See Faria. SOWERBY, James, the projector and publisher of a work entitled "English Botany," was born in Lambeth on 21st March,