her "Prophecies concerning the Prince of Peace," whom she was to bring forth. In 1814 it was announced that she was with child, and would shortly give birth to 'Shiloh.' Great excitement was caused, when a medical man of the name of Reece confirmed her expectations of maternity. A magnificent cradle was prepared, and expensive preparations made in royal style. The time of the nativity was fixed 19th October, 1814. That day and the succeeding night the house in which Joanna lived was surrounded with crowds of the credulous and the curious. But the day passed, no child was born; and it was officially notified that the prophetess had fallen into a trance. The poor fanatic was suffering from dropsy, and died shortly afterwards, 27th December. Her followers, however, would not believe that she was dead; they supposed that there was a mere temporary suspension of her vital powers, and even after her interment some believed she would rise again and fulfil her prediction. After life's fitful fever, however, she slept well. Dr. Reece published an account of her last moments. Joanna avowed that "if she had been misled, it was by some spirit, good or evil." Strange to say, there are yet living those who avow their belief in the truth of her pretensions.—D. G.
SOUTHERN, Thomas, a dramatic poet, was born at Dublin in 1660, and studied there at Trinity college. In 1678 he came to London, and entered himself at the Middle temple, intending to qualify for legal pursuits, but he does not seem to have progressed far in the study of law. His first drama was entitled "The Persian Prince, or the Royal Brother," the sentiment of which was considered to be highly complimentary to the duke of York, and procured for Southern the favour of the court, and the friendship of Dryden. Upon James' accession to the throne Southern entered the army, and obtained, after acquiring the preliminary knowledge, the command of a company in Lord Ferrer's regiment, in which he served during Monmouth's rebellion. He afterwards returned to his studies, and wrote several dramas, for which, as it appears, he was more handsomely remunerated than most playwrights were in those times. He received £150 for the "Spartan Dance," published in 1721, and even larger sums for some of his later works. Amongst his other productions were the "Wife's Excuse;" the "Innocent Adultery" (or as it was afterwards called, "Isabella, or the Fatal Marriage"); "Oronooko," founded upon a novel by Mrs. Behn; the "Disappointment;" the "Rambling Lady," &c. Dryden rated Southern's powers so highly as to consign "Cleomenes," which he was unable to finish, into his hands. Southern wrote half of the fifth act of that tragedy. "Isabella" long held possession of the stage, and was a favourite with most of our lady tragedians, from Mrs. Porter and Peg Woffington down to Mrs. Siddons and Miss O'Neill. Southern died May 26, 1746.—F.
SOUTHEY, Caroline A. See Bowles.
SOUTHEY, Robert, the distinguished poet and prose writer, was the son of a Bristol linendraper, and was born in that city on the 12th of August, 1774. His earlier years were spent chiefly with an eccentric maiden aunt, so fond of the theatre that Southey said he had seen more plays before he was seven than after he was twenty. He was not eight before he had devoured Shakspeare and Beaumont and Fletcher; and when hardly nine he had begun a drama, with Scipio for its hero. His school life, meanwhile, had been very changeful, and not at all a happy one, and he was but little fitted to excel in the studies of the place when he proceeded at fourteen to Westminster school, a maternal uncle then and afterwards defraying the expenses of his education. The year after his arrival at Westminster, the French revolution broke out, and at once commanded the sympathies of the boy of fifteen, who was rebuked for sending up a theme in which Edmund Burke and his anti-revolutionary zeal were attacked. Full of the rights of man, the youthful zealot asserted too vehemently the rights of boys, and assailed the flogging system in general, and the head-master of the school in particular, in the Flagellant, a periodical established by young Westminster, in imitation of the Eton Microcosm. The result was that Southey was not only expelled from Westminster, but refused, in consequence, admission to Christ church, Oxford. He was entered at Balliol, however, on the understanding that he was to study for the church, in which the kind uncle, who still befriended him, held orders. But he had added the study of Gibbon to that of Rousseau, and he soon gave up all thoughts of a career to which he could not conscientiously devote himself. In the autumn of 1793 he had completed "Joan of Arc," and it was about the same time that he wrote his extravagant dramatic poem, "Wat Tyler," first published without his leave, many years afterwards, to annoy him when he had become the zealous advocate of a political and religious creed very different from his earlier one. He did not distinguish himself at Oxford by proficiency in classical studies, but he read largely and widely in English and general literature; and however extravagant his speculative opinions, he was noted then as afterwards for the purity of his moral conduct. On abandoning theology he began the study of medicine, but the dissecting-room was too much for his nerves, and this pursuit, too, was relinquished. It was in the June of 1794, that Southey, unsettled in his mind and without definite prospects or purposes, was introduced to Coleridge, who was on a visit to a friend of both at Oxford. He was fascinated by the eloquence and enthusiasm of Coleridge, and they became fast friends. One of the results of their friendship was the formation of a scheme for the establishment of a new society on the principles of "Pantisocracy," and to have for its site the banks of the Susquehanna. Full of this scheme, Southey left Oxford and proceeded to Bath and Bristol, lecturing at the latter place to make a little money; for his father was dead, and the maiden aunt who had watched over his childhood shut the door in the face of her pantisocratic nephew. The pantisocratic scheme (of which there is a fuller account in the memoir of Coleridge, Samuel Taylor) came to nothing. But in 1794 Southey published, in conjunction with another of the fraternity, Robert Lovell, a volume of poems. Lovell had married a Miss Fricker, and her two sisters united themselves to Coleridge and Southey. On his wedding-day, for he had no means of supporting a wife, Southey sailed for Lisbon with his uncle, Mr. Hill, who was chaplain of the British factory there. During his six months' absence, he made his first acquaintance with the literature and languages of the Iberian peninsula, and it afterwards became a ripe and thorough knowledge of them. On his return to England, he found that "Joan of Arc," published while he was absent, had met with favour, chiefly through the praises bestowed on it by the democratic reviewers; and in 1797 he published a volume of minor poems, and his "Letters written during a short residence in Spain and Portugal." At the beginning of 1797, a generous school and college friend, Mr. W. W. Wynn, bestowed on him an allowance of £160 a year, and in February Southey was in London, entered at Gray's inn, and studying for the bar. He found law as uncongenial as he had previously found divinity and physic, and began to review, translate, and versify for the booksellers. He had to keep his family as well as to support himself, and under his taskwork his health gave way. It was recruited by another visit, in 1800, to Portugal, for a history of which country he began to collect the materials. On his return to England, he became during a portion of the years 1801-2, secretary to Mr. Corry, chancellor of the exchequer for Ireland, but threw up the easy post and the good salary attached to it because his chief wished him to devote to the education of a youthful Corry some of the abundant leisure left him by his duties. Meanwhile had appeared, in 1801, "Thalaba the Destroyer," giving him a certain reputation. With his resignation of his secretarial post, he devoted himself for life exclusively to literature. In 1803, having lost his eldest child, and that his wife might have the companionship of her sister, he went to reside at Greta hall, Keswick, where the Coleridges then were. From a guest he became a joint-occupier, and then a tenant of Greta hall, where he lived for the rest of his life, and where, when Coleridge himself soon left it, the wife and children of the poet and philosopher shared for many years Southey's home. When he went first to Keswick. Wordsworth was at Grasmere, and the trio were dubbed "the Lake poets," and deemed to have founded a scheme of "Lake poetry," although between Southey's poetry generally, and that of either Wordsworth or Coleridge, there is not the slightest similarity. Among his books—he steadily collected a large and valuable library—Southey led far more than five and thirty years a life of literary industry, almost unparalleled in its regularity and productiveness. Coleridge said—"I can't think of him without seeing him either using or mending a pen;" and it has been calculated that he produced nearly one hundred and eighty ordinary volumes. Sir Walter Scott, whose personal acquaintance he made during a visit to Scotland in 1805, introduced him in 1809 to the Quarterly Review, and the ex-pantisocratist found himself the valued
