The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Short Biographical Dictionary Of English Literature, by John W. Cousin.

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.

SPEDDING, JAMES (1808-1881). —Editor of Bacon's works, s. of a Cumberland squire, and ed. at Bury St. Edmunds and Camb., was for some years in the Colonial Office. He devoted himself to the ed. of Bacon's works, and the endeavour to clear his character against the aspersions of Macaulay and others. The former was done in conjunction with Ellis and Heath, his own being much the largest share in their great ed. (1861-74); and the latter, so far as possible, in The Life and Letters, entirely his own. In 1878 he brought out an abridged Life and Times of Francis Bacon. He strongly combated the theory that B. was the author of Shakespeare's plays. His death was caused by his being run over by a cab. He enjoyed the friendship of many of his greatest contemporaries, including Carlyle, Tennyson, and Fitzgerald.

SPEED, JOHN (1552?-1629). —Historian, b. at Farington, Cheshire, and brought up to the trade of a tailor, had a strong taste for history and antiquities, and wrote a History of Great Britain (1611), which was long the best in existence, in collecting material for which he had assistance from Cotton, Spelman, and other investigators. He also pub. useful maps of Great Britain and Ireland, and of various counties, etc. In 1616 appeared his Cloud of Witnesses confirming ... the truth of God's most holie Word. His maps were coll. and with descriptions pub. in 1611 as Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain.

SPEKE, J.H., (see under GRANT, J.A.)

SPELMAN, SIR HENRY (1564?-1641). —Historian and antiquary, b. at Congham, Norfolk, studied at Camb., and entered Lincoln's Inn. He wrote valuable works on legal and ecclesiastical antiquities, including History of Sacrilege (pub. 1698), Glossarium Archæologicum (1626 and 1664), a glossary of obsolete law-terms, A History of the English Councils (1639), and Tenures by Knight-service (1641). His writings have furnished valuable material for subsequent historians. He sat in Parliament and on various commissions, and in recompense of his labours was voted a grant of £300.

SPENCE, JOSEPH (1699-1768). —Anecdotist, b. at Kingsclere, Hants, and ed. at Winchester and Oxf., he entered the Church, and held various preferments, including a prebend at Durham, and was Prof. of Poetry at Oxf. He wrote an Essay on Pope's Odyssey, which gained for him the friendship of the poet, of whose conversation he made notes, collecting likewise anecdotes of him and of other celebrities which were pub. in 1820, and are of great value, inasmuch as they preserve much matter illustrative of the literary history of the 18th century which would otherwise have been lost.

SPENCER, HERBERT (1820-1903). —Philosopher, b. at Derby, the s. of a teacher, from whom, and from his uncle, mentioned below, he received most of his education. His immediate family circle was strongly Dissenting in its theological atmosphere, his f., originally a Methodist, having become a Quaker, while his mother remained a Wesleyan. At 13 he was sent to the care of his uncle, Thomas S., a clergyman, near Bath, but a Radical and anti-corn-law agitator. Declining a Univ. career he became a school assistant, but shortly after accepted a situation under the engineer of the London and Birmingham railway, in which he remained until the great railway crisis of 1846 threw him out of employment. Previous to this he had begun to write political articles in the Nonconformist; he now resolved to devote himself to journalism, and in 1848 was appointed sub-ed. of the Economist. Thereafter he became more and more absorbed in the consideration of the problems of sociology and the development of the doctrine of evolution as applied thereto, gradually leading up to the completion of a system of philosophy which was the work of his life. His fundamental proposition is that society, like the individual, is an organism subject to evolution, and the scope of this idea is gradually expanded so as to embrace in its sweep the whole range of cognisible phenomena. Among the books which he pub. in exposition of his views may be mentioned Social Statics (1850), Principles of Psychology (1855), First Principles (1862), Principles of Biology (1867), Data of Ethics (1879), Principles of Sociology (1877), Political Institutions (1882), and Man versus the State (1884). His works have been translated into most European languages—some of them into Chinese and Japanese. The most characteristic qualities of S. as a thinker are his powers of generalisation and analysis. He left an autobiography, in which he subjects his own personality to analysis with singular detachment of mind.

Life by David Duncan, LL.D., Life by A.J. Thompson. See also Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Fishe (1874), and books on S. and his philosophy by Hudson (1894), White (1897), and Macpherson (1890).

SPENCER, WILLIAM ROBERT (1769-1834). —Poet, ed. at Harrow and Oxf., belonged to the Whig set of Fox and Sheridan. He wrote graceful vers de societé, made translations from Bürger, and is best remembered by his well-known ballad of Gelert. After a life of extravagance he d. in poverty in Paris.

SPENSER, EDMUND (1552?-1599). —Poet, was b. in East Smithfield, London, the s. of John S., described as gentleman and journeyman in the art of cloth-making, who had come to London from Lancashire. In 1561 the poet was sent to Merchant Taylor's School, then newly opened, and in 1569 he proceeded to Pembroke Hall, Camb., as a sizar, taking his degree in 1576. Among his friends there were Edward Kirke, who ed. the Shepheard's Calendar, and Gabriel Harvey, the critic. While still at school he had contributed 14 sonnet-visions to Van de Noot's Theatre for Worldlings (1569). On leaving the Univ. S. went to the north, probably to visit his relations in Lancashire, and in 1578, through his friend Harvey, he became known to Leicester and his brother-in-law, Philip Sidney. The next year, 1579, saw the publication of The Shepheard's Calendar in 12 eclogues. It was dedicated to Sidney, who had become his friend and patron, and was received with acclamation, all who had ears for poetry perceiving that a new and great singer had arisen. The following year S. was appointed sec. to Lord Grey of Wilton, Deputy for Ireland, a strict Puritan, and accompanied him to Ireland. At the same time he appears to have begun the Faerie Queen. In 1581 he was appointed Registrar of Chancery, and received a grant of the Abbey and Castle of Enniscorthy, which was followed in 1586 by a grant of the Castle of Kilcolman in County Cork, a former possession of the Earls of Desmond with 3000 acres attached. Simultaneously, however, a heavy blow fell upon him in the death of Sidney at the Battle of Zutphen. The loss of this dear friend he commemorated in his lament of Astrophel. In 1590 he was visited by Sir Walter Raleigh, who persuaded him to come to England, and presented him to the Queen, from whom he received a pension of £50, which does not, however, appear to have been regularly paid, and on the whole his experiences of the Court did not yield him much satisfaction. In the same year his reputation as a poet was vastly augmented by the publication of the first three books of the Faerie Queen, dedicated to Elizabeth. The enthusiasm with which they were received led the publisher to bring out a collection of other writings of S. under the general title of Complaints, and including Mother Hubbard's Tale (a satire on the Court and on the conflict then being waged between the old faith and the new), Teares of the Muses, and The Ruins of Time. Having seen these ventures launched, S. returned to Kilcolman and wrote Colin Clout's come Home Again, one of the brightest and most vigorous of his poems, not, however, pub. until 1595. In the following year appeared his Four Hymns, two on Love and Beauty and two on Heavenly Love and Beauty, and the Prothalamion on the marriage of two daughters of the Earl of Worcester. He also pub. in prose his View of Ireland, a work full of shrewd observation and practical statesmanship. In 1594 he was m. to Elizabeth Boyle, whom he had courted in Amoretti, and his union with whom he now celebrated in the magnificent Epithalamion, by many regarded as his most perfect poem. In 1595 he returned to England, taking with him the second part of the Faerie Queen, pub. in 1596. In 1598 he was made Sheriff of Cork, and in the same year his fortunes suffered a final eclipse. The rebellion of Tyrone broke out, his castle was burned, and in the conflagration his youngest child, an infant, perished, he himself with his wife and remaining children escaping with difficulty. He joined the President, Sir T. Norris, who sent him with despatches to London, where he suddenly d. on January 16, 1599, as was long believed in extreme destitution. This, however, happily appears to be at least doubtful. He was buried in Westminster Abbey near Chaucer, and a monument was erected to his memory in 1620 by the Countess of Dorset.

The position of S. in English poetry is below Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton only. The first far excels him in narrative and constructive power and in humour, and the last in austere grandeur of conception; but for richness and beauty of imagination and exquisite sweetness of music he is unsurpassed except by Shakespeare. He has been called the poets' poet, a title which he well merits, not only by virtue of the homage which all the more imaginative poets have yielded him, but because of the almost unequalled influence he has exercised upon the whole subsequent course and expression of English poetry, which he enriched with the stanza which bears his name, and which none since him have used with more perfect mastery. His faults are prolixity, indirectness, and want of constructive power, and consequently the sustained sweetness and sumptuousness of his verse are apt to cloy. His great work, the Faerie Queen, is but a gorgeous fragment, six books out of a projected twelve; but probably few or none of its readers have regretted its incompleteness. In it Protestantism and Puritanism receive their most poetic and imaginative presentation and vindication.

SUMMARY.—B. 1552, ed. Merchant Taylor's School and Camb., became known to Leicester and Sir P. Sidney 1578, pub. Shepheard's Calendar 1579, appointed sec. to Lord Deputy of Ireland 1580, and began Faerie Queen, receives various appointments and grants 1581-6, pub. Astrophel in memory of Sidney 1586, visited by Raleigh and by him presented to Queen Elizabeth, who pensioned him 1590, and in same year pub. first three books of Faerie Queen, Teares of Muses, etc., writes Colin Clout, pub. 1595, and in 1596 pub. Four Hymns and Prothalamion, m. E. Boyle 1594, whom he had courted in Amoretti, and now celebrated in the Epithalamion, returned to England 1595, Sheriff of Cork 1598, in which year the rebellion broke out and ruined his fortunes, returned to London and d. 1599.

There have been very numerous ed. of the works, among which may be mentioned the Globe (1899), and Dr. Grosart's (10 vols., 1882-84). There is an excellent biography by Dean Church (1879).

SPOTTISWOOD, JOHN (1565-1639). —Historian, s. of John S., minister of Midcalder and Superintendent of Lothian. Entering the Church he gained the favour of James VI., and was his chief instrument in his endeavours to restore Episcopal church-government in Scotland. He became Archbishop successively of Glasgow and St. Andrews, and in 1635 Lord Chancellor of Scotland. On the rising caused by the introduction of the service-book, he had to flee from Scotland, and was excommunicated by the General Assembly (1638). He wrote a History of the Church and State of Scotland, pub. 1655. It is, of course, written from the Episcopalian standpoint, as Calderwood's is from the Presbyterian.

SPRAGUE, CHARLES (1791-1875). —Poet, b. at Boston, Mass., had some reputation as a writer of prize poems, odes, and domestic poems. To the first class belong Curiosity and Shakespeare Ode, and to the latter, The Family Meeting and I see Thee Still, an elegy on his sister.

SPRAT, THOMAS (1635-1713). —Divine and writer of memoirs, b. at Beaminster, Dorset, ed. at Oxf., was a mathematician, and one of the group of scientific men among whom the Royal Society, of which he was one of the first members and the historian, had its origin. He wrote a Life of his friend Cowley the poet, and an account of Young's plot for the restoration of James II. His History of the Royal Society is his principal work, but he also wrote poems, and had a high reputation as a preacher. His literary style gives him a distinguished place among English writers. He held various, high preferments, and d. Bishop of Rochester.

SPURGEON, CHARLES HADDON (1834-1892). —B. at Kelvedon, Essex, left the Independents and joined the Baptist communion and became, at the age of 20, pastor of New Park Street Chapel, London, where he attained an unprecedented popularity. In 1859 the Metropolitan Tabernacle was erected for him. He was a decided Calvinist in his theological views, and was strongly opposed to modern critical movements. He possessed in an eminent degree two of the great requisites of effective oratory, a magnificent voice and a command of pure idiomatic Saxon English. His sermons, composed and pub. weekly, had an enormous circulation, and were regularly translated into several languages. In addition to his pastoral labours he superintended an almshouse, a pastor's coll., and an orphanage; and he was likewise a voluminous author, publishing, in addition to his sermons, numerous works, including The Treasury of David (a commentary on the Psalms).

STANHOPE, PHILIP HENRY, 5TH EARL STANHOPE (1805-1875). —Historian, was b. at Walmer, and ed. at Oxf. He sat in the House of Commons for Wootton Bassett and Hertford, held some minor official appointments under Peel, and identified himself with many useful measures, specially in regard to literature and art. His writings, which are all remarkable for industrious collection of facts, careful and impartial sifting and weighing of evidence, and a clear, sober, and agreeable style, include History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles (1836-63), and histories of the War of the Spanish Succession (1832), and of the Reign of Queen Anne (1870), besides Lives of the younger Pitt (1861) and of Lord 'Chesterfield. As an author he is best known as Viscount Mahon.

STANLEY, ARTHUR PENRHYN (1815-1881). —Historian, biographer, and theologian, s. of Edward S., Bishop of Norwich, b. at Alderley, Cheshire, of which his f. was then rector, ed. at Rugby and Oxf., became a Fellow of Univ. Coll. Taking orders in 1839 he became Canon of Canterbury 1851, and of Christ Church 1858, and Dean of Westminster 1864. He was also Prof. of Ecclesiastical History at Oxf. 1856. His ecclesiastical position was Erastian and latitudinarian, and his practical aim in Church politics comprehension. He gave great offence to the High Church party by his championing of Colenso, W.G. Ward, Jowett, and others, by his preaching in the pulpits of the Church of Scotland and in other ways, and his latitudinarianism made him equally obnoxious to many others. On the other hand, his singular personal charm and the fascination of his literary style secured for him a very wide popularity. He was a prolific author, his works including Life of Dr. Arnold (of Rugby) (1844), whose favourite pupil he was, and Memorials of Canterbury (1854), Sinai and Palestine (1855), Lectures on the Eastern Church (1861), History of the Jewish Church (1863, etc.), Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey (1867), Lectures on the History of the Church of Scotland (1872), besides various commentaries. In his historical writings he aimed rather at conveying a vivid and picturesque general effect than at minute accuracy of detail or philosophical views. His masterpiece is his Life of Dr. Arnold, which is one of the great biographies in the language. His wife was Lady Augusta Bruce, to whom he was m. in 1868.