Robert Southey (1774 - 1843) was a British poet, historian, biographer, and essayist, also known as a poet of the Romantic school and Poet laureate, a position he took after Byron refused the proposal. He was a close friend of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He was acquainted with other iconic figures of British literature, like William Wordsworth, Walter Savage Landor, Oscar Wilde, Charlotte Brontë. Although we know Southey primarily as a poet today, he was a renowned translator and scholar with a profound interest in history. His historical works include the History of the Peninsular War, the History of Brazil, and biographies of John Bunyan, John Wesley, William Cowper, Oliver Cromwell, and Horatio Nelson. His work about Nelson was adapted to the 1926 British film "Nelson."""