For he says--
*Be silent.
"And 'twas in my vocation
For their recreation
That so I should sing;
Because I was Laureate
To them and the King."
As the years went on Southey received other honors besides the
Laureateship. He was offered a baronetcy which he refused. He
wall "ell-ell-deed" by Oxford, as he quaintly puts it in his
letters to his children. And when he tells them about it he
says, "Little girls, you know it might be proper for me now to
wear a large wig, and to be called Doctor Southey and to become
very severe, and leave off being a comical papa . . . . However,
I shall not come home in my wig, neither shall I wear my robes at
home."
It is sad to think that this kindly heard had to bear the
buffetings of ill fortune. Two of his dearly loved children
died, then he was parted from his wife by worse than death, for
she became insane and remained so until she died. Eight years
later Robert Southey was laid beside her in the churchyard under
the shadow of Skiddaw.
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