Poet and translator. Born into a wealthy family, Sotheby served in the army before devoting himself to literature in 1780. He had many close friends in the literary world, including Joanna Baillie, and unobtrusively helped a number of authors who were in financial trouble. Sotheby’s poetry had little success and he was best known for his translation of Oberon (1798). Southey was first introduced to him in 1802, finding Sotheby ‘a man of taste & much original thought’, though he valued his criticism above his poetry. The two men were on friendly terms and Sotheby even helped Southey with corrections to the manuscript of Madoc (1805) in 1804. Tom Southey, Southey’s brother, served under Sotheby’s brother, Rear-Admiral Thomas Sotheby (1759–1831) – another connection between the two men. Southey saw much less of Sotheby after he settled in Keswick in 1803, but they continued to exchange occasional letters and Sotheby sent Southey presentation copies of some of his works.