Essayist. Educated at Christ’s Hospital, where he was a friend of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, he was later a clerk at the East India Company. Lamb and Southey met in 1795. Their relationship started to blossom in 1797, when Lamb — accompanied by Charles Lloyd — paid Southey an unexpected visit. Southey and Lamb shared an interest in Francis Quarles (1592–1644; DNB). They quarrelled briefly — and publicly — in 1823, but were reconciled. Although they corresponded, Southey’s letters to Lamb have not survived.