George Ellis (1753–1815): Man of letters. Ellis entered parliament in 1796 as junior member for Seaford; he never spoke in the house, and did not stand for re-election. He collaborated with George Canning and William Gifford on the journal The Anti-Jacobin; and he was a friend, from 1801, of Walter Scott. Ellis’s Specimens of the Early English Poets (1790, 2nd edn. 1801, 3rd edn. 1803) provided the model for Southey’s Specimens of the Later English Poets (1807).

Ebenezer Elliott (1781–1849): The ‘Corn-Law Rhymer’. Son of an ironmaster, Elliott became an amateur botanist and a self-taught poet after his brother introduced him to Thomson’s Seasons. From 1808, when Elliott first requested Southey’s advice, Southey encouraged his poetic career: Elliott later declared that Southey had taught him the art of poetry. He published Night, or, the Legend of Wharncliffe in 1818 and Tales of the Night in 1820.

Thomas (fl. 1750–1830) and John (d. 1795) Egerton: London publishers and booksellers. Southey and his collaborators Bedford and Wynn, employed the Egertons as printers for the first five numbers of the schoolboy magazine The Flagellant, which appeared between 1–29 March 1792. The fifth issue contained a controversial essay denouncing flogging as an invention of the devil. Under pressure from Dr William Vincent, the Head Master of Westminster School, the Egertons revealed that Southey was its author.

Charles Edwards (1797–1868): A Cambridge solicitor who later emigrated to New York. He was the author of Hofer, and Other Poems (1820), which quoted from Southey’s Letters Written During a Short Residence in Spain and Portugal (1797) (p. 74). In December 1819, Edwards approached Southey and asked for a favour (possibly a contribution to Hofer), which Southey declined to perform.

Henry Edridge (1768–1821): Watercolourist who lived in Cavendish Square, London. Edridge sketched Southey in 1804.

John Edmondson (d. 1823): A surgeon and apothecary in Keswick, who treated the Southey family.

George Dyer (1755–1841): Author and advocate of political reform. Son of John Dyer, a shipwright of Bridewell, London. Educated at Christ’s Hospital and Emmanuel College, Cambridge (BA 1778). From the late 1780s to mid-1790s he was active in reformist causes, a member of the Constitutional Society and author of An Inquiry into the Nature of Subscription to the Thirty-Nine Articles (1789, 2nd revised edn 1792), Complaints of the Poor People of England (1793) and A Dissertation on the Theory and Practice of Benevolence (1795).

James Dusautoy (c. 1797–1815): Son of a retired officer from Totnes, Devon. He cherished ambitions for a poetic career. As a schoolboy in 1811 he canvassed Walter Scott’s advice and was politely encouraged to improve his writing by gaining more knowledge. In 1813 Dusautoy sent some of his verses to Southey. The latter replied and a correspondence about Dusautoy’s career ensued. He took Southey’s advice and was admitted to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1813. In 1814 he entered an ode, in Spenserian stanzas, for a university prize in English poetry.

Richard Duppa (c. 1768–1831): Writer (mainly on botany, art, literature and politics) and draughtsman. Son of William and Susannah Duppa. Educated (late in life) at Trinity College, Oxford (matric. 1807); entered Middle Temple 1810; graduated LLB Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 1814.

Mrs Druitt (née Lovell; dates unknown): A sister of Southey’s brother-in-law, Robert Lovell; probably either Deborah (1773–1859), Sarah (dates unknown), Lydia (1777–1830) or Rachael Lovell (dates unknown). She had moved to Dublin by 1816 and married Joseph Druitt (1767–1833), an official at the Friends School, Lisburn 1821–1833, probably in 1819. Southey corresponded with her intermittently.