Thomas How (c. 1758–1819): Originally from Devon, he graduated BA 1779 and MA 1785 from Balliol College, Oxford. How was Southey’s tutor at Balliol in 1793–1794. He was later Rector of Huntspill, Somerset 1804–1819.

John Horseman (1776–1844): Clergyman. The son of an Oxfordshire cleric, he was educated at Corpus Christi, Oxford (BA 1795), where he remained as a fellow from 1795–1819. He was Rector of Heydon and Little Chishill from 1810. He was a university friend of Southey’s. Although they lost touch in the mid-1790s, in 1835 after a gap of ‘one and forty years’ Horseman wrote to Southey recalling their old acquaintance.

James Hook (c. 1772–1828): Dean of Worcester and brother of the writer and hoaxer Theodore Hook (1788–1841; DNB). Educated at Westminster School and St Mary Hall, Oxford (his admission to Christ Church was blocked in 1792 because of his involvement in ‘acts of insubordination’ whilst at school). Hook was one of the editors of the schoolboy magazine The Trifler, and a keen musician and artist. He was a friend of Southey’s during his time at Westminster, but their friendship did not last beyond schooldays.

Alexander Hood, Viscount Bridport (1726–1814): A cousin of the Captain of the Mars, Vice Admiral of England and Commander of the Channel Fleet 1795–1800.

Alexander Hood (1758–98): Naval officer, Captain of the Mars, in which Tom Southey served. Killed 21 April 1798 when the Mars captured the French vessel L’Hercule. Hood and two of his brothers were later the subject of a memorial inscription by Southey.

William Hone (1780–1842): Radical satirist, journalist and bookseller. He was tried on three successive days, 18–20 December 1817, for blasphemous and seditious libel, but was acquitted after conducting his own defence, speaking for about seven hours on all three days. His The Political House that Jack Built (1819) was one of the most famous and bestselling satires of its day. In this phase of his career Southey regarded Hone with contempt and was anxious to see him jailed or transported.

Samuel Holworthy (c. 1785–1838): Anglican clergyman, Vicar of St John the Baptist, Croxall, 1809–1838. In 1811 he married Diana Sarah (d. 1857), daughter of the Jamaican plantation owner Nathaniel Bayly (1726–1798, Hist P), MP for Abingdon 1770–1774 and Westbury 1774–1779. In 1821 Holworthy sent Southey a copy of his Poems, by a Clergyman, published earlier in the same year.

See Fox, Elizabeth Vassal (1771–1845)

See Fox, Henry Richard (1773–1840)

James Hogg (1770–1835): A shepherd by upbringing, Hogg taught himself to read and write and became an admirer of the verse of Burns. Scott employed him to help compile his collection of ballads, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Hogg published a collection of poems, The Mountain Bard, in 1807, and another, The Forest Minstrel, in 1810. A fringe member of the Edinburgh literary set, Hogg communicated news of forthcoming critical reviews to Southey, and was himself featured, mockingly, in Blackwoods Magazine.