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Painting, oil on canvas, portrait, Robert Southey, by
Thomas Phillips, about 1818.
The original drawing for this portrait, commissioned by the
publisher John Murray, was completed by November 1815, when
Southey wrote to Mary Barker, 9 November 1815: 'The devil
who owes me an old grudge has made me sit to Phillips for a
picture for Murray.' Southey liked to grumble about the
pains of being famous - after he became Poet Laureate. The
mezzotint derived from the painting he declared to be 'bad,
base, vile, vulgar, odious, hateful, detestable, abominable,
execrable, and infamous. The rascally mezzotint scraper has
made my face fat, fleshy, silly and sensual, and given the
eyes an expression which I conceive to be more like two
oysters in love than anything else'
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