SOUTHPORT (41), a watering-place of Lancashire, situated on the southern shore of the Ribble estuary, 18 m.  N. of Liverpool; is a town of quite modern growth and increasing popularity; has a fine sea-shore, esplanade, park, theatre, public library, art gallery, etc.

SOUTHWARK (339), or the BOROUGH, a division of London, on the Surrey side of the Thames, opposite the City, and annexed to it in 1827; it sends three members to Parliament, and among its principal buildings are St. Saviour’s Church and Guys Hospital.

SOUTHWELL, ROBERT, poet, born in Norfolk; studied at Douay, and became a Jesuit priest; came to England as a missionary, was thrown into prison, tortured ten times by the rack, and at length executed at Tyburn as a traitor for disseminating Catholic doctrine; his poems are religious chiefly, and excellent, and were finally collected under the title “St. Peter’s Complaint,” “Mary Magdalen’s Tears, and Other Works”; “The Burning Babe” is characterised by Professor Saintsbury as a “splendid poem” (1560-1595).

SOUVESTRE, EMILE, French novelist and playwright, born at Morlaix; at 30 he established himself in Paris as a journalist, and became noted as a writer of plays and of charming sketches of Breton life, essays, and fiction; “Les Derniers Bretons” and “Foyer Breton” are considered his best work (1806-1854).

SOUZA, MADAME DE (maiden name Adelaide Filleul), French novelist, born in Paris, and educated in a convent, on her leaving which she was married to the Comte de Flahaut, a man much older than herself, and with whom she lived unhappily; fled to Germany and then to England on the outbreak of the Revolution; afterwards returned to Paris, and as the wife of the Marquis de Souza-Botelho presided over one of the most charming of salons, in which the chief attraction was her own bright and gifted personality; her novels, “Eugene de Rothelin,” “Eugenie et Mathilde,” etc., breathe the spirit of the old regime, and are full of natural and vivacious pictures of French life (1761-1836).

SOWERBY BRIDGE (10), manufacturing town in West Riding of Yorkshire, 3 m.  SW. of Halifax; cotton-spinning, woollen manufactures, and dyeing are the chief; it was the birthplace of Tillotson.

SOY, a sauce or condiment used in Japan and China; prepared from a bean which is extensively cultivated in those countries.

SOYER, ALEXIS, a famous cook, born at Meaux; turned aside from a tempting career as a vocalist and took up gastronomy as a profession; during the 1830 Revolution he narrowly escaped with his life to London, which he henceforth made his head-quarters, rising to the position of cook to the Reform Club; rendered important services as a culinary expert in Ireland during the 1847 famine, and at the Crimea (1855); was the author of various highly popular works on the art of cooking, “The Modern Housewife,” “Shilling Cookery Book,” etc. (1809-1858).