Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 55.djvu/385

 :: Ἑλληνικὰ μείςονα sive Collectanea Græca Majora,’ in conjunction with George Dunbar, 1805–20.
 * 1) James Moor's ‘Elementa Linguæ Græcæ,’ 1824; another edit., with further additions, appeared in 1844.
 * 2) ‘An Introduction to the Principal Greek Tragic and Comic Metres,’ 8vo, 1827; the 4th edit., appearing in 1834, contained a treatise on the Sapphic stanza and the elegiac distich.
 * 3) ‘Tracts on the Cases, Prepositions, and Syntax of the Greek Language,’ in conjunction with James Moor, 1830.
 * 4) ‘Richmond Rules to form the Ovidian Distich, with some Hints on the Transition to the Virgilian Hexameter,’ 1835.
 * 5) ‘A Continuous History of St. Paul, with Paley's Horæ Paulinæ subjoined,’ 1840.



TATE, NAHUM (1652–1715), poetaster and dramatist, was son of Faithful Teate (as the name is generally spelt). Faithful Teate himself was the son of a doctor of divinity, a clergyman probably of the puritan party. He was born in co. Cavan, and graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, as B.A. in 1621 and M.A. 1624, subsequently proceeding D.D. He was instituted to the rectory of Castleterra, Ballyhaise, in 1625. In 1641, being still at Ballyhaise, he gave information to the government regarding the plans of the rebels, and was consequently robbed on his way to Dublin. His house was plundered and burnt, and his wife and children cruelly treated, three of the children dying of the injuries. He lived for some time after this at the provost's lodgings in Trinity College, Dublin, and held some benefice there. About 1650 he was incumbent of East Greenwich. He styles himself preacher of the gospel at Sudbury in Suffolk in 1654–8. In 1660 he was once more in Dublin, and held the benefice of St. Werburgh's in that city. His ‘Meditations’ show him still living in 1672. Besides some sermons—two of them dedicated to Oliver and Henry Cromwell—he published a poem entitled ‘Ter Tria, or the Doctrine of the Three Sacred Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Principal Graces, Faith, Hope, and Love; Main Duties, Prayer, Hearing, and Meditation,’ pithy and quaint, in the vein of Bishop Andrews or George Herbert, and fuller of matter than anything written by his son.

Nahum Tate, born in Dublin in 1652, matriculated at Trinity College as a scholar in 1668 under the name of Teate, and graduated as B.A. in 1672. In 1677 he published in London a volume of poems in varied metres, fresher than his later work, and not yet dominated by the heroic fashion. His first drama, ‘Brutus of Alba; or the Enchanted Lovers’ (London, 4to), founded on the story of Dido and Æneas, and dedicated to the Marquis of Dorset, followed in 1678. His ‘Loyal General,’ with a prologue by Dryden, was given at Dorset Garden in 1680. Tate's version of Shakespeare's ‘Richard II,’ entitled ‘The Sicilian Usurper,’ was played at the Theatre Royal in 1681, but was suppressed upon the third performance as offering too close a parallel with the political situation of the time. Later in 1681 Betterton appeared at Dorset Garden in ‘King Lear’ as altered by Tate, and this alteration of ‘King Lear’ actually held the stage until about 1840. The part of the fool is entirely omitted, and Cordelia survives to marry Edgar. Addison protested against the outrage on Shakespeare (Spectator, No. 40). But Tate's adaptation was defended, on grounds of poetical justice, by Johnson, whose feelings had been agitated by witnessing the death of Cordelia. Tate proceeded to alter ‘Coriolanus’ into his ‘Ingratitude of a Commonwealth,’ played at the Theatre Royal in 1682. His next piece, a farce entitled ‘Duke and No Duke,’ first printed in 1685, but acted before that date at the Theatre Royal, is said to have diverted Charles II. His ‘Cuckold's Haven,’ produced at the same theatre in 1685, is a bad imitation of Chapman and Marston's ‘Eastward Ho!’ His ‘Island Princess, or the Generous Portugals,’ was an equally bad alteration of Fletcher; it was played at the Theatre Royal in 1687. His ‘Injured Love, or the Cruel Husband,’ altered from Webster's ‘White Devil,’ seems never to have been acted. All the above pieces were printed in quarto in the years referred to (see, Hist. of the Stage, i. passim, and x. 152). Tate protested against the demoralisation of the theatre. In 1698, the date of Jeremy Collier's indictment of the stage, he drew up proposals for the regulation of plays and of the theatre behind the scenes, in which he pronounces that the stage must be either reformed or silenced (Gibson MSS. Lambeth Library).

In 1682 he wrote the second part of ‘Absalom and Achitophel,’ with fair imitation of Dryden's manner and plagiarism of images, sentiments, and passages from the first part of the satire. The piece is above Tate's usual level, and Scott traced Dryden's strengthening hand in many parts besides the two