Nathan Drake

Dr. Nathan Drake (15 January 1766 - 1836) was an English poet, essayist, literary critic, and physician.

Nathan Drake (1766-1836), Engraving by P.W. Tompkins (1759-1840), after portrait by Henry Thomson (1773-1843). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Life

Youth and education

Drake, who belonged to a Yorkshire family of considerable standing, was born in 1766 at York, where his father, Nathan, was an artist, and where his younger brother, Richard, was afterwards a surgeon.

He received a scanty preliminary education, lost his father in 1778, and in the following year began his professional studies as apprentice to a general practitioner in York. In 1786 he went to the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated earning an M.D. in 1789, with an inaugural thesis, De Somno.

Career

Drake originallly settled as a physician at Billericay in Essex, but moved in 1790 to Sudbury in Suffolk. Here he became acquainted with Mason Good, who was established there as a general practitioner. A community of interest in medical and literary matters drew them together, and resulted in a close friendship, which continued till Dr. Good's death in 1827, and was a great source of happiness to both.

Probably finding that there was no room for a physician at Sudbury, Drake moved in 1792 to Hadleigh in Suffolk, where he continued to carry on his professional and literary labous for 44 years till his death in 1836. He was happily married in 1807, and left behind him a widow and 3 children.

Drake is credited with discovering poet Henry Neele.

His life was uneventful and useful; he was an honorary associate of the Royal Society of Literature, and was universally esteemed as a religious and truly excellent man.

Writing

Drake's contributions to general literature consist chiefly of miscellaneous essays, critical, narrative, biographical, and descriptive, which were favorably received at the time of publication. They are not written in a pretentious spirit, and ought not to be judged by a standard different from the author's own.

The following are the titles, in some cases abridged: 1. ‘Literary Hours,’ 1st edit. in 1 vol. 1798, 4th edit. in 3 vols. 1820. 2. ‘Essays illustrative of the “Tatler,” “Spectator,” and “Guardian,”’ 3 vols. 1805. 3. ‘Essays illustrative of the “Rambler,” “Adventurer,” “Idler,” &c.,’ 2 vols. 1809. 4. ‘The Gleaner, a series of Periodical Essays, selected,’ &c., 4 vols. 1810. 5. ‘Winter Nights,’ 2 vols. 1820. 6. ‘Evenings in Autumn,’ 2 vols. 1822. 7. ‘Noontide Leisure,’ 2 vols. 1824. 8. ‘Mornings in Spring,’ 2 vols. 1828.

A more ambitious work was his Shakespeare and his Times, 2 volumes 4to, 1817. The thought and labor bestowed on this work were supposed to have materially impaired his health, and his case is believed to be that which is mentioned by his friend, Mason Good, in his Study of Medicine, iii. 322–3, 4th edit. The work contains all that the title leads us to expect; it was favorably reviewed by Nares in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. lxxxviii. Gervinus also, in his Shakespeare Commentaries (English translation, ed. 1877, 16.), mentions it in laudatory terms, and says that the work has the merit of having brought together for the first time into a whole the tedious and scattered material of the editions and of the many other valuable labours of Tyrwhitt and others. He published a sort of supplementary work, under the title, Memorials of Shakespeare, or Sketches of his Character and Genius by various writers, 1828..

A posthumous work appeared in 1837, entitled The Harp of Judah; or, Songs of Sion, being a Metrical Translation of the Psalms, constructed from the most beautiful parts of the best English Versions..

His professional writings consisted only of a few papers contributed to medical periodicals, especially 5 in the Medical and Physical Journal, 1799–1800, "On the Use of Digitalis in Pulmonary Consumption," on which subject he was considered an authority, and in connection with which his name is mentioned by Pereira, Materia Medica, ed. 1850, 1394.

Publications

Poetry

• Poems. London: J. Johnson, 1793.

Novel

• Rochester Castle; or Gudulph's tower: A gothic tale. London: J. Roe / Anne Lemoine, 1810.

Non-fiction

• Literary Hours; or, Sketches critical and narrative. London: J. Burkett, or T. Cadell & W. Davies, 1798; (2 volumes), London: J. Burkett, for T. Cadell & W. Davies, 1800; (3 volumes), London: Cadell & Davies, 1804; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown, 1820. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III
• Essays Biographical, Critical, and Historical: Illustrative of the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian. (3 volumes), London: J. Sharpe, 1805. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III
• Essays Biographical, Critical, and Historical: Illustrative of the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler. Buckingham, UK: J. Seeley, for W. Suttaby, London, 1809-10. Volume I, Volume II
• The Gleaner: A series of periodical essays, selected and arranged from scarce and neglected volumes. (4 volumes), London: Suttaby, Evans, 1811. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III, Volume IV
• Winter nights; or, Fire-side lucubrations. (2 volumes), London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown, 1820.
• Evenings in Autumn: a series of essays. (2 volumes), London, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown, 1822. Volume I, Volume II
• Noontide leisure: or sketches in summer, including a tale of the days of Shakespeare. (2 volumes), T. Cadell, 1824. Volume I, Volume II
• Mornings in Spring; or, Retrospections biographical, critical, and historical. (2 volumes), London: J. Murray, 1828. Volume I, Volume II

On Shakespeare

• Shakespeare and his Times. (2 volumes), London: T. Cadell & W. Davies, 1817. Volume I, Volume II

Translated

• The Harp of Judah; or, Songs of Sion: Being a metrical translation of the Psalms. London : J.G. & F Rivington, 1837.

Edited

• The Speculator (literary magazine; edited with William Frend). London: T. & J. Evans, 1790.
• Shaksperiana; or, Sketches of his character and genius by various writers. London: Henry Colburn, 1828
  • also published as Memorials of Shakespeare; or, Sketches of his character and genius by various writers. London: Henry Colburn, 1828.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• Translators of the Psalms
• List of British poets
• List of literary critics

References

• Gervinus, Georg G.; Bunnett, F.E. (trans.) (1863). Shakespeare Commentaries. 1. London: Smith, Elder and Co. p. 22. 
•  Greenhill, William Alexander (1888) "Drake, Nathan" in Stephen, Leslie Dictionary of National Biography 15 London: Smith, Elder, p. 446  . Wikisource, Web, Mar. 14, 2018.
• White, Richard Grant (1854). Shakespeare's Scholar. New York: D. Appleton and Co. pp. 21–22. 

External links

Poems

• "The Bell of Aragon"
• "Ode to Superstition"

Prose

• "On Pastoral Poetry"
• "On Sonnet-Writing"

Books

• Nathan Drake at the Online Books Page
• Nathan Drake at Amazon.com

About

• Dr. Nathan Drake at English Poetry, 1579-1830

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Drake, Nathan