Thomas Nabbes

Thomas Nabbes (1605-1641)m Playes, Maskes, Epigrams, Elegies, and Epithalamiums, 1639. Courtesy Internet Archive.

Thomas Nabbes (1605 - 6 April 1641) was an English poet and playwright.

Life

Overview

Nabbes was at Oxford in 1621. He lived in London, and wrote comedies satirizing bourgeois society. He was most successful in writing masques, among which are Spring's Glory and Microcosmus. He also wrote a continuation of Richard Knolles' History of the Turks.

Youth

Nabbes was born in Worcestershire, into a humble Worcestershire family.

On 3 May 1621 he matriculated from Exeter College, Oxford (Oxf. Univ. Reg. Oxf. Hist. Soc. II. ii. 387), but left the university without a degree.

He seems to have been employed subsequently in the household of a nobleman near Worcester, and he describes in a poem "upon the losing of his way in a forest" a midnight adventure in the neighbourhood of his master's mansion after he had indulged freely in perry. Another spirited poem "upon excellent strong beer which he drank at the town of Wich in Worcestershire" shows Nabbes to have been of a convivial disposition.

Career

About 1630 Nabbes seems to have settled in London, resolved to try his fortunes as a dramatist. He was always a stranger to the best literary society, but found congenial companions in Chamberlain, Jordan, Marmion, and Tatham, and was known to many "gentlemen of the Inns of Court" (cf. Bride, Ded.)

About January 1632-3 his 1st comedy, Covent Garden, was acted by the queen's servants, and was published in 1638 with a modest dedication addressed to Sir John Suckling. In the prologue Nabbes defends himself from stealing the title of the piece — in allusion doubtless to Richard Brome's Covent Garden Weeded, acted in 1632 — and describes his "muse" as "solitary."

His 2nd comedy, Tottenham Court, was acted at the private house in Salisbury Court in 1633, and was also printed in 1638, with a dedication to William Mills. A 3rd piece, Hannibal and Scipio: An hystorical tragedy, in 4 acts of blank verse, was produced in 1635 by the queen's servants at their private house in Drury Lane. Nabbes obviously modelled his play upon Marston's Sophonisba. It was published in 1637, with a list of the actors' names.

A 3rd comedy, The Bride, acted at the private house in Drury Lane, again by the queen's servants, in 1638, was published 2 years later, with a prefatory epistle addressed "to the generalty of his noble friends, gentlemen of the severall honorable houses of the Inns of Court." One of the characters, Mrs. Ferret, the imperious wife, has been compared to Jonson's Mistress Otter.

Death

For centuries there was uncertainty about Nabbes' fate and burial. In a 1628 poem he expressed hope that one day he would be worthy of entombment at Worcester Cathedral in his native Worcestershire, while an 18th-century theater historian insisted he was interred at London's Temple Church. There were no records for him in either place.

In the mid-1900's it was finally discovered that Nabbes was buried on 6 April 1641, in his parish churchyard of St. Giles in the Fields, London. His 2 young children, Bridget and William, both died within 2 years of his death, and were buried with him there.

Writing

Plays

Langbaine reckons Nabbes among the poets of the 3rd rate. The author of Cibber's Lives of the Poets declares that in strict justice "he cannot rise above a fifth." This severe verdict is ill justified. But Samuel Sheppard in the 6th sestiad ("the Assizes of Apollo") of his Times Display'd, 1646, associates Nabbes's name with the names of Davenant, Shirley, Beaumont, and Fletcher, and selects his tragedy of Hannibal and Scipio for special commendation.

He is a passable writer of comedies, inventing his own plots, and lightly censuring the foibles of middle-class London society. His tragedies are not attractive. Nabbes displays a satisfactory command of the niceties of dramatic blank verse, in which all his plays, excluding the 2 earliest comedies, were mainly written. Although he was far more refined in sentiment than most of his contemporaries, he is capable at times of considerable coarseness.

The Unfortunate Mother

A tragedy entitled The Unfortunate Mother (called "unreadable and tedious" by the Dictionary of National Biography) was published in 1640, with a dedication to Richard Brathwaite, a stranger, to whom Nabbes apologises for addressing. It is said to have been written as a rival to Shirley's Politician, but was never acted, owing to the refusal of the actors to undertake the performance. 3 friends (E[dward] B[enlowes], C.G., and R.W.) prefixed commendatory verses by way of consoling the author for the slight thus cast upon him.

The play is a bleak tragedy, beginning in the aftermath of the death of the prince and ending in the deaths of most of the characters. Its plot includes hidden identities, poison, deceit, Machiavellian social climbing, murder and a duel. In the preface Nabbes specifies his intent to move away from the bombast and melodrama of popular drama, towards a subtler, more intellectual kind of theater. Unfortunately, the theatre companies did not share his ambition and he could find nobody to take charge of producing it.

The play received its historical world premiere on Friday 18 October 2013, at St Giles in the Fields Church, the burial site of the author, directed by Brice Stratford as part of the Owle Schreame theatre company's Cannibal Valour Rep Season of obscure classical productions.

Masques

As a writer of masques Nabbes deserves more consideration. His touch was usually light and his machinery ingenious. The least satisfactory was the first published, viz. Microcosmus: A Morall Maske, presented with generall liking, at the Private House in Salisbury Court, and heere set down according to the intention of the Authour, Thomas Nabbes, 1637. A reference to the approaching publication of the work was made in Don Zara del Fogo, a mock romance, which was written before 1637, though not published till 1656. Richard Brome contributed prefatory verses.

Nabbes's Spring's Glory (1638) bears some resemblance to Middleton's Inner Temple Masque, published in 1618. The Presentation intended for the Prince his Highnesse on his Birthday (1638) is bright and attractive, although it does not appear to have been actually performed. It was printed with The Spring's Glory, together with some occasional verses. The volume, which was dedicated to William, son of Peter Balle, was entitled The Spring's Glory: A maske; ogether with sundry poems, epigrams, elegies, and epithalamiums. By Thomas Nabbes, 1639. Of the poems, the verses on a "Mistresse of whose Affection hee was doubtfull" have a certain charm; they are included in Linton's Collection of Rare Poems.

Miscellaneous

Nabbes contributed commendatory verses to Shackerley Marmion's Legend of Cupid and Psyche, 1637; Robert Chamberlain's Nocturnal Lucubrations, 1638; Thomas Jordan's Poeticall Varieties, 1640; John Tatham's Fancies Theater, 1640; Humphrey Mills's A Night's Search, 1640; Thomas Beedome's Poems Divine and Humane, 1641; and the Phœnix of these Late Times; or, The life of Mr. Henry Welby, Esq. (1637). (Welby was an eccentric, who was credited with living without food or drink for the last 44 years of his life.)

To the 5th edition of Richard Knolles's Generall Historie of the Turkes (1638) Nabbes appended "A Continuation of the Turkish Historie, from the Yeare of our Lord 1628 to the end of the Yeare 1637; Collected out of the Dispatches of Sr. Peter Wyche, Knight, Embassador at Constantinople, and others." The dedication is addressed to Sir Thomas Roe, whom Nabbes describes as a stranger to him [see Knolles, Richard].

All Nabbes's works, excluding only the continuation of Knolles, were brought together by A.H. Bullen in 1887. This collected edition forms vols. i. and ii. of the new series of Bullen's privately printed Old English Plays.

Publications

Plays

• Covent Garden. London: Richard Oulton, for Charles Greene, 1638.
• Tottenham Court. 1638; London: H. Hills, 1709.
• Hannibal and Scipio: An historicall tragedie. London: C. Green, 1637.
• The Bride: A comedie. R.H., for Laurence Blaikelocke, 1640.
• The Unfortunate Mother (printed 1640, acted 2013);
• Microcosmus, a Morall Maske. London: Richard Oulton, for Charles Greene, 1637.
• The Muse of New-market; or, Mirth and drollery; being three farces. London: Dan. Browne / Dan. Major / and James Vade, 1680.
• The Fashionable Lover; or, Wit in necessity. London: B. Bragg, 1706.

Non-fiction

• The general historie of the Turks (with Richard Knolles). London: Adam Islip, 1638.

Collected editions

• Playes, Maskes Epigrams, Elegies, and eEithalamiums. London: I. Dawson, for N. Fussell, 1639.
• Works (edited by A.H. Bullen). London: Wyman & Sons, 1887; New York, B. Blom, 1968.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of British poets
• List of English-language playwrights

References

•  Lee, Sidney (1894) "Nabbes, Thomas" in Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 40 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 17-18  . Wikisource, Web, Feb. 15, 2018.

External links

Books

• Thomas Nabbes at Amazon.com

About

• Thomas Nabbes in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Nabbes, Thomas in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
• Thomas Nabbes at Find a Grave
• The Dramatic Works of Thomas Nabbes by Charlotte Moore

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: Nabbes, Thomas