Born in Yorkshire, Nathan Drake took his M.D. from Edinburgh in 1789 and practiced medicine at Sudbury (1790-92) and Hadleigh, Suffolk (1792-1836). He was a popular essayist and an early advocate of German literature. He is remembered for his vast compendium of information on Elizabethan writers, Shakespeare and His Times (1817).
TEXT RECORDS:
1790Ode to Superstition.
1790[On Gothic Superstition.]
1790[Sir Gawen. An Historic Romance.]
1798On Pastoral Poetry.
1798On Sonnet-Writing.
1800On the Poetry of the Ages of Elizabeth and the Charleses, and of the present Reign.
1800On the Poetry of the Ages of Elizabeth and the Charleses, and of the present Reign. Concluded.
1817Shakspeare and his Times: Edmund Spenser.
1828The Bell of Arragon.
PUBLICATIONS:
The speculator [ed. Drake and W. Frend]. 1791.
Literary hours: or sketches critical and narrative. 1798; 2 vols, 1800, 3 vols, 1804, 1820.
The old abbey tale, in Canterbury tales. 1802.
Essays biographical, critical, and historical, illustrative of the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian. 3 vols, 1805.
Rochester Castle; or Gudulph's Tower. A gothic tale. 1810.
The gleaner: a series of periodical essays, selected and arranged from scarce and neglected volumes. 4 vols, 1811.
Shakespeare and his times. 2 vols, 1817.
Winter nights: or fire-side lucubrations. 2 vols, 1820.
Evenings in autumn: a series of essays. 2 vols, 1822.
Noontide leisure: or sketches in summer, including a tale of the days of Shakespeare. 2 vols, 1824.
Mornings in spring: or retrospections biographical, critical, and historical. 2 vols, 1828.
Memorials of Shakespeare: or sketches of his character and genius by various writers. 1828.
The harp of Judah: or songs of Sion, being a metrical translation of the Psalms. 1837.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
English
Anglican
Trinity College Dublin
Edinburgh University
physician
antiquary
essayist
poet
The Speculator
True Briton
Gentleman's Magazine
Literary Souvenir
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL; CBEL (3rd ed).
David Rivers, Literary Memoirs of Living Authors (1798); John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes (1812-15); Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors (1816); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Olinthus Gregory, in Memoirs of the life, writings, and character of the late John Mason Good, M.D. (1828); obituary in Gentleman's Magazine NS 6 (August 1836) 215-16; Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882).
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BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
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