Tomkis entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1597, took his B.A. in 1600 and his M.A. in 1604, and became Fellow of Trinity in the same year. He has been confused by Fleay, ii. 260, and others with various members of a musical family of Tomkins.
Lingua. 1602 < > 7
S. R. 1607, Feb. 23 (Wilson). ‘A Commedie called Lingua.’ Simon Waterson (Arber, iii. 340).
1607. Lingua: Or The Combat of the Tongue, And the fiue Senses. For Superiority. G. Eld for Simon Waterson. [Prologue.]
1617; 1622; n.d.; 1632; 1657.
Editions in Dodsley1–4 (1744–1874) and by W. Scott (1810, A. B. D. ii) and J. S. Farmer (1913, S. F. T.).—Dissertation: F. S. Boas, Macbeth and L. (1909, M. L. R. iv. 517).
Winstanley (1687) assigned the play to Antony Brewer, but Sir J. Harington, in a memorandum printed by F. J. Furnivall from Addl. MS. 27632 in 7 N. Q. ix. 382, notes ‘The combat of Lingua made by Thom. Tomkis of Trinity colledge in Cambridge’, and this is rendered plausible by the resemblance of the play to Albumazar. It is clearly of an academic type. As to the date there is less certainty. G. C. Moore Smith (M. L. R. iii. 146) supports 1602 by a theory that a compliment (IV. vii) to Queen Psyche is really meant for Elizabeth, and contains allusions to notable events of her reign. I do not find his interpretations very convincing, although I should not like to say that they are impossible. Fleay, ii. 261, starting from a tradition handed down by the publisher of 1657 that Oliver Cromwell acted in the play, conjectures that the play formed part of Sir Oliver Cromwell’s entertainment of James at Hinchinbrook on 27–9 April 1603, and that his four-year-old nephew took the four-line part of Small Beer (IV. v). Either date would fit in with the remark in III. v, ‘About the year 1602 many used this skew kind of language’. Boas, however, prefers a date near that of publication, on account of similarities to passages in Macbeth. The play was translated as Speculum Aestheticum for Maurice of Hesse-Cassel in 1613 by Johannes Rhenanus, who probably accompanied Prince Otto to England in 1611; cf. P. Losch, Johannes Rhenanus (1895).
Albumazar. 1615
S. R. 1615, April 28 (Nidd). ‘Albumazar a comedie acted before his Maiestie at Cambridg 10o Martii 1614.’ Nicholas Okes (Arber, iii. 566).
1615. Albumazar. A Comedy presented before the Kings Maiestie at Cambridge, the ninth of March, 1614. By the Gentlemen of Trinitie Colledge. Nicholas Okes for Walter Burre. [Prologue.]