TABLEY DE, JOHN BYRON LEICESTER WARREN, 3RD LORD (1835-1895). —Poet, eldest s. of the 2nd Lord, ed. at Eton and Oxf., was for a time attached to the British Embassy at Constantinople. He wrote poems of a very high order, some of them pub. under the pseudonyms of "George F. Preston" and "William Lancaster." They include Ballads and Metrical Sketches, The Threshold of Atrides, Glimpses of Antiquity, etc. These were followed by two dramas, Philoctetes (1866) and Orestes (1868). Later works in his own name were Rehearsals (1870), Searching the Net (1873), The Soldier's Fortune, a tragedy. Poems, Dramatic and Lyrical (1893) included selections from former works. After his death appeared Orpheus in Thrace (1901). He was a man of sensitive temperament, and was latterly much of a recluse. He was an accomplished botanist, and pub. a work on the Flora of Cheshire.
TALFOURD, SIR THOMAS NOON (1795-1854). —Poet and biographer, s. of a brewer at Reading, where he was b., and which he represented in Parliament, 1835-41, was ed. at Mill Hill School. He studied law, was called to the Bar in 1821, and became a Judge in 1849. He d. suddenly of apoplexy while charging the Grand Jury at Stafford. He wrote much for reviews, and in 1835 produced Ion, a tragedy, followed by The Athenian Captive (1838), and The Massacre of Glencoe, all of which were acted with success. T. was the friend and literary executor of [Charles Lamb] (q.v.), and pub. in two sections his Memoirs and Letters. In 1837 he introduced the Copyright Bill, which was passed with modifications in 1842.
TANNAHILL, ROBERT (1774-1810). —Poet, b. in Paisley where he was a weaver. In 1807 he pub. a small vol. of poems and songs, which met with success, and carried his hitherto local fame over his native country. Always delicate and sensitive, a disappointment in regard to the publication of an enlarged ed. of his poems so wrought upon a lowness of spirits, to which he was subject, that he drowned himself in a canal. His longer pieces are now forgotten, but some of his songs have achieved a popularity only second to that of some of Burns's best. Among these are The Braes of Balquhidder, Gloomy Winter's now awa' and The Bonnie Wood o' Craigielea.
TATE, NAHUM (1652-1715). —Poet, s. of a clergyman in Dublin, was ed. at Trinity Coll. there. He pub. Poems on Several Occasions (1677), Panacea, or a Poem on Tea, and, in collaboration with Dryden, the second part of Absalom and Achitophel. He also adapted Shakespeare's Richard II. and Lear, making what he considered improvements. Thus in Lear Cordelia is made to survive her f., and marry Edgar. This desecration, which was defended by Dr. Johnson, kept the stage till well on in the 19th century. He also wrote various miscellaneous poems, now happily forgotten. He is best remembered as the Tate of Tate and Brady's metrical version of the Psalms, pub. in 1696. T., who succeeded Shadwell as Poet Laureate in 1690, figures in The Dunciad. NICHOLAS BRADY (1659-1726).—Tate's fellow-versifier of the Psalms, b. at Bandon, and ed. at Westminster and Oxf., was incumbent of Stratford-on-Avon. He wrote a tragedy, The Rape, a blank verse translation of the Æneid, an Ode, and sermons, now all forgotten.
TATHAM, JOHN (fl. 1632-1664). —Dramatist. Little is known of him. He produced pageants for the Lord Mayor's show and some dramas, Love Crowns the End, The Distracted State, The Scots Figgaries, or a Knot of Knaves, The Rump, etc. He was a Cavalier, who hated the Puritans and the Scotch, and invented a dialect which he believed to be their vernacular tongue.