Shadwell, Thomas

(?1642-1692)

   Born at Weeting, Norfolk, he was educated at Caius College, Cambridge, but left without graduating, then entered law at the Middle Temple, London. The first of his seventeen plays, the Sullen Lovers, was performed at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1668. His best known comedies are Epsom Wells (1672) and The Squire of Alsatia (1688). Shadwell and John Dryden (see entry) carried on a literary feud, and his satire The Medal of John Bayes (1682) attacks Dryden, who countered with MacFlecknoe, or a Satire on the True Blue Protestant Poet, T.S (1682). Shadwell succeeded Dryden as poet laureate and historiographer royal in 1689. He died of opium poisoning at Chelsea, where he is buried; he is memorialized by a stone in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. Some of his poetry publications: A Lenten Prologue, 1683. Ode to the King on His Return from Ireland, 1690. Ode on the Anniversary of the King's Birth, 1690. Votum Perenne, 1692. Some of his poems: "A Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1690," "Epilogue to the Loving Enemies," "Lovers lament, lament this fatal day," "Satyr to his Muse," "The Tory-Poets, A Satyr."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. Microsoft Encarta 2006 (DVD). Microsoft Corporation, 2006. Songs from the British Drama. Edward Bliss Reed, ed. Yale University Press, 1925. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Complete Works of Thomas Shadwell V. 5. The Fortune Press, 1927. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Westminster Abbey Official Guide (no date).