Tatham, John

(fl 1632-1664)

   Little is known of him other than his writings and that he succeeded John Taylor and Thomas Heywood (see entries) as city poet and laureate to the lord mayor's show between 1657 and 1664, and his successor was Thomas Jordan (see entry). His pastoral play Love Crowns the End was produced in 1652, then there was a gap of ten years, which suggests to scholars that some of his work has been lost. His hatred of the Scots is shown in his comedy Scots Figgaries [peculiar dress], or a Knot of Knaves (1652). His other plays are The Distracted State, A Tragedy (1641), and the comedy Rump, or the Mirrour of the Late Times (1660). There is no record of his death. Some of his poems: "A Frown," "A Smile," "I will follow through yon grove," "Ostella forth of Town: To My Heart," "Reason," "Song: Fortune Descending," "The Letter," "The Swallow," "To the Deceiving Mistress."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). The National Portrait Gallery. (www.npg.org.uk). Songs from the British Drama. Edward Bliss Reed, ed. Yale University Press, 1925. The Cavalier Poets. Robin Skelton, ed. Oxford University Press, 1970. 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 New Oxford Book of Seventeenth Century Verse. Alastair Fowler, ed. Oxford University Press, 1991.