Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Tatham, John

by Thomas Seccombe (1866-1923)

TATHAM, JOHN (fl. 1632–1664), dramatist and city poet, seems to have succeeded John Taylor (1580–1653) [q. v.], the water poet, and Thomas Heywood in the office of laureate to the lord mayor's show. The pageant was supplied on one occasion, however, during the interregnum (1655) by Edmund Gayton [q. v.] Tatham began writing at a youthful age, his pastoral play ‘Love crowns the End’ having been composed and played in 1632, when he was barely twenty. His first volume appeared in 1640, and the interval of ten years before the appearance of a second lends colour to the supposition that some of his work is unidentified or lost. From internal evidence it seems probable that he saw some service in 1642 under Lord Carnarvon, and received a brief and disagreeable impression of the Scots. He wrote the city pageants regularly from 1657 to 1664. Among his friends seem to have been John Day [q. v.] and Thomas Jordan [q. v.], his successor as ‘city poet.’ Jordan, in his ‘Wit in a Wilderness,’ speaks of their acquaintance as having taken birth ‘ere Austin was put down, or Burton sainted.’ Tatham was well acquainted with theatrical matters, and speaks in his earliest work of the removal of the players from the Fortune to the Red Bull. He also wrote a prologue to a play called ‘The Whisperer’ (Ostella, p. 211), which is not known to be extant. Some of his verses are pretty echoes of Cowley. His main characteristics seem to have been a bigoted loyalty and hatred of strangers, especially Scots. He disappears from view in 1665. Perfect copies of his works are rare. A portrait by an anonymous artist was prefixed to ‘Ostella,’ but the engraving is missing from the British Museum copy.

Tatham's works comprise: Plays:—

1. ‘Love crowns the End. A Pastorall presented by the schollees (sic) of Bingham in the county of Notingham, in the year 1631. Written by Jo. Tatham, gent.,’ 1640, 4to. Slender though its proportions were, it was reprinted in 1657 (Bodleian).
2. . ‘The Distracted State. A Tragedy. Written in the year 1641 by J. T., gent. Seditiosi sunt reipublicæ ruina,’ 1651, 4to (Brit. Mus., three; Huth; Bodleian). Dedicated to Sir William Sidley, bart., grandfather of Sir Charles Sedley [q. v.], and prefaced by verses from Joseph Rutter, Robert Davenport, and George Lynn. This play, which has more calibre than Tatham's other efforts, is aimed in a pointed manner against sectaries and republicans, but above all against the Scots, who ‘sold their king.’ A Scottish apothecary is introduced who undertakes to poison the king [of Sicily], declaring ‘an me countremen ha' peyson'd three better kingdomes than this.’
3. ‘The Scots Figgaries, or a Knot of Knaves,’ a comedy, 1652, 4to; reprinted 1735, 12mo (Brit. Mus.; Huth; Bodleian). Much of this play is in a curious dialect, the affinity of which to any known Scottish dialect appears to be remote
4. ‘The Rump, or the Mirrour of the late Times. A new comedy, acted many time with great applause at the private house in Dorset Court,’ London, 1660, 4to; 2nd edit. 1661 (Brit. Mus., both editions; Bodleian). This was a key-play of great virulence, intended to speed the parting Rump. Bertlam is Lambert, Woodfleet Fleetwood, and so on; Trotter is probably meant for Thurloe. Desborough and Hewson appear by name, the former as a hawker, and the second as a cobbler; while Mrs. Cromwell is introduced with a washtub, exchanging Billingsgate with a rabble of boys. Most of the disguises were dispensed with in the second edition. It was first given in February 1659–60, and had considerable influence in preparing the political transition. Pepys mentions that he bought a copy in November 1660 (Diary, ed. Wheatley, i. 280). Appended to the second edition was a very scurrilous lampoon, ‘The Character of the Rump, London, printed in the year that the Saints are disappointed,’ in which he was enabled to give free rein to his hatred. To Tatham has also been ascribed, but not conclusively, a wretched comedy entitled ‘Knavery in all Trades, or the Coffee House … as it was acted in the Christmas Holidays by several apprentices with great applause,’ 1664, 4to.

Pageants.—

1. ‘London's Triumph, celebrated 29 Oct. 1657 in honour of the truly deserving Rich. Chiverton, Lord Mayor of London, at the cost … of the Skinners,’ London, 1657, 4to (Brit. Mus.).
2. ‘London's Tryumph, presented by Industry and Honour: in honour of the Rt. Hon. Sir John Ireton, knight, Lord Mayor, 29 Oct. 1658, at the cost … of the Clothworkers,’ 1658, 4to (Brit. Mus.; Guildhall; Huth).
3. ‘London's Triumph, celebrated 29 Oct. 1659 in honour of the much-honoured Thomas Allen, Lord Mayor, at the cost of the Grocers,’ London, 1659, 4to (Brit. Mus.).
4. ‘London's Glory, represented by Time, Truth, and Fame at the magnificent Triumph and Entertainment of his most sacred majesty Charles II, the duke of Gloucester … at the Guildhall, on Thursday, 5 July 1660, and in the 12th year of his majesty's most happy reign’ (Brit. Mus., three; Huth; reprinted from copy in the Advocates' Library in ‘Dramatists of the Restoration,’ 1878).
5. ‘The Royal Oake, with other various and delightfull Scenes presented on the Water and the Land … in honour of Sir Richard Brown, bart., Lord Mayor, at the cost of the Merchant Taylors,’ London, 1660, 4to (Brit. Mus.; Huth); reprinted by Fairholt (Percy Soc., vol. x.). Pepys mentions his having witnessed this show.
6. ‘Neptune's Address … to Charls the Second, congratulating his happy coronation, 22 April 1661, in several shews upon the Water before Whitehall,’ London, 1661, 4to (Brit. Mus.).
7. ‘London's Tryumphes, presented in several delightful scaenes both on the Water and on land … in honour of Sir John Frederick, knight and baronet, Lord Mayor,’ 1661, 4to, at the cost of the Grocers (Brit. Mus.; Guildhall; Huth). This water triumph was ‘the first solemnity of this nature,’ says Evelyn, ‘after twenty years’—since 1641. It was witnessed by the king, who had joined the Grocers' Company for the occasion, from Cheapside.
8. ‘The Entertainment of the King and Queen by the City of London on the Thames … in several Shews and Pageants, 3 April 1662,’ London, 4to.
9. ‘Aqua Triumphalis; being a True Relation of the Honourable City of London's Entertaining their Sacred Majesties upon the River of Thames, and Wellcoming them from Hampton-Court to Whitehall … 23 Aug. 1662,’ London, folio, in prose and verse (see Evelyn, Diary, 23 June 1662) (Brit. Mus.; Guildhall; Huth).
10. ‘London's Triumph … in honour of Sir John Robinson, Lord Mayor … at the cost of the Clothworkers …’ 1662, 4to (Brit. Mus.).
11. ‘Londinum Triumphans … in honour of Sir Anthony Bateman, Lord Mayor, at the cost of the Skinners,’ 1663, 4to (Guildhall).
12. ‘London's Triumphs … in honour of Sir John Lawrence, Lord Mayor … at the cost of the Haberdashers, 1664,’ 4to (Brit. Mus.; Guildhall). The banquet following this pageant cost, according to Evelyn, a thousand pounds. It was the last pageant written by Tatham. In consequence of the great plague and fire the shows were minimised during the next few years, but were revived with unusual splendour in 1671 under the auspices of a new laureate, Thomas Jordan [q. v.]

In addition to his plays and pageants, Tatham was responsible for at least two small volumes of verse. The first, entitled ‘Fancies Theater,’ by Iohn Tatham, gent., London, 1640, sm. 8vo, is dedicated to Sir John Winter [q. v.], and at signature I 4 appears, with a fresh title, ‘Love crownes the End,’ a pastoral (see above). There are commendatory verses by R. Broome, Thomas Nabbes, C. Gerbier, George Lynn, H. Davison, William Barnes, Thomas Rawlins, Robert Chamberlain, George Sparke, and others, and the work contains an elegy on the writer's loving friend, John Day (Brit. Mus.; Huth). The volume was reissued in 1657 as ‘The Mirrour of Fancies. With a Tragi-Comedy intitled Love crowns the End,’ London, 12mo. Tatham's second volume of verse was entitled ‘Ostella; or the faction of Love and Beauty reconcil'd. By I. T. gent.’ London, 1650, 4to. Prefixed is an engraved portrait of the poet, with a quatrain by Chamberlain, artist unknown (Brit. Mus., imperfect; Bodleian).

[Dramatists of the Restoration, 1878; Fairholt's Lord Mayors' Pageants (Percy Soc.) 1843; Nichols's London Pageants, pp. 107–10; Fleay's Biogr. Chronicle of the Stage, ii. 260; Collier's Bridgwater Cat. ii. 414–15; Corser's Collectanea, iv. 313–14; Addit. MS. 24488 f. 20 (Hunter's Chorus Vatum); Beloe's Anecdotes, 1807, i. 330; Halliwell's Dict. of English Plays, 1860; Hazlitt's Collections and Notes; Baker's Biogr. Dram.; Granger's Biogr. Hist.; Winstanley's Lives; Brydges's Restituta; Guildhall, Bodleian, Huth, and Brit. Mus. catalogues.]

T. S.

Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.262
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line

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385	ii	20	Tatham, John: after requests insert to Queen Henrietta Maria