Nahum Tate Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Wiltshire Stanton Austin and John Ralph

Critical Essay by Wiltshire Stanton Austin and John Ralph

SOURCE: Austin, Wiltshire Stanton, and John Ralph. “Nahum Tate.” In The Lives of the Poets-Laureate: With an Introductory Essay on the Title and Office, pp. 196-222. London: Richard Bentley, 1853.

In the following essay, Austin and Ralph offer an overview of Tate's life and literary career, suggesting that while his literary merit is limited, he has been misrepresented and deserves more respect than he has received.

It is amusing, if not edifying, to observe the manner in which all works of general reference, save a very few, repeat in regular succession the idlest inventions, and the clumsiest distortions of fact. In literary history this is especially the case, and we can trace in dictionary after dictionary, life after life, note upon note, some blunder copied with slight variations by book-makers, who lacked the honest industry to investigate, or the ingenuity to detect falsehood.

So because Tate was put into the...
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