Author: Drake, Nathan
Biography:
DRAKE, Nathan (1766-1836: ODNB)
A medical doctor, he was the son of Nathan Drake, a limner or artist, and his wife Mary Carr who had married at St. Michael le Belfrey, York, Yorkshire, on 30 May 1763. Nathan Drake the son was baptised in the same church on 15 Jan. 1766; his exact birth date is not recorded. On 4 Oct. 1779 he was apprenticed to Francis Bacon, an apothecary in York. In 1786 he began studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh and he graduated MD in 1789. After briefly practising at Billericay, Essex, he moved in 1790 to Sudbury, Sussex, where he met John Mason Good (q.v.), a general practitioner who shared Drake’s interests in medicine and literature. From Mar. to June of 1790 he edited a periodical, The Speculator, with Edward Ash; it includes verse that is probably by Drake. In 1792 Drake moved to Hadleigh, Suffolk, where he remained for the rest of his life. On 8 Sept. 1808 he married Ursula Rose at Brettenham, Suffolk; they had two sons and a daughter. His publications include edited collections of essays from periodicals and some original works: Essays, Biographical, Critical, and Historical (1809), The Gleaner: A Series of Periodical Essays (1811), Shakespeare and His Times (1817), Winter Nights; or Fireside Lucubrations (1820), Evenings in Autumn (1822), Noontide Leisure, or, Sketches in Summer (1824), Mornings in Spring (1828), and Memorials of Shakespeare (1828). Volume 2 of Winter Nights includes his critical essays on verse by Henry Neele, Cornelius Neale, and James Bird (qq.v.). Drake also published essays in medical periodicals. He died at Hadleigh on 7 June 1836 and was buried in the churchyard of St. Mary’s church. A posthumous book, The Harp of Judah: Being a Metrical Translation of the Psalms, was issued in 1837. (ancestry.co.uk 1 Aug. 2024; ODNB 1 Aug. 2024; findmypast.co.uk 1 Aug. 2024)