MAY

MAY, Thomas, an eminent English poet and historian in the 17th century, was born of an ancient but decayed family in Sussex, educated at Cambridge, and afterwards removed to London, where he contracted a friendship with several eminent persons, and particularly with Endymion Porter, Esq. one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber to King Charles I. While he resided at court, he wrote the five plays now extant under his name. In 1622, he published a translation of Virgil's Georgics, with annotations; and in 1635 a poem on King Edward III. and a translation of Lucan's Pharsalia; which poem he continued down to the death of Julius Cæsar, both in Latin and English verse. Upon the breaking out of the civil wars he adhered to the parliament; and in 1647, he published, "The history of the parliament of England, which began November the third, MDCXL. With a short and accessory view of some precedent years." In 1649, he published, Historie Parliamenti Anglie Breviarium, in three parts; which he afterwards translated into English. He wrote the History of Henry II. in English verse. He died in 1642. He went well to rest over night, after a cheerful bottle as usual, and died in his sleep before morning: upon which his death was imputed to his tying his nightcap too close under his fat cheeks and chin, which caused his suffocation; but the facetious Andrew Marvel has written a poem of 100 lines, to make him a martyr of Bacchus, and die by the force of good wine. He was interred near Camden in Westminster Abbey; which caused Dr Fuller to say, that "if he were a biased and partial writer, yet he lieth buried near a good and true historian indeed." Soon after the restoration, his body, with those of several others, was dug up, and buried in a pit in St Margaret's churchyard; and his monument, which was erected by the appointment of parliament, was taken down and thrown aside.