Thomas Nabbes

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Thomas Nabbes (1605-1645?) was an English dramatist.

He was born in humble circumstances in Worcestershire, and educated at Exeter College, Oxford. He left the university without taking a degree, and in about 1630 began a career in London as a dramatist. His works include: Covent Garden (acted 1633, printed 1638), a prose comedy; Tottenham Court (acted 1634, printed 1638), a comedy set in a holiday resort for London tradesmen; Hannibal and Scipio (acted 1635, printed 1637), a historical tragedy; The Bride (1638), a comedy; The Unfortunate Mother (1640), an unacted tragedy; Microcosmus, a Morall Maske (printed 1637); two other masques, Spring's Glory and Presentation intended for the Prince his Highness on his Birthday (printed together in 1638); and a continuation of Richard Knolles's General History of the Turks (1638).

Nabbes' verse is smooth and musical. His language is sometimes coarse, but his general attitude is moral. The Masque of Microcosmus is really a morality play, in which Physander after much error is reunited to his wife Bellanima, who personifies the soul. The other two masques, slighter in construction but ingenious, show Nabbes at his best. Nabbes's plays were collected in 1639; and Microcosmus was printed in Robert Dodsley's Old Plays (1744). All his works, with the exception of his continuation of Knolles's history, were reprinted by A.H. Bullen in Old English Plays (second series, 1887).