Nahum Tate

Born: 1652, Dublin, Ireland.
Died: August 12, 1715, Southwark, London, England.
Buried: St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, England.

Nahum Tate was an Irish playwright and poet, who lived in London from the 1670s. He wrote a number of plays, chiefly adaptations from earlier writers; he is especially known for his version of Shakespeare's King Lear, in which he substituted a happy ending (in which he omitted the part of the fool and had Cordelia survive to marry Edgar). He also wrote the libretto for Purcell's Dido and Aeneas (1689) and (with John Dryden) the second part of Absalom and Achitophel (1682). He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1692.

His metrical version of the Psalms (1696), written with Nicholas Brady, is generally regarded as tedious and verbose.