THOMAS

See also:

• WADE (or WAAD), SIR WILLIAM (1546-1623)
• WADE, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1800-1878)
• WADE, GEORGE (1673-1748)
• WADE, SIR THOMAS FRANCIS (1818-1895)
• THOMAS WADE (18o5-1875)

WADE (18o5-1875)  , English poet and dramatist, was born at Woodbridge, Suffolk, in 18o5 . He early went to London, where he began to publish verse of considerable merit under the inspiration of Byron, Keats and especially Shelley . He wrote some plays that were produced on the London stage with a certain measure of success, owing more perhaps to the acting of Charles and Fanny Kemble than to the merits of the dramatist . Wade frequently contributed verses to the magazines, and for some years he was editor as well as part-proprietor of Bell's Weekly Messenger . This venture proving financially unsuccessful, he retired to Jersey, where he edited the British Press, continuing to publish poetry from time to time until 1871 . He died in Jersey on the ,9th of September 1875 . His wife was Lucy Eager, a musician of some repute . The most notable of Wade's publications were: Tasso and the Sisters (1825), a volume of poems, among which " The Nuptials of Juno " in particular showed rare gifts of imagination, though like all Wade's work deficient in sense of melody and feeling for artistic form; Woman's Love (1828), a play produced at Covent Garden; The Phrenologists, a farce produced at Covent Garden in 183o; The Jew of Arragon, a play that was " howled from the stage " at Covent Garden in 183o owing to its exaltation of the Jew; IVIundi et cordis carmine (1835), a volume of poems, many of which had previously appeared in the Monthly Repository; The Contention of Death and Love, Helena and The Shadow Seeker—these three being published in the form of pamphlets in 1837; Prothanasia and other Poems (1839) . Wade also wrote a drama entitled King Henry II., and a translation of Dante's " Inferno " in the metre of the original, both of which remain in manuscript; and a series of sonnets inspired by his wife, some of which have been published . See Alfred H . Mills, The Poets and Poetry of the Century, vol. iii . (to vols., London, 1891–1897); Literary Anecdotes of the 19th Century, edited by Sir W .

Robertson Nicoll and T . J . Wise (2 vols., London, 1895–1896), containing a number of Wade's sonnets, a specimen of his Dante translation and a reprint of two of his verse pamphlets .