He was the son of Sir Thomas May of Mayfield, Sussex, and was born in 1594. A Fellow-commoner of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, a student at Gray’s Inn, and a courtier, he occupied his leisure in penning tragedies, comedies, descriptive poems, and translations from Virgil and Lucan. During the Civil Wars he was employed as secretary and historiographer to the Long Parliament. In this capacity he published in 1647 his “History of the Parliament of England, which began 3rd Nov. 1640.” This work however only extends to the battle of Newbury in 1643. In a “Breviary” of the same history, published in 1650, he carries the story some years further. May’s “History” was reprinted by Baron Maseres in 1812, and by the Clarendon Press in 1854; his “Breviary” is included in Maseres’ “Select Tracts relating to the Civil Wars” (1815). His comedies are, “The Heir” and “The Old Couple:” his tragedies, “Cleopatra,” “Agrippina,” and “Antigone.” To these Mr. Fleay would add the anonymous play of “Nero,” and if this be really May’s it is his masterpiece. There exists a rare book entitled “An Epitome of the English History by Thomas May, Esq., a late Member of Parliament,” 3rd ed. 1690; but as this is written in an anti-Cromwellian vein, and as the events narrated go down to 1660, it can hardly be the work of our author, who died in 1650.

Personal

  Sure I am, if he were a biassed and partiall Writer, he lieth buried near a good and true Historian indeed (I mean Mr. Camden) in the West side of the North Isle of Westminster Abby, dying suddenly in the night, anno Domini 1652, in the 55th year of his age.

  As to Tom May, Mr. Edmund Wyld told me that he was acquainted with him when he was young, and then he was as other young men of this towne are, scil. he said he was debaucht ad omnia: but doe not by any meanes take notice of it—for we have all been young. But Mr. Marvel in his poems upon Tom May’s death falls very severe upon him. He was choaked by tyeing his cap.

  Since his fortune could not raise his mind, he brought his mind down to his fortune by a great modesty and humility in his nature, which was not affected, but very well became an imperfection in his speech, which was great mortification to him, and kept him from entering upon any discourse but in the company of his very friends. His parts of art and nature were very good.

	As one put drunk into the packet-boat,
	Tom May was hurried hence and did not know’t.

  While James was still King, he had earned a place in letters by a comedy called “The Heir,” acted in 1620, though not published till 1633, and by a translation of Virgil’s Georgics. Remaining about the court on a footing of intercourse with Charles, he had added to his reputation by three tragedies, a translation of Lucan’s Pharsalia (1630), and other works; and now, at the age of thirty-seven, somewhat fat and with an impediment in his speech, he had some established celebrity as a dramatist and poet, which was to be curiously obscured afterwards when he became better known as Thomas May, the parliamentarian secretary and authorized historian of the Long Parliament. With no such twist in the end of his career as yet anticipated, he was still loyal Tom May, a “chosen friend” of Ben Jonson, and looking, it was said, for the laureateship, in the event of Ben’s death.

  May had no reason for rejoicing in his early intimacy with Clarendon, whose portrait of him is more enduring than brass.

History of the Parliament, 1650

  Impartially true … saving some little mistakes in his own judgment, and misinformations which some vain people gave of the state, and more indulgence to the king’s guilt than can justly be allowed.

  May’s “History of the Parliament” is a good model of genuine English; he is plain, terse, and vigorous, never slovenly, though with few remarkable passages, and is, in style as well as substance, a kind of contrast to Clarendon.

  A work which is less polished or eloquent than the author’s poetical tastes might have led us to expect.

  Their histories, like May’s for instance, are flat and heavy.

  May is a man of letters playing the historian. He flaunts you his Latin at every turn, decking his narrative with quotations from Claudian, Petronius, Lucan, and stopping to translate them with superfluous nicety. He conceives of history rather as an art than a science; his object is to instruct ignorance, not to assist investigation; he will insert a document here and there, but for the most part you must take his word for his authorities. And, as is the wont of literary men, it is the personal note that attracts him most, not as with the modern school, analysis of hidden cause and obvious effect; so that the best part of his book is to be found in the touches of characterisation, in the sketches of Pym, of Strafford. As a describer of battles he is hardly vigorous or picturesque enough. Indeed to style in writing he never attains. He has not the gift of the paragraph; page after page is a string of disconnected notes. And his diction is so far Latinised as to become bald, without catching the felicities which Latinisms sometimes convey.

  As a prose writer May’s reputation rests on his “History of the Long Parliament.” It is written in a flowing and elegant style, abounding, like all May’s writings, with quotations and parallels from Latin literature. Strafford is compared to Curio, Marie de Medicis to Agrippina. May bases his history on the newspapers and on the official manifestos of the two parties. He keeps himself studiously in the background, avoids, as far as possible, any expression of his own opinion, and is silent about his own reminiscences. He professes to relate facts without rhetoric or invective, to recall to the minds of his readers the judgments passed at the time on the facts he records, and to inform the world of the right nature, causes, and growth of the civil strife. Secret motives or hidden causes he makes no attempt to explain.

  On the whole, May’s “History” is a colourless production, though the style is easy and fluent. He is generally content to narrate events without comment or criticism, and is equally unmoved by animosity or enthusiasm. Indeed, the personal opinions of the writer only very rarely appear in the course of the record, a fact which seems to indicate either indifference or strong self-repression. May is sometimes happy in his references to Roman history, but, considering his high reputation for learning, the volume is very little “ornamented” with quotations or illustrations. All this seems to show that the writer’s task was perfunctory and uncongenial, and that the work was written like Milton’s “Eikonoklastes,” to order, not by choice, but was not inspired, like Milton’s pamphlet, with the fire and fervour of strong convictions.

General

	The Heire, being borne, was in his tender age
	Rockt in the Cradle of a private Stage,
	Where, lifted up by many a willing hand,
	The child did from the first day fairely stand;
	Since, having gather’d strength, he dares preferre
	His steps into the publike Theater,
	The World: where he despaires not but to find
	A doome from men more able, not lesse kind.

  I am sure his Enemies must allow him to be a good Poet, tho’ possibly he fell short of Sir William D’Avenant: and tho’ I no ways abet his self Opinion, yet I learn from Horace, that even Ill Poets, set a value on their Writings, tho’ they are despis’d by others;

	Ridentur mala qui componunt Carmina, verùm
	Gaudent Scribentes, & se venerantur, & ultrò,
	Si taceas, laudant, quicquid scripsere beati.

  And therefore I hope the moderate Critick will bear with the Frailty of our Author: and I doubt not but if they will read his Works with Candor, and especially his Plays, they will find he had some Reason for his Opinion of what he writ.

  His battle-pieces highly merit being brought forward to notice; they possess the requisites in a considerable degree to interest the feelings of an Englishman, while in accuracy they vie with a gazette, they are managed with such dexterity as to busy the mind with unceasing agitation, with scenes highly diversified and impassioned by striking character, minute incident, and alarming situations.

  Of May and Beaumont it is not necessary to say much: the former is occasionally nervous and energic, and their national subjects might enhance their reputation; their poems, however, are but too often little superior to gazettes in rhyme.

  He has ventured in narrative poetry on a similar difficulty to that Shakspeare encountered in the historical drama, but it is unnecessary to show with how much less success. Even in that department, he has scarcely equalled Daniel or Drayton.

  The first Latin poetry which England can vaunt is May’s “Supplement to Lucan,” in seven books, which carry down the history of the Pharsalia to the death of Cæsar. This is not only a very spirited poem, but, in many places at least, an excellent imitation. The versification, though it frequently reminds us of his model, is somewhat more negligent. May seems rarely to fall into Lucan’s tumid extravagances, or to emulate his philosophical grandeur: but the narration is almost as impetuous and rapid, the images as thronged; and sometimes we have rather a happy imitation of the ingenious sophisms Lucan is apt to employ. The death of Cato and that of Cæsar are among the passages well worthy of praise. In some lines on Cleopatra’s intrigue with Cæsar, while married to her brother, he has seized, with felicitous effect, not only the broken cadences, but the love of moral paradox, we find in Lucan.

  “Nero” is,… manifestly the work of a highly accomplished scholar, such as May undoubtedly was, and the theme must have had special interest for the translator and continuer of Lucan. It is, moreover, the work of a dramatic poet capable of writing admirable blank verse of the stronger sort, and often pithy in the substance of his diction. The canvas is crowded with characters, but they are graphically distinguished, and the whole picture of the feather-brained despot and his strangely-assorted surroundings is, without any slavish dependence on Tacitus and the other classical authorities, skilful in the choice and disposition of its details as well as striking in its total effect.

  His verse is fluent and sometimes musical, but apart from this his plays possess no special merit.