William Browne (poet)



William Browne (c. 1590 – c. 1645) was an English poet

Life
He was born at Tavistock, Devon, and educated at Exeter College, Oxford; subsequently he entered the Inner Temple.

His poems, which are mainly descriptive, are rich and flowing, and true to the phenomena of nature, but deficient in interest. Influenced by Spenser, he in turn had an influence upon such poets as John Milton and John Keats. His chief works were Britannia's Pastorals (1613) an inordinately long poem, and a contribution to The Shepheard's Pipe (1614). Britannia's Pastorals was never finished: in his lifetime Books I & II were published successively in 1613 and 1616. The manuscript of Book III (unfinished) was not published until 1852. The poem is concerned with the loves and woes of Celia, Marina, etc.

To him is due the epitaph for the dowager Countess of Pembroke ("Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother").