William Browne (c. 1590 – c. 1645) was an English pastoral poet, born at Tavistock, Devon, and educated at Exeter College, Oxford; subsequently he entered the Inner Temple.

His chief works were the long poem Britannia's Pastorals (1613), 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").^[1]

References[edit]

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons – via Wikisource.
• O'Callaghan, Michelle (2004). "Browne, William (1590/91–1645?)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 5 February 2009.

External links[edit]

• Works by William Browne at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about William Browne at Internet Archive
• Works by William Browne at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Original poems by William Browne published with biographical comments and Browne's family tree by Samuel Egerton Brydges at the Lee Priory Press in 1815.