Browne, William (c. 1590-c. 1645)

English poet. His chief works were Britannia's Pastorals (1613-16), The Shepheard's Pipe (1614; with three friends), and The Inner Temple Masque (1615; printed 1772).

He was the author of an epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke, long attributed to Ben Jonson, beginning ‘Underneath this sable hearse’.

Browne was born in Tavistock, Devon, and studied at Oxford and at the Inner Temple, London. He is said to have been received into the household of William, Earl of Pembroke, but little is known of his later life. His poems, which are mainly pastoral and descriptive, are rich and flowing but lack deep feeling. They show the influence of Spenser, and Browne in turn had some influence on such poets as Milton and Keats.