Documents for "English Literature, 1500 to 1799: Biographies":

• Addison, Joseph 1672-1719, English essayist, poet, and statesman. He was educated at Charterhouse, where he was a classmate of Richard Steele, and at Oxford, where he became a distinguished classical scholar. His...

• Akenside, Mark 1721-70, English poet and physician. His chief literary work was the didactic poem The Pleasures of Imagination (1744). Among his other works are the neoclassical Odes on Various Subjects (1745)...

• Alabaster, William 1567-1640, English theologian and poet. Although he wrote two epic poems in Latin, he is remembered for his theological studies, including Spiraculum Tubarum (1633). Alabaster converted to Roman Catholicism...

• Alexander, Sir William d. 1640: see Stirling, William Alexander, earl of.

• Anstey, Christopher 1724-1805, English poet and satirist. He is known chiefly for The New Bath Guide (1766), a series of poetical episodes humorously depicting contemporary life at Bath. This work was widely read in...

• Arblay, Madame d' see Burney, Fanny.

• Arbuthnot, John 1667-1735, Scottish author and scientist, court physician (1705-14) to Queen Anne. He is best remembered for his five "John Bull" pamphlets (1712), political satires on the Whig war policy, which introduced the character John Bull, the typical Englishman. With his friends, Swift, Pope, and Gay, Arbuthnot was a member of the Scriblerus Club , organized to ridicule false tastes in learning, and was the principal author of the "Memoirs of … Martinus Scriblerus," first published in the quarto edition of Pope's works (1741). He was also the author of several progressive medical works. Greatly admired in his time, Arbuthnot was called an unusual genius by...

• Aubrey, John 1626-97, English antiquary and miscellaneous writer, b. Kingston, Wiltshire, educated at Trinity College, Oxford. He knew most of the famous people of his day and left copious memorandums as well...

• Austen, Jane 1775-1817, English novelist. The daughter of a clergyman, she spent the first 25 years of her life at "Steventon," her father's Hampshire vicarage. Here her first novels, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Northanger Abbey, were written, although they were not published until much later. On her father's retirement in 1801, the family moved to Bath for several years and then to Southampton, settling finally at Chawton...

• Ayton, Sir Robert 1570-1638, English poet and courtier. He was private secretary to the queens of James I and Charles I, besides holding other posts of honor. He wrote poems in French, Greek, and Latin, of which...

• Bale, John 1495-1563, English dramatist and clergyman. An ardent proponent of the Reformation, he used the stage as a vehicle for his views. His most famous play, King John (written c.1535), shows the transition from the medieval morality play to the Renaissance historical drama by allegorical treatment of the fate of England rather than of the fate of man's soul...

• Bannatyne, George 1545-1608?, collector of Scottish poems. He compiled the Bannatyne MS (1568), the chief collection of Scottish verse of the 15th and 16th cent. The Bannatyne Club was founded in his honor in 1823...

• Barbauld, Anna Letitia (Aikin) 1743-1825, English poet and editor. In 1774 she married Rochemont Barbauld and with him opened a boarding school. Her Hymns in Prose for children, widely read and translated into several languages,...

• Barclay, Alexander 1475?-1552, Scottish clergyman and poet. Although the first to write pastoral eclogues in English, he is best known for The Ship of Fools (1509), a translation and elongation of Sebastian Brant's...

• Barnes, Barnabe 1569?-1609, English poet. His major work is Parthenophil and Parthenophe (1593), a collection of sonnets, madrigals, elegies, and odes. He also wrote A Divine Century of Spiritual Sonnets (1595)...

• Barnfield, Richard 1574-1627, English poet. His entire output consists of three small books of poetry written before he was 25: The Affectionate Shepherd (1594), Cynthia (1595), and The Encomion of Lady Pecunia (1598)....

• Beattie, James 1735-1803, Scottish poet and essayist. Educated at Marischal College, Aberdeen, he later became professor of moral philosophy there. His fame in his own lifetime rested on two works, Essay on the Nature...

• Beaumont, Francis 1584?-1616, English dramatist. Born of a distinguished family, he studied at Oxford and the Inner Temple. His literary reputation is linked with that of John Fletcher , with whom he began collaborating...

• Beckford, William 1760-1844, English author. A wealthy dilettante, Beckford had a great desire to ascend to the nobility. Unfortunately his erratic and strange behavior often worked against his ambitions. About 1796...

• Behn, Aphra 1640-89, first professional female English author. Little is known of her early life, but there is evidence that c.1658 she married a London merchant of Dutch descent named Behn. After the death...

• Berners, John Bourchier, 2d Baron 1467-1533, English diplomat and man of letters. A member of Parliament from 1495 to 1529, he later became chancellor of the exchequer (1516) and ambassador to Madrid (1518). He was English...

• Bickerstaff, Isaac pseudonym used by Jonathan Swift and later by Richard Steele in the Tatler.

• Bickerstaffe, Isaac c.1735-c.1812, English dramatist, b. Ireland. Included among his comedies and ballad operas are The Maid of the Mill (produced in 1765) and The Padlock (produced in 1768).

• Blair, Robert 1699-1746, English poet and clergyman. His literary reputation rests solely on his didactic, blank-verse poem on death, The Grave (1743).

• Boswell, James 1740-95, Scottish author, b. Edinburgh; son of a distinguished judge. At his father's insistence the young Boswell reluctantly studied law. Admitted to the bar in 1766, he practiced throughout his...

• Brathwaite, Richard 1588?-1673, English poet. His Barnabae Itinerarium, a doggerel travelogue of provincial England, was written first in Latin (1636) and later published with an English translation ( Barnabee's Journal,...

• Breton, Nicholas 1551?-c.1623, English author, a prolific and versatile writer of verse and prose. His best work, written in a lyrical and pastoral vein, appeared in The Arbor of Amorous Devices (1597), England's...

• Brome, Richard c.1590-1652, English dramatist. He was the friend, servant, and disciple of Ben Jonson. Primarily a writer of realistic satiric comedy, picturing the life and manners of Caroline bourgeois London,...

• Brooke, Fulke Greville, 1st Baron 1554-1628, English author and statesman. A favorite of Queen Elizabeth I, he held many official positions during his lifetime. His Life of Sir Philip Sidney (1652) was more a historical and personal commentary than a biography. The bulk of his work (published posthumously) reflects his concern with the degeneration of the monarchy, foreshadowed by the...

• Brooke, Henry c.1703-1783, Irish author. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, he studied law in London before returning to Ireland permanently. In 1735 he published his long philosophical poem, Universal Beauty....

• Browne, Sir Thomas 1605-82, English author and physician, b. London, educated at Oxford and abroad, knighted (1671) by Charles II. His Religio Medici, in which Browne attempted to reconcile science and religion, was written about 1635. After circulating in manuscript, it was first published in a pirated edition (1642); an authorized edition...

• Browne, William (William Browne of Tavistock) , 1591?-1645?, English poet. An imitator of Spenser, he did his finest work in pastoral poetry, of which Britannia's Pastorals (1613, 1616, 1825) and The Shepherd's...

• Buckhurst, Lord see Sackville, Charles , and Sackville, Thomas.

• Budgell, Eustace 1686-1737, English essayist. He was a cousin of Addison , through whose aid he obtained several public offices. Budgell contributed to the Tatler, the Spectator, the Guardian, and wrote pamphlets...

• Bunyan, John 1628-88, English author, b. Elstow, Bedfordshire. After a brief period at the village free school, Bunyan learned the tinker's trade, which he followed intermittently throughout his life. Joining...

• Burnett, James see Monboddo, James Burnett, Lord.

• Burney, Fanny later Madame D'Arblay , 1752-1840, English novelist, daughter of Charles Burney , the composer, organist, and music scholar. Although she received no formal education, she read prodigiously and had the benefit of conversation with her father's famous friends, including David Garrick , Sir Joshua Reynolds , and Samuel Crisp. Her first novel and best-known book, Evelina (1778), was published anonymously, but she soon acknowledged its authorship and achieved literary prominence. She became an intimate friend of Samuel Johnson and his circle. Her second novel, Cecilia, appeared in 1782, Camilla in 1796, and The Wanderer in 1814. The theme of Burney's books is the entry into society of a virtuous but inexperienced young girl, her mistakes, and her gradual coming of age. She spent five unhappy years (1786-91) as a...

• Burns, Robert 1759-96, Scottish poet.

• Burton, Robert 1577-1640, English clergyman and scholar, b. Leicestershire, educated at Oxford. He served as librarian at Christ Church, Oxford, all his life; in addition he was vicar of St. Thomas, Oxford, and...

• Butler, Samuel 1612-80, English poet and satirist. During the Puritan Revolution he served Sir Samuel Luke, a noted officer of Cromwell. After the restoration of Charles II, he wrote his famous mock-heroic poem Hudibras (pub. in 3 parts, 1663, 1664, 1678), an envenomed satire against the Puritans in which Luke was the model for the butt Sir Hudibras. He was also the author of other verse satires, some of them not...

• Byrom, John 1692-1763, English shorthand expert and poet, educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He devised an early shorthand system, which he taught in Manchester. Although he copyrighted his system in...

• Capell, Edward 1731-81, English Shakespearean scholar. His 10-volume edition of Shakespeare (1768) was the first to incorporate exact collations of all available old texts. He followed this with a commentary, Notes...

• Carew, Thomas 1595?-1639?, English author, one of the Cavalier poets. Educated at Merton College, Oxford, he had a short diplomatic career on the Continent, then returned to England and became a favorite of Charles I and a court official. He is best known for his...

• Carey, Henry 1687-1743, English author. After the first collection of his poems appeared in 1713, he turned to writing for the stage. Primarily a writer of farce comedy, his greatest success was Chrononhotonthologos...

• Carter, Elizabeth 1717-1806, English poet and translator. Under the pen name Eliza she contributed for years to the Gentleman's Magazine. One of the group of 18th-century women known as the bluestockings, she was a friend of Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, and Horace Walpole. Collections of her poems appeared in 1738 and 1762. Her...

• Cartwright, William 1611-43, English author and divine. An ardent royalist and disciple of Ben Jonson , he had a high reputation as a preacher and author. In addition to his poems, which are now almost entirely forgotten,...

• Cavendish, George 1500-1561?, English gentleman, usher to Cardinal Wolsey. His biography of Wolsey, written in 1557, remained in manuscript until 1641 and first appeared in entirety in Christopher Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography (1810). One of the great books of the English Renaissance, the work imparts tragic stature to Wolsey's life by contrasting the splendor of his early career with the ignominy of his last days. The...

• Chapman, George 1559?-1634, English dramatist, translator, and poet. He is as famous for his plays as for his poetic translations of Homer's Iliad (1612) and Odyssey (1614-15). Chapman was a classical scholar, and...

• Chatterton, Thomas 1752-70, English poet. The posthumous son of a poor Bristol schoolmaster, he was already composing the "Rowley Poems" at the age of 12, claiming they were copies of 15th-century manuscripts at the Church of St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol. In 1769 he sent several of these poems to Horace Walpole, who was enthusiastic...

• Cheke, Sir John 1514-57, English scholar. As professor of Greek at Cambridge he taught Roger Ascham and later was tutor to Edward VI. A Protestant, he was imprisoned by Mary I. Although most of his works are...

• Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th earl of 1694-1773, English statesman and author. A noted wit and orator, his long public career, begun in 1715, included an ambassadorship to The Hague (1728-32), a seat in Parliament, and a successful...

• Churchill, Charles 1731-64, English poet and satirist. Upon his family's insistence he took religious orders in 1756, but life as a London dandy suited him more, and he resigned his curacy. His first poem and...

• Churchyard, Thomas 1520?-1604, English author. In his youth he was page to Henry Howard, earl of Surrey. He spent most of his life as a professional soldier, serving in Scotland, Flanders, and France. His best-known...

• Cleland, John 1709-87, English novelist. His Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1750), commonly known as Fanny Hill, was an immediate popular success; the novel's notoriety led to a number of official efforts to ban it over the next two centuries. Traditionally considered the first great pornographic work in...

• Cleveland, John 1613-58, English poet and political satirist. He served the royalist cause both as soldier and poet. His best-known work was The Rebel Scot (1644). Though his contemporary fame was great, and his works...

• Collins, William 1721-59, English poet. He was one of the great lyricists of the 18th cent. While he was still at Oxford he published Persian Ecologues (1742), which was written when he was 17. Unstable and weak-willed, he never chose a profession and was constantly in debt until he inherited money from an uncle. He won no popularity during his...

• Congreve, William 1670-1729, English dramatist, b. near Leeds, educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and studied law in the Middle Temple. After publishing a novel of intrigue, Incognita (1692), and translations of Juvenal and Persius (1693), he turned to writing for the stage. His first comedy, The Old Bachelor (1693), produced when he was only 23, was extremely successful and was followed by The Double Dealer (1693) and Love for Love (1695). In 1697 his only tragedy, The Mourning Bride, was produced. About this time Congreve replied to the attack on his plays made by Jeremy Collier , who in a famous essay attacked the English stage for its immorality and profaneness. Congreve reached his peak with his last play, The Way of the World (1700), which has come to be regarded as one of the great comedies in the English language. The leading female roles in Congreve's plays were written for Anne Bracegirdle , who was probably his mistress. He never married. After 1700, Congreve did little literary work, perhaps because of the cool reception accorded his last play or because of his failing health—he...

• Constable, Henry 1562-1613, English poet. After graduating from Cambridge in 1580 he went to Paris, where the atmosphere was more congenial for one of Roman Catholic faith. There he wrote Diana (1592), a volume of...

• Coryate, Thomas 1577?-1617, English traveler. Grotesque in appearance, he became part of the household of Henry, the oldest son of James I, where he was a sort of unofficial court jester. In 1608 he went on a...

• Cotton, Charles 1630-87, English author. He is chiefly remembered for his contribution to his friend Izaak Walton's Compleat Angler (5th ed. 1676). His pleasant, unaffected verse includes "An Ode to Winter" and...

• Cowley, Abraham 1618-67, one of the English metaphysical poets. He published his first volume of verse, Poetical Blossoms (1633), when he was 15. While a student at Cambridge, Cowley wrote three plays and began the scriptural epic Davideis (1656), in which he developed the use of the couplet as a vehicle for narrative verse. As a result of the Puritan uprising he left Cambridge and in 1656 went to France, where he served as secretary...

• Cowley, Hannah 1743-1809, English poet and dramatist. One of the Della-Cruscans , she contributed under the name Alma Matilda sentimental verse to the World. Her most successful comedy was The Belle's Stratagem...

• Crashaw, Richard 1612?-1649, one of the English metaphysical poets. He was graduated from Cambridge in 1634 and remained there as a fellow at Peterhouse until the Puritan uprising, when he fled to the Continent (1643). Though he was the son of an ardent Puritan...

• Crowne, John c.1640-c.1703, English playwright. The favorite playwright of Charles II, he is remembered for several rather mediocre comedies. Crowne was influenced by the French tradition, particularly by...

• Cumberland, Richard 1732-1811, English dramatist; great-grandson of the 17th-century philosopher Richard Cumberland. His family connections earned him a clerical position with the British board of trade. The author of...

• Daniel, Samuel 1562?-1619, English poet and historian. He was tutor to William Herbert, 3d earl of Pembroke, and later to Lady Anne Clifford. Eventually he found favor with James I, and in 1603 he was appointed...

• D'Arblay, Madame see Burney, Fanny.

• Darwin, Erasmus 1731-1802, English physician and poet. During most of his life he practiced medicine in Lichfield and cultivated a botanical garden. He was a prominent member of the Lichfield literary group, which...

• D'Avenant, Sir William 1606-68, English poet, playwright, and theatrical producer. His life and work bridge the gap between the Elizabethan and Restoration ages. His best plays appeared between 1634 and 1639. They...

• Davies of Hereford, John dā´vĬs , 1565?-1618, English poet. He settled in London about 1600 after spending several years as a writing master at Oxford. His main efforts were religious and philosophical treatises written in verse,...

• Davies, John see Davies of Hereford, John.

• Davies, Sir John dā´vĬs , 1569-1626, English poet. A successful lawyer, he served as solicitor general and attorney general in Ireland from 1603 to 1619. His works include Nosce Teipsum (1599), a long...

• Day, John 1574?-1640?, English dramatist. Educated at Cambridge, he was one of Philip Henslowe's group of playwrights, collaborating with Thomas Dekker, Henry Chettle, and others. The allegorical masque The Parliament...

• Defoe, Daniel 1660?-1731, English writer, b. London.

• Dekker, Thomas c,1570-1632, English dramatist and pamphleteer. Little is known of his life except that he frequently suffered from poverty and served several prison terms for debt. He began his literary career...

• Deloney, Thomas c.1543-c.1600, English ballad writer, fiction writer, and pamphleteer. He was a silk weaver. Deloney's chief works are three prose narratives— Jack of Newbury, Thomas of Reading, and The Gentle Craft (all c.1597)—relating to the clothier's, weaver's, and shoemaker's crafts respectively. Vivid and humorous, they reproduce bourgeois scenes of contemporary London. Their popularity indicates a...

• Denham, Sir John 1615-69, English poet and dramatist. His fame rests largely on two works: Cooper's Hill (1642), a topographical poem, combining descriptions of scenery with moral reflections, and The Sophy, a historical...

• Dennis, John 1657-1734, English critic and playwright. Best known for his critical works, which include Grounds of Criticism in Poetry (1704) and An Essay on the Genius and Writings of Shakespeare (1712), Dennis...

• Dodd, William 1729-77, English author. At one time king's chaplain, he ran heavily into debt, forged a bond, and was sentenced to death. Dr. Johnson led a movement to obtain clemency, but Dodd was executed. His...

• Dodsley, Robert 1703-64, English publisher and author. He wrote occasional verses, and also several plays, including The King and the Miller of Mansfield (1737); a ballad opera, The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green...

• Donne, John 1572-1631, English poet and divine. He is considered the greatest of the metaphysical poets.

• Dorset, Charles Sackville, 6th earl of see Sackville, Charles.

• Drayton, Michael 1563-1631, English poet. The son of a prosperous tradesman, he received his educational training in the house of Sir Henry Goodere, where he served as page. There he made a lasting friendship with...

• Drummond, William 1585-1649, Scottish poet. He was educated at Edinburgh and in France, retiring in 1610 to Hawthornden, where he spent his life as a gentleman of letters. His first volume of verse, Teares on the Death...

• Dryden, John 1631-1700, English poet, dramatist, and critic, b. Northamptonshire, grad. Cambridge, 1654. He went to London about 1657 and first came to public notice with his Heroic Stanzas (1659), commemorating the death of Oliver Cromwell. The following year, however, he celebrated the restoration of Charles II with Astraea Redux. In 1662 he was elected to the Royal Society, and in 1663 he married Lady Elizabeth Howard. His long poem on the Dutch War, Annus Mirabilis, appeared in 1667. The following year he became poet laureate. He had a long and varied career as a dramatist. His most notable plays include the heroic dramas, The Conquest of Granada (2 parts, 1670-71) and Aurenz-Zebe (1675); his blank-verse masterpiece, All for Love (1677), a retelling of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra; and the comedy Marriage à la Mode (1672). His great political satire on Monmouth and Shaftesbury, Absalom and Achitophel, appeared in two parts (1681, 1682). It was followed by MacFlecknoe (1682), an attack on Thomas Shadwell, and Religio Laici (1682), a poetical exposition of the Protestant layman's creed. In 1687, however, Dryden announced his conversion to Roman Catholicism in The Hind and the Panther. The preceding poems, as well as his Pindaric odes, "Alexander's Feast" and "Ode to the Memory of Mrs. Anne Killigrew," place him among the most notable English poets. With the accession of the Protestant William III, Dryden lost his laureateship and court patronage. Throughout his life he wrote brilliant critical...

• Dyer, John 1700?-1758, English nature poet, b. Wales. He is best known for the topographical poem Grongar Hill (1726).

• Dyer, Sir Edward 1543?-1607, Elizabethan poet. A friend of Sidney and Spenser, he was celebrated in his day as an elegist. His best-known poem is "My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is."

• Earle, John 1601?-1665, English clergyman and author. The Microcosmographie (1628), a collection of witty characterizations, is his most famous work. In 1663 he became bishop of Salisbury.

• Elyot, Sir Thomas c.1490-1546, English author. He wrote the earliest Latin-English dictionary (1538) and is remembered especially for his sensible and well-written treatise on the education of statesmen, The Book Named...

• Etherege, Sir George 1636-1692, English dramatist. His witty, licentious comedies— The Comical Revenge; or, Love in a Tub (1664) and She Wou'd If She Cou'd (1668)—set the tone of the Restoration comedy of...

• Evelyn, John 1620-1706, English diarist and miscellaneous writer. Although of royalist sympathies, he took little active part in the civil war. After 1652 he lived as a wealthy country gentleman at Sayes...

• Fairfax, Edward 1580?-1635, English translator. His excellent translation of Tasso's Gerusalemme liberta was published in 1600 under the title Godfrey of Buloigne. He also wrote a Discourse on Witchcraft (1621),...

• Falconer, William 1732-69, Scottish poet. The victim of a shipwreck off Greece, he described his ordeal in a long, didactic poem, The Shipwreck (1762). He also wrote (1769) a source book on shipping and naval practices....

• Farquhar, George 1678-1707, Irish dramatist, b. Londonderry (now Derry), Ireland. After his short career as an actor ended when he severely wounded a fellow actor in a stage duel, he wrote (1698) his first comedy, Love and a Bottle. His next play, The Constant Couple (1699), established his reputation. His experiences as an army officer are reflected in The Recruiting Officer (1706). He was on his deathbed when he completed his masterpiece, The Beaux' Stratagem (1707), a witty, realistic comedy set in the country. His plays, written in an atmosphere of genial merriment, represent the transition between the licentiousness of Restoration drama and the...

• Fenton, Elijah 1683-1730, English poet. A graduate of Cambridge, he was a schoolmaster for a time and later was a tutor in several noble families. He is chiefly remembered for his share in Pope's translation of...

• Fergusson, Robert 1750-74, Scottish poet, b. Edinburgh. He was a precursor of Robert Burns, who proclaimed his debt to Fergusson's Poems (1773). After careers in the clergy and in medicine, he worked as a public official and periodical contributor. Graphic and amusing pictures of life among the Edinburgh poor are found in his best...

• Fielding, Henry 1707-54, English novelist and dramatist. Born of a distinguished family, he was educated at Eton and studied law at Leiden. Settling in London in 1729, he began writing comedies, farces, and...

• Fletcher, Giles the elder, 1548?-1611, English writer and diplomat. He became a member of Parliament and later treasurer of St. Paul's. An envoy to Russia in 1588, he published an account of his experiences, Of the...

• Fletcher, John 1579-1625, English dramatist, b. Rye, Sussex, educated at Cambridge. A member of a prominent literary family, he began writing for the stage about 1606, first with Francis Beaumont , with whom his name is inseparably linked, later with Massinger and others. Fletcher may have collaborated with Shakespeare on Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen. Though there is great uncertainty in dating the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, their chief works appeared between 1607 and 1613. In Philaster, A Maid's Tragedy, A King and No King, and The Scornful Lady, they developed the form of the romance tragicomedy, which came to characterize a whole generation of later plays. In these plays a potentially tragic situation is developed until, at the end,...

• Florio, John 1553?-1625, English author, b. London of Italian parentage. Educated at Oxford, Florio served in various capacities at the court of James I. He is chiefly remembered for his free translation...

• Ford, John 1586-c.1640, English dramatist, b. Devonshire. He went to London to study law but was never called to the bar. The early part of his playwriting career was taken up with collaborations, primarily...

• Garth, Sir Samuel 1661-1719, English poet and physician, b. Yorkshire. He studied medicine at Leiden and Cambridge. His chief work is the satirical poem The Dispensary (1699), in which he advocates free dispensaries...

• Gascoigne, George c.1539-1577, English author, a pioneer in various fields of English literature. A reckless, dissipated youth, he left Cambridge without a degree to study law, but he spent most of his time in...

• Gay, John 1685-1732, English playwright and poet, b. Barnstaple, Devon. Educated at the local grammar school, he was apprenticed to a silk mercer for a brief time before commencing his literary career in...

• Golding, Arthur c.1536-c.1605, English translator. He translated many Latin classics, including Caesar's Gallic War and Ovid's Metamorphoses. A Calvinist, Golding tried to infuse the Metamorphoses with a stern...

• Goldsmith, Oliver 1730?-1774, Anglo-Irish author. The son of an Irish clergyman, he was graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, in 1749. He studied medicine at Edinburgh and Leiden, but his career as a physician was...

• Googe, Barnabe 1540-94, English poet and translator. In 1574 he was sent to Ireland as the representative of Sir William Cecil, Queen Elizabeth I's secretary of state. From 1582 to 1585 he was provost marshal of...

• Gosson, Stephen 1554-1624, English writer, b. Canterbury, grad. Oxford, 1576. He wrote three plays, all of which are lost and none of which seems to have been successful. He is best known for his attack on plays,...

• Granger, James 1723-76, English clergyman and biographer. He published his Biographical History of England from Egbert the Great to the Revolution in 1760. By 1824 various editors had increased it to six volumes by adding illustrations and biographies taken from other books. Because many books were robbed of steel engravings to put into...

• Gray, Thomas 1716-71, English poet. He was educated at Eton and Peterhouse, Cambridge. In 1739 he began a grand tour of the Continent with Horace Walpole. They quarreled in Italy, and Gray returned to England in 1741. He continued his studies at Cambridge, and he remained there for most of his life, living in seclusion, studying Greek, and writing...

• Green, Matthew 1696-1737, English poet. His one important poem, The Spleen (1737), marked by its wit, was in praise of the contemplative life.

• Greene, Robert 1558?-1592, English author. His short romances, written in the manner of Lyly's Euphues, include Pandosto (1588), from which Shakespeare drew the plot for A Winter's Tale, and Menaphon (1589). His best plays, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1594) and The Scottish History of James IV (1598), are a potpourri of romance, fantasy, and history. He wrote numerous tracts and pamphlets reflecting his knowledge of the London underworld as well as his own bohemian life. An alleged...

• Grimald, Nicholas 1519?-1562?, English poet. He contributed 40 poems to the first edition (1557) of Tottel's miscellany, of which "A Funeral Song upon the Decease of Annes, His Mother" is the most noteworthy. His...

• Grimoald, Nicholas see Grimald, Nicholas.

• Hall, Joseph 1574-1656, English prelate and author. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and became bishop of Exeter, 1627-41, and of Norwich, 1641-47. The rise of Puritanism involved him in serious...

• Hamilton, William 1704-54, English poet, b. Scotland. He is best known for the poem "The Braes of Yarrow" (1724).

• Harington, Sir John 1560?-1612, English author. He spent most of his career at the court of Queen Elizabeth I, where he became known for his indelicate humor. His Rabelaisian Metamorphosis of Ajax (1596; ed. by E. S....

• Harvey, Gabriel 1545?-1630?, English author. He studied at Cambridge and became a fellow of Pembroke Hall. There he became friends with Edmund Spenser, who later celebrated Harvey as Hobbinol in The Shepherd's Calendar. In 1578, Harvey became a fellow of Trinity Hall and began the study of law, but the publication of some satirical verses in 1579 involved him in considerable trouble with the authorities, and his...

• Hathaway, Anne see Shakespeare, William.

• Hawes, Stephen c.1475-1530, English poet. His best-known works, the two allegories Example of Virtue (1504?) and Pastime of Pleasure (1505?), use typically medieval conventions, but they differ from medieval allegory...

• Hawkesworth, John 1715?-1773, English author. He succeeded his friend Samuel Johnson in 1744 as reporter of parliamentary debates in the Gentleman's Magazine. With Johnson and Joseph Warton he wrote the periodical...

• Haywood, Eliza (Fowler) 1693?-1756, English author. Separated from her husband, she supported herself and her two children by writing plays and novels. Two of her books, Utopia (1725) and The Court of Carmania (1727), scandalized...

• Head, Richard c.1637-c.1686, English writer. His best-known work is The English Rogue (1665), a collection of crude picaresque stories. Sequels to this work were written by Francis Kirkman. Among his other fictional...

• Herbert of Cherbury, Edward Herbert, 1st Baron 1583-1648, English philosopher, poet, and diplomat; elder brother of George Herbert, the metaphysical poet. He was ambassador to France (1619-24) and was created Baron Herbert of Cherbury in 1629...

• Herbert, George 1593-1633, one of the English metaphysical poets. Of noble family, he was the brother of Baron Herbert of Cherbury. He was graduated from Cambridge. His early determination to enter the church was temporarily deflected by an appointment as public...

• Herbert, Mary see Pembroke, Mary Herbert, countess of.

• Herrick, Robert 1591-1674, English poet, generally considered the greatest of the Cavalier poets. Although he was born in London, he spent most of his childhood in Hampton. In 1607 he became apprenticed to his uncle, jeweler to the king, and remained in London until 1613. He was graduated from...

• Heywood, John 1497?-1580?, English dramatist. He was employed at the courts of Henry VIII and Mary I as a singer, musician, and playwright. At the accession of Elizabeth I in 1564 Heywood, who was a Roman...

• Heywood, Thomas 1574?-1641, English dramatist. A prolific writer, he claimed to have written and collaborated on more than 200 plays, most of which are now lost. Although he wrote dramas based on English history,...

• Holcroft, Thomas 1745-1809, English dramatist and novelist. Sometimes credited with having introduced melodrama to the London stage, he is the author of the sentimental play The Road to Ruin (1792). His novels include...

• Howard, Henry see Surrey, Henry Howard, earl of.

• Howard, Sir Robert 1626-98, English dramatist. He held several important government posts under Charles II. His introduction to his Foure New Plays (1665) initiated a dispute with his brother-in-law, John Dryden , about...

• Hurd, Richard 1720-1808, English theologian, editor, and critic. From 1781 until his death he was bishop of Worcester. His best-known works are Moral and Political Dialogues (1757) and Letters on Chivalry and Romance...

• Inchbald, Elizabeth 1753-1821, English author. The daughter of a farmer, Joseph Simpson, she went to London in 1772 to seek her fortune on the stage. The same year she married a fellow actor, Joseph Inchbald. In 1784...

• Johnson, Samuel 1709-84, English author, b. Lichfield. The leading literary scholar and critic of his time, Johnson helped to shape and define the Augustan Age. He was equally celebrated for his brilliant and...

• Jonson, Ben 1572-1637, English dramatist and poet, b. Westminster, London. The high-spirited buoyancy of Jonson's plays and the brilliance of his language have earned him a reputation as one of the great...

• Kelly, Hugh 1739-77, English dramatist, b. Killarney. His first and best-known play, the sentimental comedy False Delicacy, was produced by Garrick in 1768 and was extremely popular in its time.

• Kid, Thomas see Kyd, Thomas.

• Killigrew, Thomas 1612-83, English dramatist and theater manager, b. London. Before the closing of the theaters by the Puritans in 1642, he wrote several tragicomedies, including The Prisoners and Claracilla. His most popular play was the coarse comedy The Parson's Wedding (1637). In 1647 he followed Prince Charles into exile and at the Restoration was rewarded by being made groom of the bedchamber to Charles II and chamberlain to the queen. Charles granted to...

• King, Henry 1592-1669, English poet. He became bishop of Chichester in 1642. Elegies constitute nearly half his work, his most notable being "The Exequy," written on the death of his young wife. However, he...

• King, William 1663-1712, English poet. He supported the Tory and High Church party. He is noted for his humorous and satirical writings, which include Dialogues of the Dead (attacks against Richard Bentley, pub....

• Kyd, Thomas 1558-94, English dramatist, b. London. The son of a scrivener, he evidently followed his father's profession for a few years. In the 1580s he began writing plays. His literary fame rests on The Spanish Tragedy (c.1586), which initiated an important Elizabethan dramatic genre—the revenge tragedy. Popular throughout the 17th cent., The Spanish Tragedy is notable for its exciting action, splendid rhetoric, and complex delineation of character. Kyd is believed by some scholars to be the author of an earlier version of Hamlet, which Shakespeare used as the basis of his play. In 1593, Kyd was accused of holding unorthodox religious and moral views; he was arrested and subjected to torture. Although he extricated himself...

• Lawes, Henry 1596-1662, English composer. Both he and his brother William were prominent musician-composers, and Henry served the royal family in various capacities until the civil war. As music tutor in the...

• Lee, Nathaniel 1653-92, English dramatist. After failing as an actor, he turned to writing plays. Lee confined himself entirely to tragedy, turning often to the classical historians for the background of his...

• Leland, John c.1506-1552, English antiquary. He was successively chaplain and librarian to Henry VIII. In 1533 he was appointed king's antiquarian, and in this capacity traveled through England, collecting a...

• Lewis, Matthew Gregory 1775-1818, English author, b. London. In addition to his writing he pursued a diplomatic career and served for a time in Parliament. He was often called "Monk" Lewis from the title of his extravagant Gothic romance The Monk (1796), the writing of which was influenced by the tales of Ann Radcliffe. The novel concerns a saintly Capuchin monk who, led into a life of depravity by a fiend-inspired woman, subsequently becomes a rapist and murderer. Charges of immorality and irreligion brought...

• Leyland, John see Leland, John.

• Lillo, George 1693-1739, English dramatist. The son of a prosperous jeweller, he was for many years his father's partner in the trade. He is chiefly remembered as the author of The London Merchant; or, The History of George Barnwell (1731), the first prose domestic tragedy in English. Though the play was popular in England throughout the 18th cent., its influence was more strongly felt on the Continent, particularly in the...

• Lilly, John see Lyly, John.

• Lindsay, Sir David c.1490-c.1555, Scottish poet. He was a courtier and diplomat by profession. As a writer he was a harsh satirist and moralist who directed most of his invective against the Roman Catholic Church...

• Lodge, Thomas 1558?-1625, English writer, grad. Oxford, 1577. After abandoning the study of law for literature, he published (c.1580) his defense of poetry and other arts, usually called Honest Excuses, in reply to the attacks made by Stephen Gosson in The School of Abuse. Lodge wrote in nearly every form of literature. His pamphlets include Alarm against Usurers (1584) and Wits Misery and World's Madness (1596). He wrote several euphuistic romances, the best of which are Scillaes Metamorphosis (1589), a source of Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis; Rosalynde (1590), Shakespeare's source for As You Like It; and A Margarite of America (1596). Phillis (1593), a collection of amorous sonnets, is his chief volume of verse. He also wrote plays and a book of verse satires, A Fig for Momus (1595). Lodge pursued several careers in addition to his literary efforts. He sailed on a few expeditions, the most notable being the Thomas Cavendish expedition to South America in 1591. He...

• Lovelace, Richard 1618-1657?, one of the English Cavalier poets. He was the son of a Kentish knight and was educated at Oxford. In 1642 he was briefly imprisoned for having presented to Parliament a petition for the restoration of the bishops. An ardent...

• Lyly, John 1554?-1606, English dramatist and prose writer. An accomplished courtier, he also served as a member of Parliament from 1589 to 1601. His Euphues, published in two parts ( The Anatomy of Wit, 1578, and Euphues and His England, 1580), was an early example of the novel of manners and was one of the most influential works of its time. In it Lyly tried to establish an ideal of perfected prose style, which was actually...

• Lyndsay, Sir David see Lindsay, Sir David.

• Mackenzie, Henry 1745-1831, English author, b. Scotland. He had an active political and legal life, serving as comptroller of taxes for Scotland from 1804 until his death. His first and most famous novel, The Man of...

• Macpherson, James 1736-96, Scottish author. Educated at Aberdeen and Edinburgh, he spent his early years as a schoolmaster. In later life he held a colonial secretaryship in West Florida (1764-66), and he was a...

• Mallet, David c.1705-1765, English poet and dramatist, b. Scotland. His best-known work is the ballad William and Margaret (1720). Although he wrote several tragedies, he is usually remembered as the author (with...

• Mandeville, Bernard 1670-1733, English author, b. Dordrecht, Holland. A physician, he went to London in 1692 ostensibly to learn the language, but eventually settled there permanently, practicing medicine and writing...

• Manley, Mary de la Rivière 1663-1724, English author, one of the first women to earn a living by writing. Notorious because of her marriage to her cousin, who was already married and who later deserted her, she turned to...

• Markham, Gervase 1568-1637, English writer on horses and English country life. His chief work is Cavelarice ; or the English Horseman (1607). Included among his other works are Country Contentments (1615) and several...

• Marlowe, Christopher 1564-93, English dramatist and poet, b. Canterbury. Probably the greatest English dramatist before Shakespeare, Marlowe, a shoemaker's son, was educated at Cambridge and he went to London in 1587,...

• Marston, John 1576-1634, English satirist and dramatist, b. Oxfordshire, grad. Oxford, 1594. In accordance with his father's wishes he studied law at Middle Temple, but his interests soon turned to literature...

• Marvell, Andrew 1621-78, one of the English metaphysical poets. Educated at Cambridge, he worked as a clerk, traveled abroad, and returned to serve as tutor to Lord Fairfax's daughter in Yorkshire. In 1657 he was appointed John Milton's assistant in the Latin...

• Mason, William 1724-97, English poet, editor, and cleric. His works include two plays, Elfrida (1752) and Caractacus (1759), based on classical dramas. He was a friend of Thomas Gray , whose Life and Letters...

• May, Thomas 1595-1650, English author, b. Sussex, grad. Cambridge, 1612. Besides writing several tragedies on classical subjects, he wrote two comedies, The Heir (1620) and The Old Couple (c.1620). He made translations...

• Middleton, Thomas 1580-1627, English dramatist, b. London, grad. Queen's College, Oxford, 1598. His early plays were chiefly written in collaboration with Dekker, Drayton, and others. Between 1604 and 1611 he wrote realistic, satiric comedies of London life, including A Trick to Catch the Old One (c.1604), Michaelmas Term (c.1605), The Roaring Girl (c.161