An English poet best known during his lifetime as an author of Latin poetry, Thomas Campion (1567-1620) is chiefly remembered for his songs for voice and lute and a number of masques celebrating occasions at court. He produced theoretical writings on music composition and in Observations in the Art of English Poesie (1602) called for the use of classical meter in English poetry.

Campion was born to John and Lucy Campion in St. Andrew's parish, Holborn, on February 12, 1567. His father died in 1576, and his mother, who was the daughter of one of the queen's sergeants-at-arms, remarried but was soon widowed. After remarrying again, Campion's mother died herself, and from 1580 he was raised by his stepfather, Augustine Steward. Campion was educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, but left in 1584 without taking a degree. During the late 1580s he studied law at Gray's Inn, where he developed an interest in musical arts and...