William Chamberlayne Biography | Poet

CHAMBERLAYNE, WILLIAM (1619-1679), English poet, was born in 1619. Nothing is known of his history except that he practised as a physician at Shaftesbury in Dorsetshire, and fought on the Royalist side at the second battle of Newbury. He died on the 11th of July 1679. His works are: Pharonnida (1659), a verse romance in five books; Love’s Victory (1658), a tragi-comedy, acted under another title in 1678 at the Theatre Royal;England’s Jubilee (1660), a poem in honour of the Restoration. A prose version of Pharonnida, entitled Eromena, or the Noble Stranger, appeared in 1683. Southey speaks of him as “a poet to whom I am indebted for many hours of delight.” Pharonnida was reprinted by S.W. Singer in 1820, and again in 1905 by Prof. G. Saintsbury in Minor Poets of the Caroline Period (vol. i.). The poem is loose in construction, but contains some passages of great beauty.