William Chamberlayne (poet)

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William Chamberlayne (1619 – July 11, 1679), was an English poet.

Nothing is known of his history except that he practised as a physician at Shaftesbury in Dorset, and fought on the Royalist side at the Second Battle of Newbury.

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 honor of the Restoration

A prose version of Pharonnida, entitled Eromena, or the Noble Stranger, appeared in 1683.

Robert Southey speaks of him as "a poet to whom I am indebted for many hours of delight." Pharonnida was reprinted by SW Singer in 1820, and again in 1905 by George Saintsbury in Minor Poets of the Caroline Period (vol. i). The poem is loose in construction, but contains some passages of great beauty.

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