Thomas Campion

Thomas Campion (1567–1620) was an English poet, composer, and physician, celebrated for his lute songs and courtly masques in the late Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. He studied at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and later trained in law at Gray’s Inn, though he did not take a degree. Campion wrote both the lyrics and music for many of his songs, which were published in influential songbooks, including *A Booke of Ayres* (1601). He also collaborated on major entertainments for the court, such as *The Masque of Lords* (1613). His critical treatise *Observations in the Art of English Poesie* (1602) argued for quantitative verse.