# William Webbe

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For other people, see [William Webbe (disambiguation)](/source/William_Webbe_(disambiguation)).

**William Webbe** ([fl.](/source/Floruit) 1568–1591)[1] was an English critic and translator. He attended [Trinity College, Cambridge](/source/Trinity_College,_Cambridge),[2] and was a tutor for distinguished families, including the two sons of Edward Sulyard of Flemyngs, [Essex](/source/Essex), and later the children of [Henry Grey](/source/Henry_Grey,_1st_Baron_Grey_of_Groby) of [Pirgo](/source/Pirgo), also in Essex.[3]

Webbe wrote a *[Discourse of English Poetrie](/source/Discourse_of_English_Poetrie)* (1586), dedicated to Sulyard, in which he discusses [prosody](/source/Prosody_(linguistics)) and reviews English poetry up to his own day. He argued that the dearth of good English poetry since [Chaucer](/source/Geoffrey_Chaucer)'s day was not due to lack of poetic ability, or to the poverty of the language, but to the want of a proper system of prosody. He decried rhyming verse, showed enthusiasm for [Spenser](/source/Edmund_Spenser)'s *[The Shepheardes Calender](/source/The_Shepheardes_Calender)*, and urged the adoption of [hexameters](/source/Hexameter) and [sapphics](/source/Sapphic_stanza) for English verse[3]

He also translated [Virgil](/source/Virgil)'s first two *[Eclogues](/source/Eclogues).* A letter by Webbe to [Robert Wilmot](/source/Robert_Wilmot_(playwright)) ([fl.](/source/Fl.) 1568–1608) is prepended to the 1591 edition of Wilmot's play [*Tragedie of Tancred and Gismund*](/source/Tancred_and_Gismund).[4] The letter, praising Wilmot for having decided to publish the tragedy, acts as a prefacing endorsement of the play.

## Notes

1. "Webbe, William" A Dictionary of Writers and their Works. Ed. Michael Cox. Oxford University Press, 2001.

1. Wilmot, Robert. *The Tragedie of Tancred and Gismund*. London, 1591.

## External links

- [*A Discourse of English poetrie*](https://archive.org/details/adiscourseengli00webbgoog) at Internet Archive.

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