Breton, Nicholas

Breton, Nicholas (bret'un) [key], 1551?–c.1623, English author, a prolific and versatile writer of verse and prose. His best work, written in a lyrical and pastoral vein, appeared in The Arbor of Amorous Devices (1597), England's Helicon (1600), and The Passionate Shepherd (1604).

See his poems (ed. with biography by J. Robertson, 1952); A Mad World My Masters and Other Prose Works (ed. by U. Kentish-Wright, 1929).