In 1626, Browne probably received from another old schoolfellow, Richard Peeke, a copy of his _Three to One_, a short and vigorous account of his recent exploits in Spain. This Richard Peeke, a gentleman of good family in Tavistock, had volunteered, in 1625, for the ill-starred expedition to Cadiz, and being taken prisoner, by his prowess in defeating three fully-armed Spaniards with a quarter-staff, had won his life and liberty, and was presently celebrated in ballads as “Manly Peeke,” and in a fine old play as “Dick of Devonshire.” He was invited by King Philip IV. to serve him by land or sea, but Peeke said he must return to the wife and children who were sighing for him in Tavistock; so he came back to settle down quietly in the old home, and, as one of our pewter flagons tells, he was churchwarden in 1638. And what was William Browne doing all this time? In 1614 he had written his masque of “Ulysses and Circe” for the Inner Temple, where it was performed 13th January, 1614–5. The subject may have been suggested by Chapman’s _Odyssey_, printed in 1614, or by Samuel Daniel’s lyric, “Ulysses and the Siren” (1605), and it is more than likely that Browne’s masque gave Milton some hints for his “Comus.” In 1614 he also contributed seven Eclogues to the “Shepheard’s Pipe,” the other contributors being C. Brooke, Davies, and Wither. Browne worked into his first Eclogue the “Jonathas” of the little-known Occleve, and the fourth is an Elegy on Thomas, the son of Sir Peter Manwood. Our little and learned poet, as Prince describes him, is said to have been appointed, in 1615, Pursuivant of Wards and Liveries for life. He married a daughter of Sir Thomas Eversfield, and had two sons, who both died young. In 1624 he returned to Oxford as tutor to the Hon. Robert Dormer, afterwards Earl of Carnarvon, who was killed at Newbury in 1643. Browne, being thirty-three, matriculated from Exeter College on 30th April, 1624, and on 16th November took his M.A., being commended for his knowledge of humane letters and the fine arts. He seems to have gone abroad with his pupil, and in 1640 he wrote from Dorking to Sir Benjamin Ruddyerd, congratulating him on his “late speech in Parliament, wherein they believe the spirit which inspired the Reformation, and genius which dictated the Magna Charta, possessed you. In my poore cell and sequestration from all businesse, I blesse God and praye for more such members in the Commonwealth.” Anthony Wood says he was afterwards domesticated with the Herberts at Wilton, and prospered there; and it has been fairly proved that he, and not Ben Jonson, wrote that most perfect epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke:— Underneath this sable hearse Lies the subject of all verse, Sidney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother; Death! ere thou hast slain another, Learn’d and fair, and good as she, Time will throw a dart at thee.