Composer, Poet, Theorist. Last name also spelled Campian. He was England's outstanding creator of lute songs, for which he wrote his own lyrics. His classic "Never Weather-Beaten Sail" (c.1613) is one of the most famous vocal works of the entire Renaissance period. Campion was born in London, the son of a prominent lawyer. Orphaned at 13, he studied music and history at Cambridge and law at Gray's Inn, but failed to graduate from either institution. He may have seen military service in Normandy under Robert Devereux, Second Earl of Essex. In 1605 he earned a medical degree at the University of Caen and from then on worked as a practicing physician in London. Campion was implicated in the notorious 1613 murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, but was exonerated when it was determined he had unwittingly passed along the bribe that procured the poet's death. He is said to have died treating the sick during an outbreak of the plague. Campion was one of the few creative figures of his age who was equally gifted in music and literature. In both he aimed for a simplicity and clarity moving towards heightened speech, and found his ideal vehicle in the solo lute song rather than the more complex madrigal. The finest of his 119 songs, ranging from the religious to the ribald, are perfect in their fusion of lyric and melody. Most were published in five "Bookes of Ayres" between 1601 and 1617, and include "The Peaceful Western Wind", "There is None, O None but You", "Move Now with Measured Sound", "Though You Are Young and I Am Old", "Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!", "Rose-Cheeked Laura", and "I Care Not for These Ladies". Campion further developed his ideas in the long essay "Observation in the Art of English Poesy" (1602), which prompted attacks from authors Ben Jonson and Samuel Daniel, and the musical treatise "A New Way of Making Four Parts in Counterpoint" (1613). He also wrote several masques (entertainments) for the court of James I, among them "Lord Hay's Masque" (1607) and "The Lord's Masque" (1613). During his lifetime and for centuries afterward Campion was chiefly regarded as a lyric poet, and it was not until the early 1900s that he began to take his rightful place among the greats of English music.