STEPHEN (1554-1624).-Poet, actor, and satirist, _b._ in Kent, and _ed._ at Oxf., he went to London, and wrote plays, which are now lost, and pastorals; but, moved by a sermon preached at Paul's Cross in 1577 during a plague, he deserted the theatre, and became one of its severest critics in his prose satire, _The School of Abrose_ (1579),