Thomas Brown (1662 – 18 June 1704) was an English translator and satirist, largely forgotten today save for a four-line gibe that he may have written concerning John Fell.
After some years spent as headmaster of the free school at Kingston upon Thames, Brown moved to London to live by his pen.
Remembered now mainly for his witty political satires, he also wrote three stage plays, including The Dispensary (1697), and a large number of essays.
His best-known works, apart from the quatrain, are probably Amusements Serious and Comical, calculated for the Meridian of London (1700) and Letters from the Dead to the Living (1702), although his writings were quite prolific.
The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica gives this verdict: "He was the author of a great variety of poems, letters, dialogues and lampoons, full of humour and erudition, but coarse and scurrilous.