Sylvester

Sylvester, JOSHUA, was born in 1563. His life was divided betwixt merchandise and poetry, but in neither did he achieve success. Of his original works the human memory retains no trace, save perhaps only in the title of the poem published about 1620, entitled Tobacco Battered and the Pipes Shattered by a Volley of Holy Shot thundered from Mount Helicon; but in virtue of the great though short-lived popularity obtained by his English version of the Divine Weeks and Works of Du Bartas he lives in literary history a kind of shadowy life. He led a somewhat wandering existence, and died at Middelburg in Holland in 1618. His Works (1641) were reprinted by Grosart in the 'Chertsey Worthies Library' (1878).