{\b Joshua(h) Sylvester}.

{\b Date of Birth}.: c. 1562-3

{\b Date of Death}.: 28 September 1618

{\b Works}.

English poet and translator. Sylvester is best known for his masterful 
translation of the works of the French Protestant poet Guillaume du Salluste 
du Bartas (1544-1590), especially the Divine Weeks and Works (the translation 
first appearing in 1592 and again, in complete form, in 1608). A good example 
of his original poetry is Tobacco Battered; and the Pipes Shattered (1617). 
Sylvester was a Bartas translator along with Sir Philip Sidney and King James. 
He had some influence on both Milton and Dryden.  

{\b Featured Works}.

'Were I as Base as is the Lowly Plain'.

{\b General Comment}.

Sylvester was born to a wealthy family in the Medway region of Kent. He was 
educated at the school of Adrian a Saravla in Southampton from 1573 to 1576. 
The school was known for its excellent instruction in French. He is best known 
for his translations, though he also wrote some verse. Sylvester is often 
compared to Bartas. Since they shared the same talent as poets, Sylvester was 
praised as a translator who was able to capture the excellent French diction 
of Bartas in English. The Divine Weeks and Works was a biblical epic which was 
very popular in England in the first half of the seventeenth century. He was 
friendly with Prince Henry and the cleric and poet Joseph Hall.