Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 55.djvu/268

 sacred epic; but the influence upon Milton was mainly indirect, and the parallelisms are occasional and accidental rather than studied and deliberate.

Dryden was also impressed by Sylvester in youth. ‘I remember when I was a boy,’ he says (in his translation of Boileau's ‘Art of Poetry,’ Scott's edit. xv. 231–3), ‘I thought inimitable Spenser a mean poet in comparison of Sylvester's “Du Bartas;”’ but in Dryden's maturer judgment Sylvester's verse was ‘abominable fustian.’ Dryden's later view prevailed. After 1660 Sylvester ceased to be read, and was only referred to, like his original in France, as a pedantic and fantastic old poet, disfigured by bad taste and ludicrous imagery. In 1800 Charles Dunster, in his remarkable essay entitled ‘Considerations on the Prima Stamina of Milton's “Paradise Lost,”’ carefully sifted the ‘Deuine Weekes,’ and selected a number of fragments of real poetic value from this antiquated heap of literary refuse. He was followed by Nathan Drake, who in the fourth edition of his ‘Literary Hours’ (1820, iii. 123 sq.) made some additions to Dunster's selections.

Sylvester appeared in print as a translator of Du Bartas at least as early as 1590, when was issued ‘A Canticle of the Victorie obteined by the French King Henrie the fourth. At Yvry. Written in French by the noble, learned, and divine poet William Salustius, Lord of Bartas, and Counsailor of estate unto his Majestie. Translated by Josuah Silvester, Marchant Adventurer,’ London, 1590, 4to. The work is dedicated in a ‘quatorzaine’ to ‘Maister James Parkinson and Maister John Caplin, Esquires, his wel-beloved friendes.’ It was probably the last work of Du Bartas, being written between the great victory of the Huguenot hero (his special patron) on 14 March 1590, in which he himself had a share, and the poet's death, four months later. The ‘Canticle’ was issued in several of Sylvester's later volumes, but the separate publication is rare (Narcissus Luttrell's copy is at Britwell; the British Museum has what appears to be a fragment of another issue; cf., Bibl. Account of Early English Literature, ii. 410).

The next year (1592) saw the publication of the first fragments of Sylvester's translation of Du Bartas's magnum opus, ‘La Semaine,’ which first appeared at Paris in 1578, and was followed in 1584 by ‘La Seconde Semaine.’ The first ‘Week’ or birth of the world contains seven books or ‘Days.’ The second week, forming a metrical paraphrase of the sacred history of the world, was designed on a larger scale than the first; but of its days (each subdivided into four parts) the author completed only four. Sylvester began upon the ‘third day’ of the ‘Second Week’ in his ‘The Triumph of Faith. The Sacrifice of Isaac. The Ship-wracke of Ionas. With a song of the victorie obtained by the French King at Yvry. Written in French by W. Salustius, lord of Bartas, and translated by Josua Silvester, Marchant Adventurer,’ London, 4to; dedicated to William Plumbe, esq., from London, 30 May 1592 (Britwell; the British Museum copy is imperfect). It was reprinted in 1605 (Devine Weekes, p. 543) as ‘formerlie dedicated, and now for euer consecrated to the gratefull Memorie … of William Plumbe.’ The ‘Sacrifice of Isaac’ was subsequently embodied in the second part of the third ‘Day’ of the ‘Second Week.’ Other parts of his version of the two ‘Semaines’ were issued in 1593, 1598, 1599, and probably in other years, each part being printed with independent title-pages and pagination, so that they might be sold separately at the option of the purchaser.

The first collective impression, of which perfect copies exist, was issued in 1605–6 as ‘Du Bartas his Devine Weekes and Workes. Translated … by Josuah Sylvester; London, by Humfrey Lownes,’ 4to. The title is engraved, and some portions have separate titles, but the signatures are continuous. The second volume, dedicated to ‘Mistresse Essex, wife to the right worthie William Essex of Lamborne, Esquire, and eldest daughter of the right valiant and Nobly Descended Sir Walter Harecourt of Stanton Harecourt,’ contains among other ‘Fragments, and other small works of Du Bartas’ ‘The Tryumph of Faith’ (see above), ‘The Profit of Imprisonment,’ which had first appeared in 1594 (see below), and ‘Tετράστιχα, or the Quadrains of Guy de Faur, lord of Pibrac.’ At the end comes ‘Posthumus Bartas,’ containing the ‘Third Day’ of the ‘Second Week;’ the ‘Fourth Day’ did not appear until 1611. The extant copies vary considerably (cf. Brit. Mus. and Bodleian copies with the collation in Collections, iii. 218–19). The work was dedicated by Sylvester to James I in French and Italian; then come the ‘Inscriptio’ and the ‘Corona Dedicatoria,’ in which all the muses are introduced for the purpose of rendering fulsome homage to the king, followed by ‘A Catalogue of the Order of the Bookes,’ a eulogy of Sidney, ‘England's Apelles, rather our Apollo, World's Wonder,’ &c., and numerous sets of verses by Samuel Daniel and Ben Jonson among others. A second edition, also printed by Humfrey Lownes, appeared in 1608, London, 4to; a third in 1611, and a fourth in 1613. The next edition was