and humor have ever been a mighty weapon in the political, social and general reform movements of America, and this first American book of wit is no exception. Running through four editions within the first year of its existence and arousing the men of two lands to a determined frame of mind, its value in its own day cannot be doubted, and even yet "it is a tremendous partisan pamphlet, intensely vital, . . . . full of fire, wit, whim, eloquence, sarcasm, invective, patriotism, bigotry." The scolding, rabid "Simple Cobbler" was violently in earnest; the day of judgment was at hand. Hear his first sentence: "Either I am in an apoplexy, or that man is in a lethargy, who doth not now sensibly feel God shaking the heavens over his head and the earth under his feet." He saw political ruin threatening England, insanity hovering over every woman, and heresy stalking into every church. Beware, cried he, beware of false prophets! "He usually hears best in their meetings, that stops his ears closest; he opens his mouth to the best purpose that keeps it shut; and he doeth best of all that declines their company as wisely as he may. . . . . Here I hold myself bound to set up a beacon to give warning of a new-sprung sect of phrantastics, which would persuade themsevles and others that they have discovered the Nor-West passage to Heaven."

Certainly our first satirist was a worshipper of sincerity. His heart was in his book, and he spoke straight from that heart; his words need no interpreter. Of course, his learning got the better of him at times, but that was a common fault among the prose writers of the seventeenth century. For instance, years ago Professor Moses Coit Tyler defied any man to explain this expression of Ward's: "If the whole conclave of hell can so compromise exadverse and diametrical contradictions as to compolitize such a multimonstrous maufrey of heteroclites and quicquidlibets, I trust I may say with all humble reverence, they can do more than the senate of heaven." How old Dr. Johnson would have enjoyed that sentence! But we have seen that this was not Ward's usual manner of procedure; for his soul was too heated for such verbal jugglery.

Thus this early American wit lashed the fallen sons of Adam. Wrong he often was; narrow we must consider him in this day;

blindly obstinate his enemies thought him in his own time. But beneath all his mistakes and natural failings we may frequently perceive that same plain, homely and earthy philosophy, that assumed yet shrewd simplicity, which have made us smile with Franklin and Josh Billings and Artemus Ward and many another American wiseacre. It has been a valuable and brilliantly original brood that grumbling old Nathaniel Ward fathered. CARL HOLLIDAY.

Cox College, Atlanta.

SYLVESTER'S "DU BARTAS"

Joshua Sylvester, once an idol of the hour, ceased to attract readers after the middle of the seventeenth century until early in the nineteenth century, when his name was frequently connected with Milton's, whom he is supposed to have influenced.

This pedantic poet, born in Kent in 1563, was, at the age of ten, sent to Southampton to study under Hadrianus Savaria, along with such pupils as Thomas Lake and Robert Ashley.' There he attained great proficiency in French, and being unable to enter a university, was placed with a trading firm; as a merchant or agent for English firms, he was often in Holland, France and Germany. Phillips, the nephew of Milton, says, "the silver-tongued Sylvester was so accomplished as to understand French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, and Latin."

He hailed the accession of James I, and wrote an anti-tobacco tract called "Tobacco Battered and Pipes Shattered About Their Ears by a Volley of Holy Shot, Thundered from Mount Helicon," to gain the favor of his highness, who hated' the weed. While the King refused the petition for a clerkship in the House of Commons, Prince Henry in 1606 made him groom of his chamber with a pension of twenty pounds a year. On this Anthony-a-Wood wrote: "Queen Elizabeth had a great respect for him, King James had a greater, and Prince Henry greatest of all, who valued him so much that he made him his first poet pensioner." Sylvester's lament over the Prince's death in 1612 seems sincere. In 1613, he found another patron, George Abbot, who enabled him to obtain a secretaryship in the service of the merchant adventures. This took him from England to Middelburg, where he spent his last five years. "But his forwardness to correct the vices of the age exposed him to a powerful resentment; and his country is said to have treated him with ingrati

4

'Dictionary of National Biography, article by Thos. Seccombe.

2 See Johnson's Universal Cyclopedia, (VII: 861).

Wood's "Athenæ Oxon.," ed. by Bliss, (I: 594).

Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum, by Edward Phillips, Cant. 1800.

tude." He died at Middelburg on the twenty-eighth of September, 1618.

During the whole of his life his leisure was given to reading or writing poetry. Many occasional verses, dedicated to the nobility, had procured for him a certain degree of local reputation." In 1592 appeared the first translation of Du Bartas's La Semaine; a second edition in 1605, dedicated to James I; others in 1608, 1611, and 1613, had all of Du Bartas and Sylvester, while that of 1641 included a translation of "Judith" by Thomas Hudson."

Du Bartas (1544-1590), when not employed in politics or war, had devoted his life to study and contemplation. His religion was of a pious nature and his meditations consequently serious. His great desire was to produce one poem, partly descriptive and partly didactic, in which the whole history of the world, as set forth in the Scripture and Christian belief, should be treated in a series of connected cantos, arranged symbolically into two weeks. The first week was to embrace the literal week of the creation of the world, and include a paraphrase, in seven cantos, of the seven days of creation, as given in Genesis, together with suitable reflections arising out of each. The second week was to give a further history of the world as related in the Old and New Testaments. The first part was finished and published during his life; of the second, only four days were completed. The popularity of the first part was unprecedented - thirty editions being exhausted in six years. The opinion of the French people was confirmed by the verdict of other nations, since it was translated into Latin, Italian, Spanish, German and English.

James VI, Thomas Hudson, Sir Philip Sidney, Ashley, Wm. Lisle and others translated portions into English, but Sylvester's work was soon established as the most complete and popular.

Of these, the "Contented Mind,” and “Were I as Base as is the Lowly Playne" (Davidson's "Poetical Rhapsody," 1602, not included in Sylvester's edition, 1641), are very superior to Sylvester's other sonnets, in daintiness, grace, and felicity. "From thy faire looks I count my Kalendar" or "O eyes more beauteous than those blazing eyes," or "Wilt thou not yet believe how deare I love thee?" closely resemble his other works in series of questions, repetitions, antitheses, and conceits.

Grosart's Edition of Works of Sylvester (Two vols, 1880).

There were various reasons for Sylvester's selection of this. In the first place, if well translated, it was likely to be successful, since Du Bartas was the spiritual poet of the hour; further, the religious sympathy between the two men was profound. Sylvester was strongly Puritan, of a serious and pious mind, with a fondness for such themes. The translation became a standard English classic, and remained so until 1660-after which time Sylvester was referred to as a pedantic and fantastic old poet.

In the introduction are many sonnets, poems by Daniel, Johnson, Gay-Wood, Davies, Hall, E. G., R. R., R. N., etc., in praise of Sylvester, an inscription to the King for this work of the Muses, signed by themselves and their high treasurer, Bartas the great, and "ingrosst" by Sylvester. A Corona Dedicatoria has a sonnet to each muse, in which the last line of one serves as the first line to the next. In the Indignis, "he drives away all profane hands, Green sick wits, prying Critiks, all who lack learning; he welcomes the King, Queen, good wits, milde Censors, Maecaenas and each learning lover." It is dedicated by lines arranged in pyramidal form, to "England's Appelles (rather Our Apollo), World's wonder Sydney, that rare morethan-man," etc."

However tiresome and unattractive this may be to us, it appealed very strongly to Sylvester's contemporaries. Commendatory verses are given Sylvester in Chas. Fitzgeffrey's Affania (1601), Sir Clement Edmondes's "Observations on Cæsar's Commentaries" (1609), Jas. Johnson's Epigrammatum Libellus (1615), Herring's "Mischief Mystery" (1617), Francis Davidson's "Poems" (1621), J. Blaxton's "English Usurer” (1634),