to Prince Charles); ‘A Hymn of Almes’ (also ded. to Abbot); ‘The Batail of Yvry’ (dedicated this time to the Earl of Dorset); ‘Honor's Farewel, or the Lady Hay's Last Will’ (with a dedication to Dr. Hall). The two volumes are frequently bound together. All the pieces enumerated have separate title-pages. In some are bound up, for the sake of completeness, the following additional items, the dates of which are uncertain (i.) ‘Tobacco Battered and the Pipes Shattered (about their Ears that idly idolize so base and barbarous a weed, or a least-wise over love so loathsome vanity).’ This was republished in 1672 along with James I's ‘Counterblast.’ (ii.) ‘Simile non est idem … or All's not Gold that Glisters. A character of the corrupted Time which makes Religion but a cover-crime’ (dedicated to Sir Henry Baker, bart.) (iii.) ‘Automachia; or the Self-Conflict of a Christian’ (see above). (iv.) ‘A Glimpse of Heavenly Joyes: or the New Hiervsalem in an Old Hymne extracted from the most Divine St. Avgvstine’ (dedicated to Sir Peter Manwood). The British Museum has three variant copies, one in a finely embroidered cover, another containing the rare portrait (see below). With the above should be compared the collations by Hazlitt and Lowndes and those of the copies in the Bodleian and Huth libraries. On the flyleaf of a copy inspected by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt is the inscription apparently in the poet's own hand ‘1617. In Middlebourgh 19o Septembrs. To my worthy ffrind Mr. George Morgan, Marchant Adventurer,
Accept with his poore Mite a minde
That honnours worth in euerie kinde’
- (Collect. iii. 102).
- ‘The Maiden's Blush: Ioseph, Mirror of Modestie, Map of Pietie, Maze of Destinie. Or rather Divine Providence. From the Latin of Fracastorius. Translated and Dedicated to the High Hopefull Charles, Prince of Wales,’ London, 1620, 12mo (Brit. Mus.).
- ‘The Wood-man's Bear. A Poeme. By Io. Sylvester. Semel insanavimus omnes,’ London, 1620, 8vo. Dedicated to the author's ‘worshipfull and most approved friend,’ Robert Nicholson (the Britwell copy, from Heber's Library, is probably unique).
- ‘Panthea: or, Divine Wishes and Meditations. Written by Io. Silvester. Revised by I[ames] M[artin], Master of Arts. Fero et Spero. Whereunto is added an Appendix, containing an Excellent Elegy written by the L. Visct. St. Albans, late Lord High Chancellor of England …,’ London, 1630, 4to (Brit. Mus.; Huth Library).
Sylvester has commendatory verses in Charles Fitzgeffrey's ‘Affaniæ,’ 1601, Sir Clement Edmondes's ‘Observations upon Cæsar's Commentaries,’ 1609, fol.; James Johnson's ‘Epigrammatum Libellus,’ 1615; Herring's ‘Mischief's Mystery,’ 1617; Francis Davison's ‘Poems,’ 1621, and J. Blaxton's ‘English Usurer,’ 1634.
His poetry was abundantly represented in that great thesaurus the ‘England's Parnassus’ of 1600 (see Collier, Seven English Poetical Miscellanies, 1867, vol. vi.), and a fine sonnet, ‘Were I as base as is the lowly plaine,’ is in Davison's ‘Rhapsody,’ 1602 (cf. Mr. A. H. Bullen's edition, 1891, p. lxxxv; Palgrave, Golden Treasury, 1878, p. 16). Dr. Grosart in 1880 brought out a complete edition of Sylvester's ‘Works’ with memorial introduction and some critical notes in his ‘Chertsey Worthies Library’ (London, 2 vols. 4to).
A portrait of Sylvester, crowned with bays, engraved by Cornelius von Dalen, was prefixed to some copies of the ‘Poems’ of 1614–15, and to the folio of 1641. This was copied by W. J. Alais for Dr. Grosart's edition.
[In addition to the Memoir prefixed to Grosart's edition of Sylvester, 1880, and the works of Dunster and Nathan Drake mentioned above, see Hunter's Chorus Vatum (Addit. MS. 24487, ff. 233–4) and Hunter's Collectanea, vol. xi. (Addit. MSS. 24445, f. 38, and 24501, f. 68); Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 594; Cibber's Lives of the Poets, i. 143; Ritson's Bibliograph. Poetica, pp. 355–7; Phillips's Theatrum Poetarum, p. 277; Ellis's Specimens, ii. 330; British Bibliographer, iv. 220; Gent. Mag. 1796 ii. 918, 1846 ii. 339–43; Ames's Typogr. Antiq. ed. Herbert; Collier's Bibl. Account of Early English Lit. 1865; Brydges's Censura Lit. vol. ii.; Pellissier's Vie et les Œuvres de Du Bartas, Paris, 1883; Poirson's Règne de Henri IV, Paris, 1856, ii. 376; Robiou's Lit. pendant la première moitié du XVIIme Siècle, 1858, p. 69; Brunet's Manuel du Libraire, s.v. ‘Saluste;’ Lowndes's Bibl. Manual, ed. Bohn; Dibdin's Library Companion, pp. 707 sq.; Bragge's Bibliotheca Nicotiana, p. 9; Masson's Life of Milton, i. 90, 451, vi. 530; Revue de Paris, t. xlix. pp. 5–17; Fraser's Magazine, 1842, lviii. 480; Plot's Staffordshire, p. 57; Todd's Spenser, iv. 2 (where Sylvester's indebtedness to the ‘Faerie Queene’ is emphasised); notes kindly furnished by R. E. Graves, esq.; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
SYLVESTER, MATTHEW (1636?–1708), nonconformist divine, son of Robert Sylvester, mercer, was born at Southwell, Nottinghamshire, about 1636. From Southwell grammar school, on 4 May 1654, at the age of seventeen, he was admitted at St. John's College, Cambridge. He was too
