Joshua, an English poet of some celebrity in his day, was born in 1553. He was a species of merchant, or "merchant adventurer" as he styles himself, and being of a roving disposition kept very generally poor. He was engaged chiefly in translating works from the French, and he rendered Du Bartas' poem of the Divine Weeks and Works into sweet, fantastic, and rather insipid verse in 1605, which had a great run. This poetical Puritan addressed a lively piece, with an edifying title, on the iniquities of tobacco, to King James VI. in 1616. The title of the book ran thus: Tobacco battered, and the Pipes shattered (about their ears that idly idolize so base and barbarous a weed, or at leastwise over-love so loathsome a vanitie), by a Volley of Holy Shot thundered from Mount Helicon. Symmachus seems to have had considerable powers of versification, but was destitute both of taste and judgment. After firing this "holy shot" from his exalted position, he seems to have betaken himself to a less elevated region, for he died at Middleburg in Holland, in 1618.