It is reported that the juvenile compositions of Stepney made gray authors blush. I know not whether his poems will ap pear such wonders to the present age. One cannot always easily find the reason for which the world has sometimes conspired to squander praise. It is not very unlikely that he wrote very early as well as he ever wrote; and the performances of youth have many favourers, because the authors yet lay no claim to public honours, and are therefore not considered as rivals by the distributors of fame. He apparently professed himself a poet, and added his name to those of the other wits in the version of Juvenal; but he is a very licentious translator, and does not recompense his neglect of the author by beauties of his own. In his original poems. now and then, a happy line may perhaps be found, and now and then a short composition may give pleasure. But there is, in the whole, little either of the grace of wit, or the vigour of nature. VOL. V.-A a J. PHILIPS. JOHN PHILIPS was born on the 30th of December, 1676, at Bampton, in Oxfordshire; of which place his father, Dr. Stephen Philips, archdeacon of Salop, was minister. The first part of his education was domestic; after which he was sent to Winchester, where, as we are told by Dr. Sewel, his biographer, he was soon distinguished by the superiority of his exercises; and, what is less easily to be credited, so much endeared himself to his schoolfellows by his civility and good nature, that they, without murmur or ill-will, saw him indulged by the master with particular immunities. It is related, that when he was at school, he seldom mingled in play with the other boys, but retired to his chamber; where his sovereign pleasure was to sit, hour after hour, while his hair was combed by somebody, whose service he found means to procure.* At school he became acquainted with the poets, ancient and modern, and fixed his attention particularly on Milton. In 1694, he entered himself at Christ-church, a college at that time in the highest reputation, by the transmission of Busby's scholars, to the care, first of Fell, and afterwards of Aldrich. Here he was distinguished as a genius eminent among the eminent, and for friendship particularly intimate with Mr. Smith, the author of "Phoedra and Hippolytus." The profession which he intended to follow was that of physic; and he took much delight in natural history, of which botany was his favourite part. His reputation was confined to his friends and to the univer • Isaac Vossius relates, that he also delighted in having his hair combed when he could have it done by barbers or other persons skilled in the rules of prosody. Of the passage that contains this ridiculous fancy, the following is a translation: "Many people take delight in the rubbing of their limbs and the combing of their hair; but these exercises would delight much more, if the servants at the baths, and if the barbers, were so skilful in this art, that they could express any measure with their fingers. I remember that more than once I have fallen into the hands of men of this sort, who could imitate any measure of songs in combing the hair, so as sometimes to express very intelligibly, iambics, trochees, dactyls, &c. from whence there arose to me no small delight." See his Treatise de Poematum cantu et viribus Rythmi. Oxon. 1673, p. 65. H. sity; till, about 1703, he extended it to a wider circle, by the "Splendid Shilling," which struck the public attention with a mode of writing new and unexpected. This performance raised him so high, that, when Europe resounded with the victory of Blenheim, he was, probably with an occult opposition to Addison, employed to deliver the acclamation of the tories. It is said that he would willingly have declined the task, but that his friends urged it upon him. It appears that he wrote this poem at the house of Mr. St. John. "Blenheim" was published in 1705. The next year produced his great work, the poem upon "Cider," in two books; which was received with loud praises, and continued long to be read, as an imitation of Virgil's "Georgic," which needed not shun the presence of the original. He then grew probably more confident of his own abilities, and began to meditate a poem on the "Last Day;" a subject on which no mind can hope to equal expectation. This work he did not live to finish; his diseases, a slow consumption and an asthma, put a stop to his studies, and on Feb. 15, 1708, at the beginning of his thirty-third year, put an end to his life. He was buried in the cathedral of Hereford; and Sir Simon Harcourt, afterward lord chancellor, gave him a monument in Westminster Abbey. The inscription at Westminster was written, as I have heard, by Dr. Atterbury, though commonly given to Dr. Friend. His epitaph at Hereford : JOHANNES PHILIPS Dom. 1708. Obiit 15 die Feb. Annota. suæ 32. Ossa si requiras, hanc Urnam inspice: Quàm interim erga Cognatos pius et officiosus, A MARIA PHILIPS Matre ipsius pientissima, Herefordiæ conduntur Ossa, Qui Viris bonis doctisque juxta charus, Immortale suum Ingenium, Literarum Amoniorum sitim, Præclaris Æmulorum studiis excitatus A Græcis Latinisque fontibus feliciter deducta, Antiquo illo, libero, multiformi Metiri : Uni in hoc laudis genere Miltono secundus. Res seu Tenues, seu Grandes, seu Mediocres Nusquam, non quod decuit, Et videt, et assecutus est, Auso licèt à tua Metrorum Lege discedere, Vatum certe Cineres, tuos undique stipantium SIMON HARCOURT, Miles, Viri benè de se, de Litteris meriti Post Obitum piè memor, Hoc illi Saxum poni voluit. J. PHILIPS, STEAHANI, S. T. P. Archidiaconì In agro Oxon, Dec. 30, 1676. Philips has been always praised, without contradiction, as a man modest, blameless, and pious; who bore narrowness of fortune without discontent, and tedious and painful maladies without impatience; beloved by those that knew him, but not ambitious to be known. He was probably not formed for a wide circle. His conversation is commended for its innocent gaiety, which seems to have flowed only among his intimates; for I have been told, that he was in company silent and barren, and employed only upon the pleasure of his pipe. His addicfion to tobacco is mentioned by one of his biographers, who remarks that in all his writings, except "Blenheim," he has found an opportunity of celebrating the fragrant fume. In common life he was probably one of those who please by not offending, and whose person was loved because his writings were admired. He died honoured and lamented, before any part of his reputation had withered, and before his patron St. John had disgraced him. His works are few. The "Splendid Shilling" has the uncommon merit of an original design, unless it may be thought precluded by the ancient Centos. To degrade the sounding words and stately construction of Milton by an application to the lowest and most trivial things, gratifies the mind with a momentary triumph over that grandeur which hitherto held its captives in admiration; the words and things are presented with a new appearance, and novelty is always grateful where it gives no pain. But the merit of such performance begins and ends with the first author. He that should again adapt Milton's praise to the gross incidents of common life, and even adapt it with more art, which would not be difficult, must yet expect but a small part of the praise which Philips has obtained; he can only hope to be considered as the repeater of a jest. "The parody on Milton," says Gildon, " is the only tolerable production of its author." This is a censure too dogmatical and violent. The poem of" Blenheim" was never denied to be tolerable, even by those who do not allow it supreme excellence. It is indeed the poem of a scholar, all inexpert of war; of a man who writes books, from books, and studies the world in a college. He seems to have formed his ideas of the field of Blenheim from the battles of the heroic ages, or the tales of chivalry, with very little comprehension of the qualities necessary to the composition of a modern hero, which Addison has displayed with so much propriety. He makes Marlborough behold at a distance the slaughter made by Tallard, then haste to encounter and restrain him, and mow his way through ranks made headless by his sword. He imitates Milton's numbers indeed, but imitates them very injudiciously. Deformity is easily copied; and whatever there is in Milton which the reader wishes away, all that is obsolete, peculiar, or licentious, is accumulated with great care by Philips. Milton's verse was harmonious, in proportion to the general state of our metre in Milton's age; and, if he had written after the improvements made by Dryden, it is reasonable to believe that he would have admitted a more pleasing modulation of nuinbers into his work; but Philips sits down with a resolution to make no more music than he found; to want all that his |
