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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, afterwards 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. Freind.

His epitaph at Hereford:
JOHANNES PHILIPS
Obijt 15 die Feb. Anno Dom. 1708.

Cujus

Etat. suæ 32.

Ossa si requiras, hanc urnam inspice:
Si ingenium nescias, ipsius opera consule;
Si tumulum desideras

Templum adi, Westmonasteriense:
Qualis quantusque vir fuerit,
Dicat elegans illa et præclara,
Quæ cenotaphium ibi decorat,
Inscriptio.

Quam interim erga cognatos pius et officiosus,
Testetur hoc saxum

A MARIA PHILIPS matre ipsius pientissima
Dilecti filii memoriæ non sine lacrymis dicatum.

His epitaph at Westminster:

Herefordiæ conduntur ossa,
Hoc in delubro statuitur imago,
Britanniam omnem pervagatur fama,
JOHANNIS PHILIPS:
Qui viris bonis doctisque juxta charus,
Immortale suum ingenium,

Eruditione multiplici excultum,
Miro animi candore,
Eximia morum simplicitate,
Honestavit.

Litterarum amoniorum sitim,

Quam Wintoniæ puer sentire cœperat,
Inter Edis Christi alumnos jugiter explevit.
In illo musarum domicilio

Præclaris æmulorum studiis excitatus,
Optimis scribendi magistris semper intentus,
Carmina sermone patrio composuit

A Græcis Latinisque fontibus feliciter deducta,
Atticis Romanisque auribus omnino digna,
Versuum quippe harmoniam
Rythmo didicerat,

Antiquo illo, libero, multiformi,

Ad res ipsas apto prorsus, et attemperato, Non numeris in eundem fere orbem redeuntibus, Non clausularum similiter cadentium sono

Metiri:

Uni in hoc laudis genere Miltono secundus,
Primoque pœne par.

Res seu tenues, seu grandes, seu mediocres
Ornandas sumserat,

Nusquam, non quod decuit,
Et vidit, et assecutis est,
Egregius, quocunque stylum verteret,
Fandi author, et modorum artifex.
Fas sit huic,

Auso licet a tua metrorum lege discedere,
O poesis Anglicanæ pater, atque conditor, Chaucere,
Alterum tibi latus claudere,

Vatum certe cineres tuos undique stipantium
Non dedecebit chorum.

SIMON HARCOURT, miles,

Viri bene de se, de litteris meriti,
Quoad viveret fautor,

Post obitum pie memor,

Hoc illi saxum poni voluit.

J. PHILIPS, STEPHANI, S. T. P. Archidiaconi
Salop. filius, natus est Bamptoniæ
In agro Oxon. Dec. 30, 1676.
Obijt Herefordiæ, Feb. 15, 1708.

1

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 pleasures of his pipe. His addiction 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 performances begins and

ends with the first author. He that should again adapt Milton's phrase 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 its 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 heroick 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 numbers into his work; but Philips sits down with a resolution to make no more musick than he found; to want all that his master wanted, though he is very far from having what his master had. Those asperities, therefore, that are venerable in the Paradise Lost, are contemptible in the Blenheim.

and

There is a Latin ode written to his patron St. John, in return for a present of wine and tobacco, which cannot be passed without notice. It is gay elegant, and exhibits several artful accommodations of classick expressions to new purposes. It seems better turned than the odes of Hannes".

To the poem on Cider, written in imitation of the Georgicks, may be given this peculiar praise, that it is grounded in truth; that the precepts which it contains are exact and just; and that it is, therefore, at once, a book of entertainment and of science. This I was told by Miller, the great gardener and botanist, whose expression was, that "there were many books written on the same subject in prose, which do not contain so much truth as that poem.

This ode I am willing to mention, because there seems to be an errour in all the printed copies, which is, I find, retained in the last. They all read;

Quam Gratiarum cura decentium
O! O! labellis cui Venus insidet.

The author probably wrote,

Quam Gratiarum cura decentium

Ornat;

labellis cui Venus insidet. Dr. J.

Hannes was professor of chemistry at Oxford, and wrote one or two poems in the Musæ Anglicanæ. J. B.

VOL. 8

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