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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 greatest 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 February 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.

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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.

Quàm interim erga Cognatos pius et officiosus,
Testetur hoc Saxum,

A MARIA PHILIPS, Matre ipsius pientissimâ,
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 bon3 doctisque juxta charus,
Immortale suum Ingenium,
Eruditione multiplici Excultum,
Miro Animi Candore,
Eximiâ Morum Simplicitate,
Honestavit.

Literarum amoniorum Sitim,

Quam Wintoniæ Puer sentire cœperat,
Juter Edis Christi Alumnos jugiter explevit.
In illo Musarum Domicilio,

Præclaris Æmulorum Studiis excitatus,
Optimis scribendi Magistris temper 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 eundum ferè Orbem redeuntibus, Non Clausularum similiter Cadentium Sono,

Metiri;

Uni in hoc Laudis Genere Miltono secundus,
Primoque pone par.

Res, seu tenues, seu grandes, seu mediocres,
Ormandas sumserat;

Nusquam, non quod decuit,

Et videt, et assecutus est,

Egregius, quocunque Stylum verteret,
Fandi Author, et Modorum Artifex.
Fas sit huic,

Auso licèt à tuâ Metrorum Lege discedere,
O Poesis Anglicanæ Pater, atque Conditor, Chaucere!
Alterum tibi latus claudere,

Vatum certe Cineres, tuos undique Stipantium
Non dedecebit Chorum.

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SIMON HARCOURT, Miles,
Viri benè de se, de Literis meriti
Quoad viveret Fautor,
Post Obitum piè memor,

Hoc illi Saxum poni voluit.

J. PHILIPS, STEPHANI, S. T. P. Archidiaconi
Salop. Filius, natus est Bamptoniæ,

In Agro Oxon. Dec. 30, 1676,
Obiit Herefordiæ, Feb. 15, 1708.

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 toJerable 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 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.

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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 music 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.

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 and elegant, and exhibits several artful accommodations of classic expressions to

new purposes. It seems better turned than the ode of Hannes.*

To the poem on Cider, written in imitation of the Georgics, 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.

In the disposition of his matter, so as to intersperse precepts relating to the culture of trees with sentiments more generally alluring, and in easy and graceful transitions from one subject to another, he has very diligently imitated his master; but he unhappily pleased himself with blank verse, and supposed that the numbers of Milton, which impress the mind with veneration, combined as they are with subjects of inconceivable grandeur, could be sustained by images which at most can rise only to elegance. Contending angels may shake the regions of heaven in blank verse; but the flow of equal measures, and the embellishment of rhyme, must recommend to our attention the art of engrafting, and decide the merit of the redstreak and pearmain.

What study could confer, Philips had obtained; but natural deficience cannot be supplied. He seems not born to greatness and elevation. He is never lofty, nor does he often surprise with unexpected excellence: but perhaps to his last poem may be applied what Tu said of the work of Lucretius, that it is written with much art, though with few blazes of genius.

*This ode I am willing to mention, because there seems to be an error 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.

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