John Philips, or Phillips. Born at Bampton, Oxfordshire, 1676: died 1708. An English writer. He was educated at Winchester and at Oxford (Christ Church). “The Splendid Shilling,” a burlesque of Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” appeared about 1703. In 1705 he published “Blenheim,” also in imitation of Milton, and in 1706 “Cyder,” his most ambitious work, in imitation of Vergil’s “Georgics.”
Personal
Somewhat reserved and silent amongst strangers, but free, familiar, and easy with his friends; he was averse to disputes, and thought no time so ill spent, and no wit so ill used, as that which was employed in such debates; his whole life was distinguished by a natural goodness, and well-grounded and unaffected piety, an universal charity, and a steady adherence to his principles; no one observed the natural and civil duties of life with a stricter regard, whether a son, a friend, or a member of society, and he had the happiness to fill every one of these parts, without even the suspicion either of undutifulness, insincerity, or disrespect. Thus he continued to the last, not owing his virtues to the happiness of his constitution, but the frame of his mind, insomuch, that during a long sickness, which is apt to ruffle the smoothest temper, he never betrayed any discontent or uneasiness, the integrity of his life still preserving the cheerfulness of his spirits; and if his friends had measured their hopes of his life, only by his unconcern in his sickness, they could not but conclude, that either his date would be much longer, or that he was at all times prepared for death.
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.
The Splendid Shilling, 1703
Philips’s “Splendid Shilling” may have pleased, because its manner was new, and we often find people of the best sense throw away their admiration on monsters, which are seldom to be seen, and neglect more regular beauty, and juster proportion.
This is reckoned the best parody of Milton in our language; it has been an hundred times imitated without success. The truth is, the first thing in this way must preclude all future attempts, for nothing is so easy as to burlesque any man’s manner, when we are once showed the way.
| … in thy numbers, Phillips, shines for aye | |
| The solitary Shilling. |
John Philips was a young and lively writer, who, having succeeded in a burlesque, was unfortunately induced to attempt serious poetry, and devoted himself to it with a scholarly dulness which he would probably have seen the folly of in any one else. His serious imitations of Milton are not worth a penny; but his burlesque of the style of “Paradise Lost,” though it no longer possesses the novelty which made it popular, is still welcome to the lover of wit. The low every-day circumstances, and the lofty classic manner with its nomenclatures, are happily interwoven; the more trivial words are brought in with unlooked-for effect; the motto is particularly felicitous; and the comparison of the rent in the small-clothes with the ship that has sprung a leak at sea, and founders, concludes the poem with a tremendous and calamitous grandeur, only to be equalled by the exclamation of the Spaniard; who said he had torn his “breeches, as if heaven and earth had come together.”
In style as in subject it was small coin glorified, perhaps the best piece of burlesque writing in our literature.
This parody still retains its humour.
General
Received then of Jacob Tonson forty guineas in full for the copy of a poem intituled “Cyder,” in two books.
The French are very just to eminent men in this point; not a learned man nor a poet can die, but all Europe must be acquainted with his accomplishments. They give praise and expect it in their turns: they commend their Patrus and Molières as well as their Condos and Turennes; their Pellisons and Racines have their elegies, as well as the prince whom they celebrate; and their poems, their mercuries, and orations, nay their very gazettes, are filled with the praises of the learned. I am satisfied, had they a Philips among them, and known how to value him; had they one of his learning, his temper, but above all of that particular turn of humour, that altogether new genius, he had been an example to their poets, and a subject of their panegyricks, and perhaps set in competition with the ancients, to whom only he ought to submit.
| Philips, by Phœbus and his Aldrich taught, | |
| Sings with that heat wherewith his Churchill fought, | |
| Unfetter’d in great Milton’s strain he writes, | |
| Like Milton’s angels, whilst his hero fights; | |
| Pursues the bard whilst he with honour can, | |
| Equals the poet and excels the man. |
Philips in his “Cyder” has succeeded extremely well in his imitation of it (“Paradise Lost”), but was quite wrong in endeavouring to imitate it on such a subject.
The “Splendid Shilling” has the uncommon merit of an original design, unless it may be thought precluded by the ancient Centos…. 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 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…. 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.
The fame of this poet (says the grave doctor of the last century), will endure as long as Blenheim is remembered, or cider drunk in England. He might have added, as long as tobacco shall be smoked; for Philips has written more meritoriously about the Indian weed, than about his native apple; and his Muse appears to be more in her element amidst the smoke of the pipe than of the battle…. Philips had the merit of studying and admiring Milton, but he never could imitate him without ludicrous effect, either in jest or earnest. His “Splendid Shilling” is the earliest, and one of the best of our parodies; but “Blenheim” is as completely a burlesque upon Milton as the “Splendid Shilling,” though it was written and read with gravity. In describing his hero, Marlborough, stepping out of Queen Anne’s drawing-room, he unconsciously carries the mock heroic to perfection, when he says,
| “His plumy crest | |
| Nods horrible. With more terrific port | |
| He walks, and seems already in the fight.” |
His serious poetry is not worth much, at least as poetry.
He seems to have been the earliest genuine literary admirer of Milton.
His poems, written in revolt against the heroic couplet, between the death of Dryden and the appearance of Pope, occupy an important position in the history of English literature.
Author of the admirable Miltonic burlesque of the “Splendid Shilling” and of a good poem, or at least verse-essay, on “Cider.”
