PHILIPS, Ambrose, an English poet, was descended from a very ancient and considerable family of that name in Leicestershire. He received his education at St John's college, Cambridge; during his stay at which university, he wrote his pastorals, which acquired him at that time so high a reputation. His next performance was, The Life of Archbishop Williams, written, according to Mr Cibber, to make known his political principles, which in the course of it he had a free opportunity of doing, as the archbishop, who is the hero of his work, was a strong opponent to the high-church measures.
When he quitted the university, and came to London, he became a constant attendant at, and one of the wits of, Button's coffee-house, where he obtained the friendship and intimacy of many of the celebrated geniuses of that age, more particularly of Sir Richard Steele, who, in the first volume of his Tatler, has inserted a little poem of Mr Philips's, which he calls a Winter Piece, dated from Copenhagen, and addressed to the earl of Dorset, on which he bestows the highest encomiums; and, indeed, so much justice is there in these his commendations, that even Mr Pope himself, who had a fixed aversion to the author, while he affected to despise his other works, used always to except this from the number.
The first dislike Mr Pope conceived against Mr Philips, proceeded from that jealousy of fame which was so conspicuous in the character of that great poet; for Sir Richard Steele had taken so strong a liking to the pastorals of the latter, as to have formed a design for a critical comparison of them with those of Pope, in the conclusion of which the preference was to have been given to Philips. This design, however, coming to Mr Pope's knowledge, that gentleman, who could not bear a rival near the throne, determined to ward off this stroke by a stratagem of the most artful kind; which was no other than taking the same task on himself; and, in a paper in the Guardian, by drawing the like com-
parison, and giving a like preference, but on principles of criticism apparently fallacious, to point out the absurdity of such a judgment. However, notwithstanding the ridicule that was drawn on him in consequence of his standing as it were in competition with so powerful an antagonist, it is allowed, that there are, in some parts of Philips's pastorals, certain strokes of nature, and a degree of simplicity, that are much better suited to the purposes of pastoral, than the more correctly turned periods of Mr Pope's versification. Mr Philips and Mr Pope being of different political principles, was another cause of enmity between them; which arose at length to so great a height, that the former, finding his antagonist too hard for him at the weapon of wit, had even determined on making use of a rougher kind of argument; for which purpose he even went so far as to hang up a rod at Button's for the chastisement of his adversary whenever he should come thither; which, however, Mr Pope declining to do, avoided the argumentum baculinum, in which he would, no doubt, have found himself on the weakest side of the question. Our author also wrote several dramatical pieces; The Briton, Distressed Mother, and Humphrey Duke of Gloucester; all of which met with success, and one of them is at this time a standard of entertainment at the theatres, being generally repeated several times in every season. Mr Philips's circumstances were in general, through his life, not only easy, but rather affluent, in consequence of his being connected, by his political principles, with persons of great rank and consequence. He was concerned with Dr Hugh Boulter, afterwards archbishop of Armagh, the right honourable Richard West, Esq. lord chancellor of Ireland, the reverend Mr Gilbert Burnet, and the reverend Mr Henry Stevens, in writing a series of papers called the Free Thinker, which were all published together by Mr Philips, in three volumes in 12mo.
In the latter part of Queen Anne's reign, he was secretary to the Hanover club, who were a set of noblemen and gentlemen who had formed an association in honour of that succession, and for the support of its interests, and who used particularly to distinguish in their toasts such of the fair sex as were most zealously attached to the illustrious House of Brunswick. Mr Philips's station in this club, together with the zeal shown in his writings, recommended him to the notice and favour of the new government. He was, soon after the accession of King George I. put into the commission of the peace, and appointed one of the commissioners of the lottery. And, on his friend Dr Boulter's being made primate of Ireland, he accompanied that prelate across St George's Channel, where he got considerable preferments bestowed on him, and was elected a member of the House of Commons there, as representative for the county of Armagh. At length, having purchased an annuity for life of 400l. per annum, he came over to England some time in the year 1748; but having a very bad state of health, and being moreover of an advanced age, he died soon after, at his lodgings near Vauxhall, in Surrey.
"Of his personal character (says Dr Johnson) all I have heard is, that he was eminent for bravery, and skill in the sword, and that in conversation he was solemn and pompous." He is somewhere called Quaker Philips, but, however, appears to have been a man of integrity;
grity; for the late Paul Whitehead relates, that when Mr Addison was secretary of state, Philips applied to him for some preferment, but was coolly answered, "that it was thought that he was already provided for, by being made a justice for Westminster." To this observation our author, with some indignation, replied, "Though poetry was a trade he could not live by, yet he scorned to owe subsistence to another which he ought not to live by."
The following anecdote is told of our author by Dr Johnson: "At a coffee-house, he (Philips) was discoursing upon pictures, and pitying the painters, who, in their historical pieces, always draw the same sort of sky." "They should travel (said he), and then they would see that there is a different sky in every country, in England, France, Italy, and so forth." "Your remark is just (said a grave gentleman who sat by), I have been a traveller, and can testify what you observe is true; but the greatest variety of skies that I found was in Poland." "In Poland, Sir?" (says Philips). "Yes, in Poland; for there is Sobiesky, and Sabrunsky, and Jablonsky, and Podebrasky, and many more skies."