PHILIPS, Catharine, a very ingenious lady, the daughter of Mr John Fowler merchant, was born at London in January 1631, and educated at a school at Hackney. She married James Philips of the priory of Cardigan, Esq. and went with the viscountess of Dungannon into Ireland, where she translated Corneille's tragedy of Pompey into English, which was several times acted there with great applause.
She translated also the four first acts of Horace, another tragedy of Corneille, the fifth being done by Sir John Denham. This excellent and amiable lady, for such it seems she was, died of the small-pox in London the 22d of June 1664, much and justly regretted; "having not left (says Langbaine) any of her sex her equal in poetry.—She not only equalled (adds he) all that is reported of the poetesses of antiquity, the Lesbian Sappho and the Roman Sulpitia, but justly found her admirers among the greatest poets of our age." Cowley wrote an ode upon her death. Dr Jeremy Taylor had addressed to her his "Measures and Offices of Friendship;" the second edition of which was printed in 1657, 12mo. She assumed the name of Orinda. In 1667, were printed, in folio, "Poems by the most deservedly admired Mrs Catharine Philips, the matchless Orinda. To which is added, Monsieur Corneille's Pompey and Horace, tragedies. With several other translations from the French;" and her picture before them, engraven by Faithorne. There was likewise another edition in 1678, folio; in the preface of which we are told, that "she wrote her familiar letters with great facility, in a very fair hand, and perfect orthography; and if they were collected with those excellent discourses she wrote on several subjects, they would make a volume much larger than that of her poems." In 1705, a small volume of her letters to Sir Charles Cottrel was printed, under the title of "Letters from Orinda to Poliarchus." The editor of these letters tells us, that "they were the effect of an happy intimacy between herself and the late famous Poliarchus, and are an admirable pattern for the pleasing correspondence of a virtuous friendship. They will sufficiently instruct us, how an intercourse of writing between persons of
different sexes ought to be managed with delight and innocence; and teach the world not to load such a commerce with censure and detraction, when it is removed at such a distance from even the appearance of guilt."