(Fabian), was author of several books relating to ancient customs and privileges in England. He was born at Prestbury in Gloucestershire, September 28th 1601. When very young, he spent some time in one of the Inns of Chancery; and went from thence to the Middle-Temple, where he became learned in the law. In the civil wars, he was a bold adherent of the king's prerogative; and was so passionate a lover of Charles I., that, two days before that illustrious monarch was beheaded, he wrote a protestation against the intended murder, and caused it to be printed, and affixed to posts in all public places. He likewise published, in 1649, 4to, a pamphlet intitled, "Veritas Inconclusa; or King Charles I., no Man of Blood, but a Martyr for his People:" which was reprinted in 1660, 8vo. In 1663, when the courts of justice at Westminster, especially the Chancery, were voted down by Oliver's parliament, he published, "Considerations against the dissolving and taking them away:" for which he received the thanks of William Lenthal, Esq.; speaker of the late parliament, and of the keepers of the liberties of England. He was for some time filazer for London, Middlesex, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire; and spent much money in searching records, and writing in favour of the royal prerogative. The only advantage he received for this attachment to the royal cause was, the place of one of the commissioners for regulating the law, worth £100 per annum, which only lasted two years. After the Restoration of Charles II., when the bill for taking away the tenures was depending in parliament, he wrote and published a book to show the necessity of preserving them, intitled, "Tenenda non tollenda; or, the Necessity of preserving Tenures in capite, and by Knight's-service, which, according to their first institution, were, and are yet, a great part of the falcus populi, &c. 1660," 4to. In 1663 he published, "The Antiquity, Legality, Reason, Duty, and Necessity of Pre-emption and Pourveyance for the King," 4to; and afterwards many other pieces upon subjects of a similar kind. He assisted Dr Bates in his "Elenchus Motuum;" especially in searching the records and offices for that work. He died, November 17th, 1690, in his 80th year; and was buried near his wife in the church of Twyford in Middlesex. He was a man well acquainted with records and antiquities; but his manner of writing is neither close nor well digested. He published a political pamphlet in 1681, intitled, intitled, "Ursa Major et Minor; showing that there is no such Fear, as is factitiously pretended, of Popery and arbitrary Power."

Philips (Ambrofe), 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 the 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 for 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 comparison, 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 baculum, 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 Weft, 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 toast 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 had 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 400 l. 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 Surry.

"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; 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 be 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 fort 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 Sobieski, and Sabrunsky, and Jablonsky, and Podebrady, and many more kings."

Philips (Catherine), 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 viscounts 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 smallpox in London, the 22d of June 1664, much and justly regretted; "having not left (says Langhaine) 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 Cotterel were 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."

Philips (John), an eminent English poet, was born in 1676. He was educated at Winchester and Oxford, where he became acquainted with Milton, whom he studied with great application, and traced in all his successful translations from the ancients. The first poem which distinguished our author, was his Splendid Shilling, which is in the Tailor styled the finest burlesque poem in the English language. His next was intitled Blenheim, which he wrote at the request of the earl of Oxford, and Mr Henry St John, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke, on the victory obtained there by the duke of Marlborough in 1704. It was published in 1705; and the year after he finished another poem upon cyder, the first book of which had been written at Oxford. It is on the model of Virgil's Georgics, and is a very excellent piece. We have no more of Mr Philips but a Latin ode to Henry St John, Esq; which is esteemed a masterpiece. He was contriving greater things; but illnese coming on, he was obliged to drop every thing but the care of his health. This care, however, did not save him: for, after lingering a long time, he died at Hereford, Feb. 15. 1708, of a consumption and asthma, before he had reached his 33d year. He was interred in the cathedral of that city with an inscription over his grave; and had a monument erected to his memory in Westminster-abbey by Sir Simon Harcourt, afterwards lord-chancellor, with an epitaph upon it written by Dr Atterbury, though commonly ascribed to Dr Freind. He was one of those few poets whose muse and manners were equally excellent and amiable; and both were so in a very eminent degree.

Dr Johnson observes, that "Philips has been always praised, without contradiction, as a man modest, blameless, and pious; who bore a narrow 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 Canto. To degrade the founding 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 profaned 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 grofs 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.

"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 odes of Hannes. To the poem on cyder, 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..." 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 precept, relating to the culture of trees, with sentiments more generally pleasing, 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 engraving, and decide the merit of the redbreast and pearmain. What study could confer, Philips had obtained; but natural deficiency 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 Tully said of the work of Lucretius, that "it is written with much art, though with few flames of genius."

It deserves to be remarked, that there were two poets of both the names of our authors, and who flourished in his time. One of them was Milton's nephew, and wrote several things, particularly some memoirs of his uncle, and part of Virgil Traveltied. The other was the author of two political farces, which were both printed in 1716; 1. The Earl of Marr married, with the Humours of Jocky the Highlander. 2. The Pretender's Flight; or a Mock Coronation, with the Humours of the facetious Harry St John.