RICHARD, an eminent mineralogical and pharmaceutical chemist, was born in London in the year 1778. He spent the earlier part of his career as a chemist and druggist; and in 1805 he first attracted the attention of the scientific world by his "Analyses of the Bath Waters," followed by analyses of our mineral waters generally, and of minerals of a rare kind. These papers were published for the first time in the Annals of Philosophy, a journal partially conducted by Phillips both before and after its subsequent incorporation with the Philosophical Magazine in 1827. He was appointed lecturer on chemistry to the London Hospital in 1817; and about the same period he was elected by government professor of chemistry at the Military College, Sandhurst, and became lecturer on chemistry at Grainger's School of Medicine in Southwark. It is, however, in the character of editor and translator of the London Pharmacopoeia that Richard Phillips is best known. In 1816 he produced a review, consisting of an Experimental Examination of the Last Edition of the Pharmacopoeia Londinensis, which established his name as a scientific critic, and raised his reputation as a chemist. During the same year he wrote another brochure entitled Remarks on the Editio Altera of the Pharmacopoeia Londinensis. These pungent criticisms had the effect of drawing upon their author the notice of the College of Physicians; and Phillips was accordingly induced to come forward with his first official translation of the Pharmacopoeia in 1824. From that period down to the time of his death Phillips took a lively interest in the improvement of this important publication, and much of its present excellence is mainly due to his industry and skill. In 1822 he was made a fellow of the Royal Society; in 1832 he became lecturer on chemistry at St Thomas's Hospital; in 1839 he was appointed chemist and curator of the Museum of Practical Geology; and in 1849 he was chosen president of the Chemical Society, a position which he continued to occupy till his death, which happened on the 11th of May 1851.

The numerous and valuable contributions to science which Richard Phillips left behind him are to be found scattered throughout the Transactions of the Royal Society, the Philosophical Magazine, and the Pharmaceutical Journal. He likewise contributed the principal articles on chemistry and mineralogy in the Penny Cyclopaedia. "Of modern British analytical chemists," said Dr Thomas Thomson in his History of Chemistry, published in 1831, "undoubtedly the first is Mr Richard Phillips, to whom we are indebted for not a few analyses conducted with great chemical skill, and performed with accuracy."

Richard Phillips was younger brother of William Phillips, the mineralogist, who will be found noticed in a subsequent article.

SAMUEL, an industrious and successful litterateur, was the son of a Jewish tradesman in Regent Street, London, and was born in 1815. A somewhat precocious talent for mimicry and recitation had disposed his parents to train him for the stage; but they were afterwards induced, through the advice of the Duke of Sussex, to send the lad to the London University. After remaining a year at that institution, Phillips proceeded to the university of Göttingen. Having renounced the Jewish faith, he returned shortly afterwards to England, and entered Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, with the design of taking orders. His father's death, however, altered his plans; and after an unsuccessful attempt, in conjunction with his brother, to carry on his father's business, he, in 1841, took to literature as a profession. His first work, the novel of Caleb Stubley, appeared originally in the pages of Blackwood's Magazine; and he subsequently contributed other anonymous tales to that and to other periodicals. In 1845 he began, through the interest of Lord Stanley, to write political leaders for the Morning Herald; and about the same time he obtained an appointment on the staff of the Times as literary critic for that journal. In the following year he purchased the John Bull newspaper, which he edited for a year; but finding his strength, which was slowly wasting under the influence of confirmed consumption, quite unequal to such laborious work, he was constrained to abandon the undertaking. From that period till his death Phillips worked cheerfully and courageously as literary critic for the Times, and also wrote an occasional review for the Literary Gazette. Two anonymous volumes of Essays from the Times were published by him in 1852 and 1854. They are written in a light, dashing, picturesque style, sometimes eloquent, frequently bitter, and with a tolerable show of fairness. Phillips took an active part in the formation of the Crystal Palace Company. He was appointed their literary director; he wrote their Guide to the Crystal Palace and Park, and the Portrait Gallery of the Crystal Palace. In 1852 the university of Göttingen conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL.D. But while success attended his industry, and honours came thick upon him, the fell disease with which he had long struggled at length brought his career to a close. He died at Brighton on the 14th October 1854, leaving behind him a widow and five children, for whom he had made a comfortable provision.

THOMAS, an eminent portrait-painter, was born at Dudley in Warwickshire in 1770. Having acquired the art of glass-painting at Birmingham, he visited London in 1790 with an introduction to Benjamin West, who found him employment on the glass-paintings in St George's chapel at Windsor. In 1792 Phillips painted a "View of Windsor Castle," and ere the two succeeding years had passed, he exhibited "The Death of Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, at the Battle of Cassillon," "Ruth and Naomi," "Elijah restoring the Widow's Son," "Cupid dismayed by Euphrosyne," and other pictures of that class. From the year 1796, however, he seems to have mainly confined himself to portrait-painting; and it was in this walk he was destined to acquire his reputation as an artist. It was not long before he became the chosen painter of men of genius and talent, notwithstanding the rivalry of such distinguished artists as Koppern, Owen, Jackson, and Lawrence. He has left behind him, accordingly, portraits of nearly all the illustrious characters of his day, which will serve to justify the laudatory epithet of "the English Vandyck" bestowed upon him by the eminent foreign artist Nicolas de Keyser.

In 1824 Phillips succeeded Fuseli as professor of painting to the Royal Academy, an office which he held till 1832. During this period he delivered ten Lectures on the History and Principles of Painting, which were published in 1833. He likewise wrote a large number of the articles on the fine arts in Rees's Cyclopaedia. He died on the 20th of April 1845.

Phillips, William, an industrious mineralogist and geologist, was born in London on the 10th of May 1773. In conjunction with his brother Richard Phillips, already noticed, and eight other young men, chiefly of the Society of Friends, he founded the Asiatic Society, to which he contributed his first paper in 1801, "On the Virgula Divinatoria, or Divining-Rod," afterwards published in the Philosophical Magazine. The principal objects of Phillips' early studies were mineralogy and geology; and few men of his time contributed more to the diffusion of general information on these sciences. He was among the very first to turn to good account the reflective goniometer of Wollaston in the measurement of crystals; and in the use of that instrument, says Dr Whewell (Hist. of Ind. Sciences), "No one was more laborious and successful than William Phillips, whose power of apprehending the most complex forms with steadiness and clearness led Wollaston to say that he had a 'geometrical sense.'" His Elementary Introduction to the Knowledge of Mineralogy, first published in 1816, and made the basis in 1822 of Brooke and Miller's Introduction to Mineralogy, is pronounced by the same writer to be "an extraordinary treasure of crystallographic facts." This work had been an expansion of his Outlines of Mineralogy and Geology, published some years previously for the use of the young. In 1818 he published An Outline of the Geology of England and Wales, which he afterwards expanded into his more famous Outlines of the Geology of England and Wales. William Phillips likewise contributed elaborate communications on subjects connected with his favourite sciences of mineralogy and geology to the first series of Transactions of the Geological Society. He also wrote some minor papers for the Annals of Philosophy and the Philosophical Magazine. He was chosen a fellow of the Royal Society a year before his death, which took place in the spring of 1828.

PHILO JUDÆUS, or Philo the Jew, an ancient Greek writer, descended of a noble family amongst the Jews, flourished at Alexandria during the reign of Caligula. He was the chief of an embassy sent to Rome about the year 42 A.D., to plead the cause of the Jews against Apion, who had been sent by the Alexandrians to charge them with neglecting the honours due to Caesar. He afterwards went to Rome in the reign of Claudius, and both Eusebius and Jerome inform us that he became acquainted with St Peter, with whom he lived on terms of friendship. At a later period, it is said, his son Tiberius Alexander married Berenice, the daughter of King Agrippa.

Philo was educated at Alexandria, and made very great progress in eloquence and in philosophy. After the fashion of the time, he cultivated, like many of his nation and faith, the philosophy of Plato, whose principles he so thoroughly imbibed, and whose manner he so well imitated, that it became a common saying, Aut Plato philonizat, aut Philo platonizat. Josephus describes him as a man "eminent on all accounts;" and Ensebius represents him as "copious in speech, rich in sentiment, and sublime in the knowledge of Holy Writ." He was, however, so much immersed in philosophy, particularly the Platonic, that he neglected the Hebrew language, and also the rites and customs of his own people. Scaliger, Grotius, and Cudworth declare that, though a Jew by nation, he was yet very ignorant of Jewish literature and of Jewish customs. But Fabricius and Mangey think differently. In his works, however, there are certainly many excellent things. Though he is continually platonizing and allegorizing the Scriptures, he abounds with fine sentiments and lessons of morality; and his morals are rather the morals of a Christian than those of a Jew. History, as well as his own writings, give us every reason to believe that he was a man of great prudence, constancy, and virtue.

His works were first published in Greek by Turnebus, at Paris, 1552; and to these a Latin translation, executed by Gelenius, was afterwards added. The best editions are those of Paris, 1640; Dr Mangey, London, 2 vols. folio, 1742, of which the text is considered to be the best; Richter, 8 vols. 8vo, 1828-30, with additions not before published. The works of Philo Judæus have been translated into English by C. D. Yonge, forming 4 vols. of Bohn's "Eccelesiastical Library," 1854.