of tone, while his manners were ‘somewhat too gentle for the stage.’ He obtained instruction from Dr. Samuel Arnold [q. v.], and improved rapidly. In 1801 he was engaged at the Crow Street Theatre in Dublin, where, according to the author of the ‘Familiar Epistles,’ he was destined
To bear our opera's whole weight,
The Atlas of our vocal state.
The satirist, while acknowledging Philipps's gift of voice, thought it one better adapted to a room than to a theatre. Kelly, however, proclaimed Philipps in 1826 the best acting singer on the English stage. By that time he had returned to London, where, on 26 June 1809, he appeared at the English Opera House in ‘Up all Night.’ He afterwards took part in the ‘Maniac,’ the ‘Peasant Boy,’ ‘Plots,’ and ‘M.P.’ at the same theatre in 1811. A tour in America is said to have enriched him by 7,000l., but he did not relinquish work, lecturing on vocal art in London and the provinces. Philipps retired early from the stage, taught singing, and composed ballads. He was a professional member of the Catch Club in 1828. He died at the age of sixty-seven on 27 Oct. 1841, from the result of a railway accident.
Philipps published ‘Elementary Principles and Practice of Singing,’ Dublin, 1826; ‘Crows in a Cornfield,’ for three voices, about 1830; the ‘Mentor's Harp: a Collection of Moral Ballads,’ and many songs and ballads.
[True Briton, 12 May 1796; Baptie's Musical Biography, p. 178; Ann. Register, 1841, p. 229; Musical World, 1841, p. 295; Kelly's Reminiscences, ii. 149; Familiar Epistles to F. E. Jones on the Irish Stage, 1806, p. 74; Genest's Hist. of the Stage, vol. viii. passim.]
PHILIPS. [See also Phelips, Philipps, Phillipps, and Phillips.]
PHILIPS, AMBROSE (1675?–1749), poet, born about 1675, is said to have descended from an old Leicestershire family. According to the admission-book of St. John's College he was son of Ambrose Philips ‘pannicularii,’ born in Shropshire, and was in his eighteenth year in June 1693 (Mayor, St. John's College). A Sir Ambrose Phillips became serjeant-at-law on 23 April 1686 (Luttrell, Brief Relation). He was educated at Shrewsbury (‘Admission entry’ and Swift's letters to him in Nichols's Illustr. of Lit. iv. 730–1), and afterwards at St. John's College, Cambridge. He entered as a sizar on 15 June 1693. He graduated B.A. in 1696 and M.A. in 1700, was elected a fellow of his college on 28 March 1699, and held the fellowship till 24 March 1707–8 (Mayor). From other entries he appears to have resided at Cambridge till he resigned his fellowship, and he is said to have written his ‘Pastorals’ while at college. In 1700 he published an abridgement of Hacket's ‘Life of Archbishop Williams.’ He was at Utrecht, whence one of his poems is dated, in 1703, and in 1709 was employed in some mission in the north. He addressed an ‘Epistle to the Earl of Dorset,’ dated Copenhagen, 9 March 1709. It was published by Steele in the ‘Tatler’ (No. 12), with high praise, as a ‘winterpiece’ worthy of the most learned painter. His ‘Pastorals’ appeared this year in Tonson's ‘Miscellany,’ which also included Pope's ‘Pastorals.’ In 1709 he also translated the ‘Contes Persans’ of Petit De la Croix. He was afterwards reproached by Pope with ‘turning a Persian Tale for half-a-crown,’ which, says Johnson, as the book was divided into many sections, was ‘very liberal as writers were then paid.’ After another visit to Denmark in the summer of 1710, he returned to England in October, and was on friendly terms with Swift, who promised in December to solicit Harley for the post of queen's secretary at Geneva for ‘poor pastoral Philips,’ and who said afterwards (Journal to Stella, 27 Dec. 1712), ‘I should certainly have provided for him had he not run party mad.’ He had, in fact, become one of the Addison circle. In 1711–12 he wrote the ‘Distressed Mother,’ a mere adaptation of Racine's ‘Andromaque.’ Its appearance was heralded by a very complimentary notice from Steele in the ‘Spectator’ (No. 290, 1 Feb. 1711–12), and Sir Roger de Coverley was taken by Addison to see a performance on 25 March following (No. 335). An epilogue, attributed to Budgell, is said to have been the most successful ever written. Pope says that the audience was packed by Philips's friends (Dryden, p. 46). In the early numbers of the ‘Guardian’ (1713) some papers upon pastoral poetry, in which Philips was complimented, excited Pope's jealousy, and he wrote a paper (No. 40) with an ironical comparison between Philips's ‘Pastorals’ and his own. Philips was indignant at this attack, inserted through Steele's inadvertence or want of perception, and he hung up a rod at Button's coffee-house, threatening to apply it to Pope [see under Pope, Alexander]. As Philips is reported by Johnson to have been ‘eminent for bravery and skill in the sword,’ and Pope was a deformed dwarf, the anecdote scarcely illustrates Philips's ‘bravery.’ Pope's revenge was taken by savage passages in his satires, which made Philips ridiculous. Philips, said Pope (Dryden, p. 148), was en-
