brought out, at the expense of Nathaniel Brookes, a publisher who found much employment for both him and his brother, a very respectable effort in lexicography, entitled ‘A New World of Words, or a General Dictionary, containing the Terms, Etymologies, Definitions, and Perfect Interpretations of the proper significations of hard English words throughout the Arts and Sciences,’ fol. (new editions are dated 1662, 1671, 1678, 1696; 1700 and 1706—both called the sixth—with large additions by J. Kersey; and 1720—the seventh—also edited by Kersey). There are dedicatory epistles to Sir William Paston, Sir Robert Bolles of Scampton, and Edward Hussy of Catthorpe, Lincolnshire, besides an interesting list of specialists who had assisted Phillips. Elias Ashmole was the authority for ‘antiquities,’ Greatorex for mathematical instruments, and ‘Mr. Taverner’ for fishing. Thomas Blount asserted that Phillips largely plagiarised his ‘Glossographia,’ 1656, in his first edition, and wrote to Wood in 1670 complaining that Phillips was meditating a raid on his newly published ‘Law Dictionary,’ in order to improve a forthcoming edition of the ‘New World of Words.’ In support of these charges Blount issued in 1673 ‘A World of Errors discovered in the “New World of Words.”’ Stephen Skinner, in ‘Etymologicon,’ 1671, poured equal scorn on Phillips's efforts in philology. Phillips freely borrowed without acknowledgment hints from Skinner's work in later issues of his own volume. Meanwhile, in August 1658, again under the auspices of Nathaniel Brookes, Phillips published a humorous volume, called ‘Mysteries of Love and Eloquence, or the Arts of Wooing and Complimenting as they are managed in the Spring Garden, Hide Park, and other eminent places.’ The preface is addressed ‘To the youthful gentry.’ There follow imaginary conversations for lovers, with models of letters, an art of logic, a rhyming dictionary, reprints of poems and songs, a description of a few parlour games, and a vocabulary of epithets. The whole is entertaining, but often licentious, and offers a curious commentary on the strict training to which his uncle had subjected him in youth. A new edition, in 1699, bore the title of ‘The Beau's Academy.’
This undertaking proved only a temporary aberration from virtuous paths. The rest of Phillips's literary life was devoted to serious subjects. In 1660 he published a new edition of Baker's ‘Chronicle,’ contributing a continuation from 1650 to 1658, into which he imported a strong royalist bias. For a fourth edition of Baker, in 1662, he brought the history down to Charles II's coronation in May 1661, and was entrusted by Monck, through his brother-in-law (Sir Thomas Clarges), with Monck's private papers, in order to enable him to give a full account of the Restoration. A sixth edition appeared in 1674, a seventh in 1679, and an eighth in 1684.
On 24 Oct. 1663 Phillips became tutor at Sayes Court, near Deptford, at 20l. a year, to the son of John Evelyn, the diarist. ‘He was not,’ writes Evelyn, ‘at all infected by his uncle's principles, though he was brought up by him.’ Evelyn describes Phillips as ‘a sober, silent, and most harmless person, a little versatile in his studies, understanding many languages, especially the modern.’ He left Evelyn's house in February 1664–5 to become tutor to Philip (afterwards seventh earl of Pembroke), son of Philip Herbert, fifth earl. In 1667 he was still at Wilton, where his pupil's father, according to Evelyn, made ‘use of him to interpret some of the Teutonic philosophy to whose mystic theology the earl was much addicted.’ He seems to have left Wilton in 1672. Under the will of his stepfather, Agar, proved on 5 Nov. 1673, he received 200l. to be laid out in the purchase of an annuity for his life or some place of employment for his better subsistence, whichever should seem most for his benefit.
In 1669 he brought out a new edition (the seventeenth) of ‘Joannis Buchleri Sacrarum Profanarumque Phrasium Poeticarum Thesaurus.’ To it he appended two original essays in Latin—one a short treatise on the ‘Verse of the Dramatic Poets,’ the other a ‘Compendious Enumeration of the Poets, Italian, German, English, &c., the most famous of them, at least, who have flourished from the time of Dante Alighieri to the present age.’ In the second essay Phillips bestowed on Milton's ‘Paradise Lost’ the first printed words of praise that it received. The work ‘is reputed,’ he wrote, ‘to have reached the perfection of this kind of [i.e. epic] poetry.’
After resuming his life as a hack-writer in London, he obtained, on 14 Sept. 1674, while Milton was on his deathbed, a license to publish, and in 1675 he published, his ‘Theatrum Poetarum,’ an index of the names of poets of all countries and ages, but chiefly English, arranged alphabetically, with occasional brief criticisms. An introductory ‘Discourse on Poets and Poetry’ (addressed to his friends Thomas Stanley of Cumberlo Green, Hertfordshire, and Edward Sherburn, clerk of the ordnance) embodies criticism couched in such dignified language that a long series of critics
