against luxury and vice of every description. No fewer than forty-five dramas are ascribed to him, and the titles of fifteen of them have been preserved.
PHILIPPS, Fabian, a learned English lawyer of the seventeenth century. He was born in 1601 at Prestbury, Gloucestershire. He did not receive an academical education, but passed his early life in one of the inns of chancery, whence he removed to the Middle temple, where by dint of study, aided by a good memory, he became very proficient in the knowledge of the law, and especially of legal antiquities. His loyalty to King Charles I. was rendered conspicuous by a "Protestation against his intended murder," which Philipps wrote, printed, and posted all over the town two days before the unhappy king's execution. He wrote much and learnedly on the subject of the royal prerogative. He also wrote against the project mooted in the Barebone parliament of removing the courts of justice from Westminster hall, and he received the thanks of Speaker Lenthall. He was appointed filazer (an officer who had to file certain processes of law) for London, Middlesex, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire. He died at Twyford, Middlesex, at an advanced age, in 1690. For a list of his numerous writings, see Wood's Fasti, ii., 6, and Watt's Biblioth.—R. H.
PHILIPPUS, the physician of Alexander the Great, was a native of Acarnania. When Alexander brought on a severe illness by battling in the river Cydnus, Philippus alone of all the physicians professed to be able to cure the royal patient; but Parmenio had written Alexander that he suspected Philippus of a treacherous design on his life, and the monarch had therefore some hesitation in receiving drugs from his hand. At last he determined to trust Philippus, and calling for him he swallowed the draught which had been prepared while the physician was reading Parmenio's letter. This mark of confidence secured the fidelity of Philippus ever afterwards.—D. M.
PHILIPPUS, a name assumed by an impostor called Andriscus, who pretended to be the son of Perseus, king of Macedonia, and succeeded in getting himself acknowledged as king by the Macedonians. After defeating the Romans under Juventius he was finally expelled from Macedonia by Cæcilius Metellus, and he afterwards fell into the hands of the Romans, 148 b.c.—D. M.
PHILIPPUS, Marcus Julius, Emperor of Rome, was of Arabian extraction. His father is said to have been the chief of a band of robbers. Philippus served under Gordian III. in the Persian war, and succeeded Misitheus (Timesicles) in the office of prefect of the prætorians. He is accused of having made way for his own appointment to this important office by poisoning his predecessor. His next step was to excite disaffection towards Gordian among the troops, and his intrigues for this purpose resulted in the deposition and death of the emperor. Philippus was raised to the throne, and he immediately brought the war to an end, and returned to Italy in 244. He was afterwards engaged in a war with the Carpi, whom he defeated. In 248 the secular games were celebrated by him on a magnificent scale, in honour of the thousandth anniversary of the foundation of Rome. In the same year a rebellion broke out under Marimus in Mœsia, and Decius was sent by Philippus to suppress it; but the troops in Moesia, with Decius at their head, marched against Philippus, who fell in an engagement with the rebels near Verona in 249.—D. M.
PHILIPS, Ambrose, one of the minor English poets, was born in 1671, and educated at St. John's college, Cambridge, where he obtained a fellowship in 1700. In the verses written in 1702 to a friend on the propriety of some poetical commemoration of William III., the warmth of Philips' whiggism and the modesty of his literary aspirations are both apparent. He makes the best criticism on his own poetry when he say's—
" Thus, without pains, I tinkle in the close.
And sweeten into verse insipid prose."
When in London Philips was assiduous in his attendance at Button's coffee-house, where he became acquainted with the eminent men who resorted there, and inspired Steele with a feeling of personal regard. In 1708 he published his "Pastorals," written on the model of Spenser's Eulogies. His friends of the Tatler and Spectator befriended him on several occasions. In No. 12 of the Tatler appeared the lines addressed from Copenhagen to Lord Dorset describing the wintry aspect of the country with considerable force. In No. 290 of the Spectator, Steele, and in No. 335 Addison, eulogized the tragedy of "The Distrest Mother," which Philips had adapted from the Andromaque of Racine. The play was successful on the stage, but two other tragedies, "The Briton" and "Humphrey Duke of Gloucester," written nine years later, were less fortunate. In 1718 he began a periodical publication entitled the Freethinker, in which he was assisted by Dr. Boulter, then incumbent of a parish in Southwark. On the elevation of the latter to the see of Armagh, Philips accompanied him in the capacity of secretary, and obtained several lucrative situations in Ireland. For a time he represented the county of Armagh in the Irish parliament. He returned to England in 1748, was struck with palsy in the following year, and died at the ripe age of seventy-eight. To promote the ecclesiastical views of his whig friends he published an abridgment of Hackett's Life of Archbishop Williams, the determined foe of Laud and all high churchmen. The quarrel between Philips and Pope arose out of a too friendly criticism in the Guardian of the "Pastorals" of Philips, while those of Pope were slighted. A comparison of the two poets afterwards appeared in No. 40 of the Guardian. It was written by Pope himself, who has set in juxtaposition his best passages with the feebler lines of Philips, and ironically awards the superiority to the latter. From that time Pope and Philips lived in what Dr. Johnson calls "a perpetual reciprocation of malevolence."—R. H.
PHILIPS, John, the author of "The Splendid Shilling," a humorous travesty of Milton's blank verse, was born the 30th of December, 1676, at Bampton, Oxfordshire, where his father. Dr. Stephen Philips, archdeacon of Salop, was minister. He was sent to Winchester school, where being delicate in health, he addicted himself to reading as an amusement, and familiarized his mind early with Milton's poetry. In 1694 he went to Christ church, Oxford, where in the intervals of more serious study he wrote "The Splendid Shilling." Being destined for the profession of medicine, he applied himself particularly to the study of botany, and subsequently turned his acquirements to poetical account in his poem entitled "Cyder," which though partly inspired by Virgil is a genuine English rustic poem. After the battle of Blenheim in 1704, while Godolphin and Halifax were hunting out Addison for an ode, Harley and St. John selected for the same task Philips, who was the guest of the latter during the time he was engaged upon it. He afterwards acknowledged his host's hospitality in a Latin ode. Philips had planned a poem on the Resurrection and the Day of Judgment. But before he could accomplish any part of his project, he had a closer acquaintance with those solemn verities. A troublesome asthma obliged him to remove to Bath, where he obtained relief from his disorder. He then went to Hereford, where his mother was residing, and died there on the 10th February, 1708, in his thirty-third year. An edition of his poems, with a memoir, was published in London in 1762.—R. H.
PHILIPS, Katherine, the "matchless Orinda" of her contemporaries, was born in 1632, the daughter of Mr. John Fowler. Before she was five years old, she had read the Bible through. Later in life her knowledge of French made her the translator of Corneille's Pompey and the Horatii, which were played at court by the young nobility. Italian she studied with Sir Charles Cotterel, to whom her published letters are addressed under the name of Poliarchus. Her verses are not without merit—clear, harmonious, and full of good sense. She was married to Mr. James Philips of the Priory, Cardigan, who seems to have been continually in difficulties. She was cut off in her prime by the small-pox on the 22d June, 1664.—R. H.
PHILISTUS, a distinguished statesman and historian, was a native of Syracuse. In 406 b.c., when Dionysius was a popular leader at Syracuse, Philistus gained his favour by paying a fine to which he had subjected himself by some seditious speeches. By the influence of Dionysius, and in return for his previous support, he was afterwards appointed governor of the citadel of Syracuse. In 396 b.c., when the affairs of Dionysius were nearly desperate, the Sicilian Greeks having abandoned his cause, and the Carthaginians having besieged him in Syracuse, Philistus by his cheering counsels induced him to hold out against the enemy, and the fortune of war at last changed; but the friendship of Philistus and Dionysius terminated when Philistus married a niece of the tyrant, and he was driven into exile, from which he did not return till the accession of Dionysius the Younger. In the reign of the latter Philistus had great influence, and when the war broke out under Dion he was an active supporter of the tyrant. He first made an attack on Leontini, which had declared against Dionysius, and afterwards he commanded
